Meeting With a White Sow

I frequently squabble with both my dream dictionaries.This is perhaps not surprising, given that many dream symbols are highly individual.

This afternoon I came home early-ish from work and fell asleep to Grieg's Pier Gynt Suite. But instead of dreams of being In the Hall of the Mountain King, I found myself face to face with a large and friendly pure white sow.

Picking up those dream dictionaries only informed me that I was either going to find myself among greedy companions ( at New Year - never!) or that I was to marry a wealthy man. Not a lot of help as you can see.

Being a new Shaman who's risen from out of the fertile sea of NeoPaganism, I can tell you right off that a dream of a white sow is significant.

For a start, it's one of Cerridwen's primary symbols.

A creature signifying inspiration from its associations with the Cauldron of Cerridwen, and also death and rebirth, this pig- which I intuited was a female - was also keen on conversing with me, and not just eating my corpse.

Merlin, the most luminous of Celtic Shamans, was supposed to have spoken with a little pig in visions.

Food of the Tuatha de Danaan, the swine is also symbolic of the spiritual food necessary to Witches who were said to be swine herders.

Oh, and I almost forgot - I am a Pig, too - at least an Earth Boar, by the Chinese zodiac.

See how far you can get if you just put down the dream dictionary and range a little further afield?

I must admit that I'm still sometimes a little hard of hearing when it comes to visionary animals - I seem to hear more clearly in the range of the plant kingdom right now.

The best thing to do now, I've found, is give the creature as many opening as possible for communication.

That means thinking pig, talking pig, blogging pig and -yes- even eating pig.

Let's see how this meeting of spirit progresses.