Newbie member, first post--request for dream interpretation: The Hummingbird Coin

[lumina_lamia]

Greetings! I am new here and so if I make etiquette mistakes, by apologies. I hope it is all right to just post a dream recollection (from this morning) and ask if any one has any thoughts/ideas. Any responses to the narrated dream below are deeply appreciated. Thank you! First, I'll tell you a little about who I am: Professionally: A graduate student and an online educator teaching undergraduate courses in the humanites. I'm also a GTA in my department teaching preservice public school teachers this semester. My PhD research field is Ed. Philsophy and my research interests are women studies and education, with a focused interest on educational expereinces that may be physically, emotionally, and spiritually healing for women. Personally: A 44 year old woman, mother of 3, middle class. Don't know if ethnicity matters, but since dreams can be culturally defined, I guess it might. I'm "caucasian" American with Eastern European ethnicity/ancestory. I've also had people identify me as looking "Jewish" though "Jewish" is not a racial distinction and I am not self-identified as Jewish by relgion. However, it is my heritage. I'm what you'd call a religious eccleectic. I was raised Baha'i, but what I practice in solitary is my own by syncretic Wicca informed by South American Shamanism, curanderismo, Daoism, Buddhism, etc. I don't get to practice much; my enegy/spirituality as of late is usually channeled into more academic directions though I miss my ritualistic practices and often feel a need to connect more deeply. *I also have a need for exercise time, a better diet, more time with my family, and getting caught up on the housework, but I realize my life's not going to stay as orderly or relaxed as I wish it :-) My most intuitive quality: probably empathetic awarenss Okay, so assuming this is enough about me, here's what I remember about the dream: I am in the dark place. I don't know if I'm sitting or standing, but it seems to be a public space and some place impersonal and crowded like an airport gate area or train station. Even though I think this is a public space, I do seem to be alone and the environment seems a dark void. I don't recall noise or voices around me, so I'm not sure why I have this feeling of being in a public space. I am wearing the black corduroy jacket I purchased for a conference presentation in Pittsburgh a couple weekends ago. I can feel it's snug fit and soft velveteen ribbing. I don't know what else I am wearing, but probably a skirt and boots (pretty usual attire for me). Someone (maybe my own voice?) asks me abruptly "what do you have?" I don't remember what the voice sounds like or if it was masculine or feminine; I just know I have been asked a direct question that feels more like a demand. I don't have a purse or bag of any kind with me. I reach in my jacket and pull out a hadful of lint and dust. (*This does't make a lot of sense on waking since this particuar jacket has no functioning pockets inside or out). I feel momentarily uncomfortable and embarrassed by this, as if I am being revealed as “poor” or “lacking” materially or other way though I don't really know what it is I'm supposed to be able to show I've got. I have a fleeting sense of feeling I don’t belong or deserve to be wherever that black space is. The disembodied voice (maybe my own again?) says “Dig deeper.” I reach back in my jacket and find a smooth, hard object. I am surprised and curious because I don’t know what it is and didn’t know I had anything with me. I pull it out, and see clearly that lying in my hand is a large, silver coin with a hummingbird etched or drawn in the middle in the center. The hummingbird image is not colored and for some reason strikes me as vaguely Aztec. Around the center image I have the impression of a lot of color; geometric patterns or brushstrokes of rainbow colors. The hummingbird image is not adored or greatly detailed, but seems strikingly beautiful to me in its simplicity. I have only a second or so to gasp at what I've found and to appreciate its beauty. My mind barely has time to wonder what it means that I had this and where it came from when the rainbow colors around the hummingbird start getting fuzzy and bright, making it hard to keep a focus on the hummingbird figure. I sense an immediate loss and feel myself frowning, disconcerted to realize I'm not meant to or able to keep what I found. I sense that it is also important that I had this clear flash of the coin, that I need to remember the hummingbird image before the coin becomes to indistinct to draw back the image clearly. As all becomes black and the coin and my hand disappear, I have a sense of spiraling out of the black space as I come into a waking state of consciousness.