Eden’s acorn found floating in Lake Washington.

The mystic in me and the artist in me are good withmates. Neither one of them requires a reasonable explanation for what they want to do. Both of them are willing to follow intuition over traditional logic. I’m pretty sure both of them would have posters of the Muse up in their dorm rooms.

Since I left the traditional church, my mystic tendencies have been on hiatus. I haven’t had any mysterious flashes of insight, and my dreams are of the most mundane variety. But the other night I had a comforting and lovely dream.

I dreamt that I was lying alone in a spring field, just looking up at the sky. Then my real life worries started slipping into the dream. Would the kids be lonely at Danish school? How could we get everything packed up in time? What will happen if I can’t find a neurologist who’s willing to continue my stateside treatments?

As these worries and more threatened to overwhelm me, I became aware of the gentle presence of Jesus at my side. He too was lying in the field, enjoying the sky. I felt a warmth in my hand and realized that Jesus had wordlessly taken a hold of it. When he removed his hand a few moments later, a tree nut rested in my palm.

This image – of a small nut in an open palm – has long been one of comfort for me. Julian of Norwich, anchoress and mystic, once had a vision of a tiny nut in the center of an expansive palm. From this image came her most recognized saying:

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

This phrase has often been a comfort to me, and I have often extended it as a comfort to others. Yet somehow I had forgotten it in the midst of this big life change, in the left-brained nature of to do lists and moving plans. (This is spite of the fact that Rebecca gave me a silver acorn to carry about in my pocket!)

How grateful I am, that this message came to me again, in the passing of a small nut, from one dreamer to another.