RESOLUTE AF

Bardic Apple Tree, Dreamland Sanctuary, Vermont

Troubled times have a way of dissolving the maps we thought we were following. The old paths blur. The signposts maybe contradict each other. Noise multiplies while meaning thins. In moments like these, the temptation is either to harden into certainty or to scatter into confusion and distraction. How can we hold fast to our purpose? How can we maintain a positive outlook and vision for ourselves, our families, our planet? I have decided to hell with resolutions. Instead I will become resolute, resolute AF. Not rigid, not passive, but deeply rooted, responsive, and awake. Resolution, in this sense, isn’t about white knuckles, fiery rhetoric or hollow promises. It’s about alignment. The kind that happens when inner weather and outer landscape begin to speak the same language and a calm certainty we might call faith fills us with peace, passion and inspiration. There is a paradox in being resolute AF, for we must hold the sword and be surrendered.

As a dream worker and a druid, I listen to the night forest. Natural dreamwork begins with a simple premise: dreams are not puzzles to be solved but ecosystems to be entered. They arise from the same intelligence that shapes rivers, migrations, and seed timing. When times are troubled, dreams often intensify—not to confuse us, but perhaps to provide support for what waking life cannot hold.

You may notice recurring images: storms, animals, lost homes, ancient places, burning cities, deep water. Rather than asking, “What does this mean?” Natural Dreamwork asks, “How is this image alive in me, how do I belong to it?”

Druid tradition recognizes this immediately. The old stories tell us that wisdom is not abstract. It is encountered—through honoring the natural world in ceremony and with ritual, under trees, in caves, in the Otherworld that brushes against ours when attention deepens. Dreams are one of those thresholds. They are night forests where the rational mind loosens its grip and the deeper senses take over.

To be resolute AF is to keep showing up to that forest, even when the dreams are unsettling. Especially then.

Root, Trunk, Branch, Leaf

Dreams attempt to work to move us out of horizontal rationality and bring us into verticality.  Druid cosmology offers similar wisdom. Roots offer stability reaching into ancestors, land, and the deep past. The trunk can the present self—scarred, growing, upright, strong and yet flexible. Branches offer interconnectedness and reach toward possible futures. Leaves exchange breath with the world, embodying renewal and vitality.

Troubled times tend to pull us out of this vertical awareness. We live in our branches only, entangled and worrying about outcomes, or we get stuck in the trunk, bracing for impact. We forget our roots, we lose our faith for renewal. Dreamwork restores the full tree.

A dream of falling might not be about failure—it may be a root-dream, bringing out back into connectedness and asking how well you trust the ground. A dream of arguing with strangers may be a branch-dream, showing the entanglements that hold you back from futures that want you. Dreams where we feel numb or are hiding or running may reflect a trunk-dream, showing the condition of being hardened into our conditioning unable to feel the roots below or the sun above. A dream of tending animals or gardens may point to leaf-work: daily practices of reciprocity that keep life circulating even when the larger system feels broken.

Resolution emerges when all levels are acknowledged. Not controlled,—felt and acknowledged.

Druids were not romantics about nature. They understood storms. Oaks survive not because they are stubborn, but because their strength includes flexibility. They shed branches. They twist. They endure by yielding intelligently to their landscape and the conditions in which they find themselves.

Being resolute AF means knowing when to stand and when to sway. When to speak and when to listen. When to act decisively and when to compost confusion until something fertile forms. To be resolute AF is to accept initiation without rushing it. To let grief teach. To let fear sharpen perception rather than close it down. To refuse the false comfort of certainty while also refusing despair.

Natural dreamwork teaches the same principle. If you fight your dreams, they grow louder. If you dominate them with interpretation, they go flat. If you try to control them, you are likely in the hubris of ego. But if you relate to them—if you let them move you, disturb you, reorient you—they become allies.

This kind of resolution is not performative. It’s quiet, and it lasts.

In a recent dream, my beloved pup and I descend from the upper terraces and levels of our home in Recco, Italy down towards the sea below. The stairs become rougher, more difficult to navigate. Roscoe hops sure-footedly past broken rails, rocks and missing stairs and on ahead to lower roof top. Suddenly he leaps off the building to the path, four stories below. I am horrified, I scream in anguish to see him go. I see a man below with his hand gently on Roscoe’s still flank. I want to blame the man, make him the object of my pain and loss. I awaken from the dream with a scream and Vince puts his arms around me and Roscoe wriggles and settles at my feet.

As a Natural Dreamworker, I feel the verticality of the descent. I understand that sometimes the path is difficult. I know that the dream is a call to allow my own grief and suffering to be present, even when it hurts, even in the powerlessness of watching one you love suffer. I feel wily pull of my hardened trunk that wants to be angry at the man, he must have somehow coaxed my poor boy to jump, someone must be to blame. But what if the dream is about descending, leaping, having faith and feeling the hand that would comfort me when I am down? I acknowledge that the path has had many obstacles recently as my husband and I continue to pursue a bi-national life together and all of the entanglement related to issues of immigration, health care, housing and employment. Even as we are privileged, I can acknowledge that sometimes I feel overwhelmed, stuck, lost in anguish or anger.

“Resolute AF” is not about being unbreakable. It’s about being in right relation to dreams, to land, to my lineage, to my chosen family, to the unknown future pressing in.

There is a quiet fire that burns when we stop outsourcing our direction and start listening to the older intelligences within and around us. It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t trend. But it endures storms, and it lights paths that only appear once we start walking.

In troubled times, let the night forest light that path and set the agenda for your journey. Track your dreams like the weather, sit with a tree and ask it what it wants you to know, breathe, laugh, cry. When you feel stuck, see if you can feel all your parts: roots, trunk, branches and leaves. Ask what needs to nurturing and attention to cultivate your Resolute AF.

Laura practices Natural Dreamwork through the cultivation of a dream exploration based on the natural healing qualities found in dreams inherent in the sacred objects, symbols, creatures and archetypes that populate the dream landscape. She compassionately creates space for the dreamer to delve deeply into the images and feelings of the dream to find their authenticity, voice, passion and creativity. In addition, Laura brings her personal experience to support individuals in the areas of queer/trans identity, addiction recovery and adoption related issues and firmly believes in the dream’s ability to help us with core wounding and trauma. Book a Free 30 Minute Consultation