The Corner And The Key

כ"ח שבט תשס"ט
Imbolgen 28

This past shabbat morning (parshat Mishpatim) I woke up to find a light snow had finely blanketed the ground. Cold outside but toasty inside, I pulled my cover shawl further up onto my shoulders over my white flannel poet's gown, got a glass of juice, and entered cozily into the day.

Early this Sunday morning, I dreamt a dream of heavy snow covering the ground outside.

The heavy snowdrifts in the dream were a few feet high. It was evening nighttime outside. In the dream, my 'husband' and his friend were preparing to take our three kids and his friend's three kids snowmobiling in it. (None of the people in this dream are from my real ordinary life.) The kids had alot of high-octane energy in them, and I needed to reorganize things in the house from all their playing together. So, I bundled them all up and off they went to joyride among the snowdrifts with the two dads. The littlest child - my daughter, about a year or two old - I had bundled up especially well as her little body was more likely to be bitten by the cold. I didn't really think she should go with them, but the dads wanted to take all the kids on the ride.

As my 'husband', his friend and the six children rode the snow, after seeing them take off on their ride outside, I retreated back into the warmth of the brightly lit house to tidy up the mess that naturally comes when active kids are around - only with these kids, it was an unusually high-energy untidiness. Nothing was dirty, but untidy it surely was.

Walking from the kitchen door toward the inner part (פנימה) of the house, through the dining room, I noticed on the floor was laying the large skeleton key (על-המפתח) I usually kept on a shelf in the closet. I picked up the skeleton key and put it into my right pocket (נצח).

I started to tidy up, but some intuition caused me to turn, change my direction (פנה) and head back outside to investigate. Wanting to play in the snow rather than ride the snowmobile, some of the older children had gotten off the snowmobile to do that while the others rode. I noticed that in the northeastern (ו, Issachar, Sanhedrin) corner (פינה, פינותיו) of the property, by the driveway shared by several homes and the public ditch in the front yard, stood a whitish but darkly dressed spirit figure. I knew immediately what he was - he was the spirit of death and he was trying to lure the children off my private property onto the public portion of the property where he stood. He wasn't frightening to see. He was rather benign-looking actually as he stood there talking friendly talk with the kids. But, I knew that if any of the kids stepped off my private property into the public domain in which he stood, they would be lost to the spirit of death.

I walked over to them and made them come back into the house. The spirit of death turned and passed away (פנו).

I woke up, remembering that the key is in my pocket.