Lately, my meditations have been… quiet. Not empty, exactly. Just still. No big visuals. No dramatic symbols. Just breath, awareness, and the practice of staying present.

But I’ve learned something with time: when meditation goes quiet, the universe doesn’t stop communicating.
It just changes the delivery method.

This time, the message came as a dream.

The rest of the dream faded, but this image remained — seared into my mind like a signal.

A commercial airplane was falling from the sky. I could see it struggling, sputtering, losing altitude. I knew it wasn’t going to make it. I just didn’t think it would land on my house.

When it did, I was sure we were about to die.

But instead of crushing everything, the belly of the plane cradled into a hole that was already there in the roof — right over me. I was alive. The house still stood. And I knew I had to get out, quickly and calmly.

That was the part that stayed with me.

Not just the fear —
but the moment I stopped fighting what was happening.

I accepted what I thought was the end…
and discovered I was still here.

If you’ve read my earlier QuietQuest reflections, you might remember a meditation I shared last year about a layered square — a vision that later appeared above my head in the ceiling vent at work in a post called The Message in the Square: A Vision of Grounding and Change.

This dream felt like the next chapter of that same message.

What struck me later was this detail:
the roof was already open.

The plane didn’t tear through it.
It landed where there was already space.

In dream language — and in a lot of contemplative traditions — the top of the house, or the top of the head, is where perspective enters. Where something larger than your usual thinking can come in. I didn’t plan that opening. I just noticed it after.

And then something else clicked.

I have always been an overweight momma.

Years ago, I finally stopped hating my belly. I decided to see it as earned. A place that held life. A place that carried stress, love, survival, and time. I didn’t want to fight it anymore — I wanted to appreciate it.

When I looked back at the dream, I realized something quietly powerful:

That plane belly felt like mine.

The belly of a plane is where the weight is carried.
It’s where the fuel lives.
It’s where the cargo goes.

In the dream, that belly didn’t smash through the house and destroy me.
It was cradled by the roof.

The house didn’t reject it.
It held it.

And I think that’s what my mind was showing me.

I am in the middle of losing a lot of weight. My body is changing in ways I’ve never known before. And even though I want this change, it doesn’t always feel easy. Identity doesn’t keep pace with effort. It lags behind.

That feeling of, “I can’t do this,” even while I am doing it?
That’s not failure.
That’s an old version of me trying to stay familiar.

The dream felt like practice.

Practice letting go of a body I learned to love.
Practice not panicking when something big changes.
Practice trusting that what carried me this far doesn’t have to disappear — it just gets integrated.

Around the same time, my life was changing in more practical ways too. We had seriously considered leaving Springfield for the Minneapolis–St. Paul area because we wanted a different kind of community. I even wrote about that in a post called Dreaming of Where I Belong. The desire to go was real.

But by October, the decision settled.
We stayed.
And on December 4th, we moved into the home we bought here.

At the time, I didn’t see any storm coming. I just knew what we needed: stability, health care, routine, and a way to protect our son from adult chaos he didn’t choose.

In hindsight, that fixed frame has changed how I think about everything.

The job I work now isn’t a dream job. It sounds cooler than it is. I’m overqualified, and some days it absolutely drives me a little nuts. But it pays for my health care, gives me time off, and gives me a predictable structure. And structure, it turns out, has been the container for my deepest changes.

Inside that frame, I hydrate.
I move my body.
I write.
I listen.
I sleep better.

Small things.
Stacked patiently.

I also found a community center where I work out several times a week. And something unexpected happened there: I started to feel like I belong. Buying a house changes your relationship to a place. It roots you differently, even when you don’t love everything about where you live.

Do I love living in a red state?
No.

Do I think I’m here for a reason?
Yes.

Not because it’s comfortable.
But because it’s honest.

I talk about things people warn against: politics, religion, identity, power. Not because I enjoy conflict — but because I care about thinking. The goal isn’t agreement. It’s awareness.

That’s what this dream felt like too.

Awareness arriving from above.
Not to destroy anything.
Just to show me an exit I couldn’t see before.

The past few months have been hard in different ways — holidays, stress, illness, procedures, family things. The rhythm has been off.

But the soul remains.
And the soul is still up for the challenge.

What I’ve learned, slowly and imperfectly, is this:

Stability doesn’t mean stagnation.
Quiet doesn’t mean nothing is happening.
And change doesn’t have to feel good all the time to be right.

Sometimes the thing that looks like the end of us
is actually the end of who we had to be.

So if your meditations feel quiet…
if your life feels steady but strange…
if something big feels like it’s landing…

You might not be losing yourself.
You might be making room.

And the house may already be stronger than you think.