I am at a university – perhaps for a workshop or conference – and don’t know anyone. It’s winter vacation and nearly all students are going on cross-country skiing trips. I find a place to rent skiing equipment and tell the woman there about my (ambitious) skiing plans. She says “That path goes a lot up and down. I usually go on this path. It’s more level, gentle, and very beautiful.” She shows me another path on the map and I decide to take that path on my own skiing trip.
Later, I talk with Bruce Springsteen who is having a concert at the university that evening. He is ordinary and friendly. Later, I discover that the performance is in a relatively small space and he may use an acoustic guitar. He wants to give a simple and heartfelt performance for people who will really appreciate it.
Both of these scenes are about a shift from something ambitious and epic to something more simple, easy, and beautiful or heartfelt. My initial skiing plans were ambitious and probably exhausting. Bruce Springsteen could have given epic performances on grand stadiums but chose to give a more intimate performance.
In the first case, my feminine side suggested the more gentle and beautiful path. In the second case, I got a model of a man doing the same.
This has been a theme in life and there is an invitation to shift further in this direction now. The dream may reflect and encourage this shift in me and my life.
Why skiing? And why Bruce Springsteen? I love skiing and because of warmer winters in Norway, my opportunities to ski are fever than they were. Bruce Springsteen is not someone I listen to during waking life but he is someone I associate with big stadiums, and he does seem to have a good heart.