I have dreamed of secure hiding places all my life. I used to physically hide from my mother when I was very little, presumably until she so severely punished me for it that I stopped. Notions of secure places still come to me both in waking and in sleep.
There are of course real enemies. There are emotional vampires, who will hurt you before you even realize they have latched on; there are people who will lie to you and cheat you; and there are people who will physically hurt you for a variety of reasons, but particularly if you are a woman.
But for people like me, the enemy is already in the gates. The images arise because of clear and present and continual assaults from our own brains. There can be no escape, outside of embracing freedom, light in the sky, and movement. Those enemies are not real, and thus can be vanquished finally, and completely.
I continue to find new value in the Windhorse symbol of the Tibetans, the horse running across the plain, with speed, and radiating light from a beautiful jewel on its back.
We Americans tend to see cowboys as a symbol for freedom, but ultimately they were always going from one city to another. I would submit that the best symbol for the freedom many Americans–and indeed people from all over the world–seek is that of the Plains Indians, or perhaps nomadic wanderers generally, who could sprint on their horses wherever and whenever they wanted. And before horses, they still had the sky.
I am in the process of reworking some long held patterns, and it is working.