The dream that I am going to describe below is one of the dreams that began to accompany me during a turning point in my life, from 2011. This was a period when I was sometimes flooded with archetypal dreams, dreams full of animals and sometimes with dreams that guided me, gave me strength and sometimes even came true. The below one is the kind of dream that you may will remember forever, that you will research for a long time because it is as powerful in its message that you just cannot forget it.

The monk and the empty coffer

It seemed to me that I was travelling in a tram at the very back of the car. I was going to the Children's Hospital in Brno, where I worked as a lecturer in an art therapy workshop for children that time. At the stop where I usually got off, the tram derailed and the back of the tram where I was standing hit a car. I was in shock because of that blow… I thought at that moment that death was certain. However, I found out that nothing had happened to me, the tram doors opened, I got off and a monk was waiting on the sidewalk in front of me. He looked like a Tibetan monk, it was dark, he was standing in deep darkness even though it was originally daylight in the dream. And he told me: "Here, have your choice" and showed me some antiques. I chose a wooden chest, it was very old, it looked like a thousand years old coffer, I had not even noticed the other things. It was old, chipped and completely empty. I felt that he gave me some message and even though the coffer was old and empty, it was very valuable to me.

As I already wrote it, the dream had a very strong effect on me. I knew there was a message for me in it.
When I was puzzling with dreams in the beginning, I never got to the real essence. Most of the time, the message clicked on me spontaneously when I stopped thinking about the dream.
In this case I immediately realized that the coffer was me, my soul. Coffers are full of treasures or empty. I realized that I had lost my treasures, my gifts somewhere. And that the dream invited me to consciously fill the coffer again. From that day I began to realize what treasures I had inside me. It took me a while to collect them again. It meant constant work, daily awareness of myself, to find out where I lost myself and why.

I wrote everything down, re-discovered the gifts. Now, after so many years, when I have more time for myself again and recapitulate, evaluate, get out of my old skin and remind myself of my gifts again, a text comes to me spontaneously that connects to this topic.

When you don't take your gifts seriously

When you don't take your gifts seriously
everything in your life is twisting
and what you run from, still haunts you.

When you don't take your gifts seriously,
ridicule comes from the mouths of others,
you are just a part of yourself,
nobody takes you seriously.

When you don't take your gifts seriously
and you hid everything in your coffer,
one day you'll realize how alone you are
and you are the one who abandoned yourself.

When you don't take your gifts seriously,
then tell me, who are you really here for?
Open your coffer already and get everything out!

Art therapy - a collage

I am attaching an example from an art therapy training session, that resonates with the above.
For some, it might be an interesting example and inspiration for an art therapy activity.

This experience was mediated by the lecturer Miroslav Huptych, a Czech poet, artist and art therapist. He is a collage-lover. I remember his beautifully illustrated Comenius book Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart, which was awarded with many literary prizes.
Miroslav Huptych also created two sets of amazing projective collages in the form of cards, with which we spent an art therapy afternoon. The sets are intended for individual and group therapeutic work. I highly recommend it.

We were supposed to work on the topic that we were assigned in the form of a collage. The topic was described as "everyone gets gifts, challenges, simply something they need to deal with during their life and it's up to them whether they can use it or not."

Each of us participants took out a sealed envelope. Inside the cover were clippings from magazines. Some got many pieces, some less, each of them was a different kind, and also mixed differently. We were supposed to create a collage from these clippings on paper, the format of which we could choose. Which clippings we used and which we didn't was entirely up to us. What combination we create, the story was entirely up to us. We got imaginary cards from fate and played with them.
I think it is quite clear why this topic of art therapy experience connected with my texts. We can have a full envelope, as in my case, the contents were very dense.
How do we deal with our treasures, challenges, talents? Can we use them all?

I must say that two days with collages and Mr. Huptych inspired me so much that creating collages became my very favorite form of art therapy work.