Sophia My Beautiful White Dove: A Dream & Divine Manifestation

Sophia My Beautiful White Dove:

A Dream & Divine Manifestation

By Debbie Irvine

Part I: Sophia

I have travelled to Melbourne, a large city at the bottom of Australia, to see my son performing in a play. It is my last morning before flying home and I’m about to meet him for coffee. Waiting for instructions, I answer his phone call. “Hey Mum, so sorry but I’ve just been called back to the theatre to help bump out. I can’t meet you now.”

Disappointed, but accepting the play of fate, I check out of my hotel. Having several hours free to myself with no alternative plans, I wander aimlessly into the city centre pulling my suitcase behind me, letting serendipity take me where she will.

Entering an old-style arcade, I veer right towards to a quaint shop named Westminster, attracted by the ornate casement bay windows displaying Christmas decorations and delicate English pottery ornaments. Intrigued, I stand in the doorway, and suddenly I gasp, blurting out, “I’ve dreamt this shop!” Embarrassed, I immediately clamp my hand over my mouth, shocked at speaking without thinking. I sheepishly look around, but nobody is looking at me or paying any attention.

Feeling safe, I enter the shop to look more closely at the beautiful decorations and ornaments. I slowly weave my way to the back of the shop where there is an alcove, just as in my dream a few months ago of a shop exactly like this one with casement windows filled with Christmas trees and Christmas decorations. In my dream there was a hallway from the back of the shop leading into a magical winter playground of silver and white trees covered in snow, like scenes from The Nutcracker Ballet. However, the alcove is all that remains of the hallway of my dream, filled with the shop’s till and the shopkeeper standing in front of it. As I approach, the shopkeeper speaks directly to me, asking, “Did you say you dreamed this shop?”

            “Yes, I did! I’m so sorry, I spoke without thinking,” I reply embarrassedly.

            “No apologies needed! I’m really curious. Please tell me your dream,” she responds eagerly.

Feeling an inviting openness between us, we introduce ourselves. Now welcomed and encouraged, I tell my dream to Mary. After listening with rapt attention and expressing amazement that I could have dreamed her shop exactly, with so many details, Mary responds in kind. “Can I tell you about my sister’s dream?”

“Of course,” I reply. “I love dreams. They have guided me throughout my life, giving me information, insights, warnings, and encouragement.”

“Well, my dream is sad in comparison to yours as it’s about my twin sister who dreamed that she would die in fifty days,” said Mary. “She was then unexpectedly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, experienced unbearable pain, and immense suffering, and suddenly died on the fiftieth day of her illness. What does this mean? That she could know this so exactly?”

As Mary tells me her story, she reaches up to the alcove wall above her and pulls down a photograph of a woman to show me.

Looking at the photo, I immediately exclaim, “Oh, it’s Chris!”

“What? Yes! That’s her name! How do you know her name?” asked Mary, startled.

A little shocked myself, I reply, “I just knew, looking at her picture.”

With her head shaking up and down in excitement, Mary looks over to the other shop assistant who is standing nearby, craning her head towards us trying to hear what we were talking about. Mary waves her hand frantically to her to come over, calling out urgently,

“Come here Josie! This lady is just like The Angel Whisperer! As Josie rushed over to join us, grinning with anticipation to know what was going on, Mary tells me they had both recently read a book called The Angel Whisperer about a woman who could talk to angels and know psychic information.

“Please can you tell us why she was in so much pain?” Mary pleads.

I pause for a minute, considering my words carefully and reply, “I can’t know another person’s Soul lessons or purpose. Suffering, pain, and death are extremely challenging under any circumstances.” I further explain that I had just completed studying the subject, Grief and Loss, as part of my Master of Counselling Degree. I continue gently, “Opening our hearts to how and why people suffer, and die, is one of life’s biggest challenges. We cannot know, we cannot judge, or make false assumptions. That we are still connected after death and can tap into knowing the timing of our transition between life and death as Chris had done, teaches us that life, and life after death, is a mystery bigger than anything any of us may know.”

  Mary nods her head slowly as she thoughtfully absorbs my words. Reflecting further, she then shares with me that she and Chris were brought up in the Greek Orthodox Church where there was a lot of beautiful symbolism, and where a lot of older mythologies were told with deep respect for the spiritual, healing, and transformative aspects of their religion. Feeling enveloped in an aura of deeper mysteries the three of us, or four including Chris, continue telling beautiful stories and possibilities of how those who have died may reach out to us, and we to them.

I explain that I often dream of people who are dying, or who have died, and that their messages of love and personal connections reassure me. I feel so much visceral connection in these dreams, with people’s unique, characteristic bodily mannerisms, voices, and touch, or even their handwriting displaying special messages for me. As an example, I add, “Chris’s dream and our connection today indicate how our loved ones can bring us together in unexpected, enriching and healing ways. The dead can be even more loving, authentic, and powerful at connecting with us than when they were alive.”

Suddenly, I look at my watch and realise I must go to catch my plane. Reluctant to leave this beautiful encounter, I say I want to buy a memento of our magical meeting. Looking around the shop my eyes spy a Christmas tree near me where, looking closer, I immediately catch the gaze of a pair of beautiful blue eyes belonging to a white ornamental dove nestling amongst the green branches. Looking closer, I see fine, Geisha-black eyeliner curling outwards and up, expanding her visage in multiple directions. Her tiny, sweet face and golden beak lined with orange, is cocked expectantly towards the sky and heavens as if communing, bringing messages of Love, Wisdom, and Peace back to earth for all of us.

I am drawn in closer and see how beautifully her body and wings are decorated with golden swirls bedecked with tiny sparkling jewels of pink, azure, and amber. A golden fleur-de-lis in the centre of her breast is emblazoned with a tear-drop diamanté reflecting rays of light in all directions. Her tail feathers splay upwards in a scalloped, gilded fan like Botticelli’s shell displaying Venus. She is truly a Goddess. My heart skips a beat in awe as I connect with her. It is love at first sight!

Reverently, I take her down from the tree and hand her to Mary to wrap. “Please can you name her for me, in memory of our meeting?” I ask.

Mary, tilts her head back, proudly eyeing the beautiful white Dove now nestled serenely in the palm of her hand and pronounces majestically, “Sophia!”

“Thank you so much! Sophia is the name of my Spiritual Guide, so this is truly a beautiful and auspicious meeting,” I exclaim gratefully, as Mary delicately wraps Sophia in tissue paper and hands her over to me like her own child. I gently place Sophia in my handbag, give both Mary and Josie a huge hug, collect my suitcase, and wave goodbye as I leave Westminster and stand outside in the arcade once again.

            As I look across the arcade to the opposite side, I notice the Spiritual Bookshop. My goodness, I chuckle to myself. How amazing that I hadn’t seen it when I walked into the arcade, or I would have gone in there and not into Westminster. Perhaps Sophia herself was the one who drew me to her, to Mary, Chris, and Josie, and to become a bigger part of my life.

Blessings and Thanks abound,

May your unfaltering Spirit, Love, and Healing

Spread far and wide

Dear Beautiful Sophia!

Part II: Invocation & Meditation to Sophia

Dear Sophia, my beautiful white Dove. I gaze lovingly into your bright blue eyes. Fine, Geisha-black eyeliner curls outwards and up, expanding your visage in multiple directions. Your tiny, sweet face, golden beak lined with orange, is cocked expectantly to the sky and heavens, communing, bringing your messages of Love, Wisdom, and Peace back to earth for all of us. Centrepiece on your breast a golden fleur-de-lis decoratively curls upwards to your throat and outwards. In the centre of the fleur-de-lis directly over your heart shines a golden tear-drop diamanté reflecting rays of light in all directions. All weave together to form a shield protecting your golden heart. Your body and wings are dressed in gilded lines, each a vine spreading into leaves of miniature fleur-de-lis encrusted with flowers of delicate diamantes in pinks and pale blues. I join with you spreading my wings to fly between Heaven and Earth, sharing in your Blessings of Hope. Your tail feathers are splayed in a scalloped fan behind you like Botticelli’s shell displaying Venus. Gilded swirls reach outwards from your body curling around each scalloped tail feather, and you, Dear Sophia, radiate as much beauty and grace as Venus herself. You too are a Goddess, a Goddess of Love to our World and to Ukraine, bringing Peace. Above all else you are Sophia, Goddess of Wisdom and World Mother, the Feminine in the Male Logos, the Shakti of Shiva, the emanation of creative forces of birth and rebirth that bless our Earth and our embodiment, our Souls incarnate.

May you bless me,

May you bless all who know you,

And may you bless our Earth.

Part III: Prayers for Peace

Sophia, my beautiful white Dove, sits in the centre of my altar resting on a nest I found, not long after I brought her home. Lighted candles illuminate heart-shaped stones placed against them, and act as sentry columns placed on either side of Sophia, protecting her, and drawing attention to her loving demeanour and brilliant coat of gems sparkling in the candlelight. Behind her is a vase of native pink and white proteas with olive green foliage, as her tree, bringing inside the energies and beauty of nature and Earth. A chiselled white pottery angel stands to the right of Sophia, with a plate of bird feathers, energies of Spirit and Air.

Crystals collected from different countries on my travels lie around Sophia, scattered like radiant, rainbow sky and earth beneath her; rose quartz, blue sodalite, clear quartz, amethyst, tigers’ eye, blood-red carnelian, and obsidian. Agua de Florida, sacred Peruvian Water I brought home from my shamanic ceremonies in Peru, used for cleansing and purification, is placed in the West.

At the back of my altar hangs a richly patterned copper, gold, and royal blue silk cloth from Varanasi on the Ganges, the holy city of Shiva. The golden silk threads shimmer and glow in the candlelight, forming a perfect backdrop to the glimmering golds and jewels of Sophia, the crystals around her, and enliven all the sacred elements of Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit.

Yet a softness pervades, as I sit cross-legged before my altar and gaze into Sophia’s eyes. The flickering light of the candles and the focus of Sophia’s eyes merge into one point and I too soften within. My eyes close and I enter my inner heart-space. My heart-flame alights in my chest and my energies start moving. My breathing slows as I become conscious of my breath, my body rising and falling in perfect connection.

My inner gaze focuses and shifts, pulling me through the soft, translucent boundaries between worlds, and I too am flying with Sophia, out across the landscape, to the city and shop I found her, and the magic remembered in that journey of discovery, across the oceans to the other side of the world and to the ancient Church of Sophia in Kyiv, Ukraine. There, I connect with the heart of my son’s partner who has told me of the sacred Church of Sophia in his homeland. My son and partner are now living together in Berlin. We all come together to share love, fear, tears of grief and prayers of hope and peace.

I send them photos of my Sophia, candles, and altar. Sophia flies on wings of song and prayers, heart to heart, from where I live to Europe where my son and partner live, and from Earth to Heaven and back again. Inner and Outer, Above and Below, Love and Wisdom, Logos and the World Mother, the Masculine and Feminine must all come together and heal, love, and rebirth a New World and a New Peace on Earth.

Sophia the Goddess and Sophia my Spirit Guide join as one in offering Guidance, Healing and Love. As Sophia sits abreast my altar commanding attention and adoration, she continues to weave her magic of Love, Wisdom, and Peace for me, for my son and his partner, for the people of Ukraine and for all our World.

Sophia, I Love you

I give you Thanks.

Sophia, Love us

Bless us

Heal us

Bring us Peace.