Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had very vivid dreams. I used to believe there was a deeper meaning, but with age came the usual cynicism of practicality. It’s been a while since I have intentionally held on to the memory of a dream because it touched me so deeply.

I often dream of my grandparents’ home — the ranch, the house, the grapevine parra and the old ash tree we climbed as kids, which is also where the piñata hung during each birthday party. We had never seen a redwood in person, or even the large oaks prevalent in other parts of the state. So, to us, this tree was what we considered huge. The tree thrived, stood tall and wide, which was miraculous because it had a gaping cavern taken out of its trunk. I suppose at some point some insect colony had hollowed it out.

It’s been years since I’ve even seen this tree, as my grandfather passed on in 2001 and my grandmother now lives in a nursing home.

But in last night’s dream, this tree took the spotlight. In the dream, I was a child and the tree spoke to me about some sort of danger. It, explained that I was of the Saint Michael bloodline, and that the tree itself was Saint Michael the Archangel. The tree said it would keep us from harm, but danger was approaching.

In the next scene, I was an adult and a captive in my grandparents’ house. I was being held prisoner by the leader of an army of men. It seemed to be in the past — 1920s, 30s? They had taken over my grandparents’ ranch and were using it as a base. I was being held in the room that used to be my grandmother’s, but in the dream was a junk room. My family and friends had escaped, but were attempting to create a diversion to help rescue me. I know there was bloodshed, but I don’t remember from whom. I also remember trying to find a way to steal the key to the room I was being held in while the guard was distracted. At some point I escaped, running across the lawn to the tree, climbing up and hiding in its branches. And then, as often happens in my dreams, I jumped from the branches and sailed through the sky, landing near the corral and irrigation ditch. I was out-of-sight and safe from my captors.

This isn’t the first time I’ve dreamt of being pursued by someone or something at my grandparents’ ranch. Typically, as I’m running across the acreage, there is blue lightning in the distance. Sometimes I’ll hide in an old storage building near the property line. In one of my earliest memories of a dream, my family and I are fleeing our own home and when we arrive at my grandparents’ house, we look into the sky and see the sun turn black with a red corona, orange clouds in the sky.

But it always ends the same way: I come out the back door of the house, walk past the Saint Michael Tree, across the dewy lawn and to the evergreen lined caliche road. There, I look up into the sky and see that the morning sun is shining bright in a golden sky… and the danger is gone.