A Christmas Eve Dream, a Lost Beloved, and the Spiritual Warrior Who Emerged from the Darkness
I had a dream of a mysterious woman who identified herself as Freyja, the Norse goddess of love, beauty, fertility, war, and death. At the time, I could not have imagined how profoundly my life was about to change.
Nearly ten years later, while revisiting my handwritten dream journals, I discovered a detail that suddenly brought the entire dream into focus. Christmas Eve was my wedding anniversary. And Christmas Eve 2016 would be the last one my husband and I would spend together. In January 2017, only weeks after the dream, my husband left.
What followed would become one of the darkest and most transformative periods of my life. And now, looking back, I believe the woman who appeared in my dream was revealing something extraordinary…not necessarily about someone coming to rescue me, but about the powerful woman who was preparing to emerge from within me.
From Journal Entry 12/24/2016
In my dream journal, I recorded an encounter with a woman who introduced herself as Freyja. She gestured toward her chest, and somehow I understood that she was within me. She told me that soon I would be contacted. I replied that I could feel them. She reassured me not to be afraid. And then she told me that I would know my mission.
That was the dream. Short. Mysterious. Yet filled with symbolism that would take me years to understand. Afterward, I began researching Freyja and Norse mythology. I discovered that she was far more than a goddess of love and beauty. She was associated with magic, battle, death, and extraordinary feminine power. But something else about her mythology would eventually resonate with me on a deeply personal level. Freyja was also a goddess who knew the pain of separation from her beloved.
Freyja and the Search for Her Beloved
According to Norse mythology, Freyja was married to Óðr, who departed and left her longing for his return. She wandered in search of him, and her tears of sorrow were said to turn into gold. When I first studied this story, I did not fully understand why I felt such a connection to it. Today, I do. For years, I have walked what I understand as a twin flame journey…a deeply personal spiritual path involving an extraordinary connection with someone I call my beloved. It was a connection I experienced beyond the physical world, something I felt within my own being. Although we were physically separated, I continued to feel what I can only describe as his living presence. That presence was familiar to me. It accompanied moments of music, meditation, synchronicities, and spiritual reflection.
And then, shortly after my husband left in January 2017, something happened that I will never forget. I was driving to work one day, listening to a song on the radio that held a special meaning in connection with my beloved. I was completely absorbed in the music. I could feel him. I was experiencing that familiar sensation of closeness, love, and spiritual connection. Then my telephone rang. It was my estranged husband. He told me he had spoken with my beloved, whom he knew as a friend, and claimed that the man had said I was crazy.
And in that very instant, the sensation disappeared. Gone. The living presence I had felt for so many years vanished within a second. It was an experience so sudden and profound that it has remained with me ever since. I continued to dream about my beloved, and I still do. But that particular sensation of his living presence never returned.
I cannot say with certainty what happened beyond my own experience. I only know what I felt, and how deeply that moment affected me. In a remarkably short period, I felt as though I had lost two husbands. One was my earthly husband, the man with whom I had built a marriage and family. The other was my spiritual beloved, whose presence had been such a significant part of my inner world. Two different kinds of love. Two different kinds of separation. And two different kinds of grief.
Now I understand why the mythology of Freyja searching for her absent beloved speaks so profoundly to me. For me, Óðr symbolizes my spiritual beloved, not my earthly husband. And Freyja's tears of gold remind me that even our deepest sorrows can eventually become something meaningful, something precious. Sometimes the gold is the wisdom we gain. Sometimes it is the poetry that emerges from a wounded heart. And sometimes it is the woman we become.
The Goddess Within Me
There is one particular detail in my dream that has taken on extraordinary significance. Freyja gestured toward her chest, and I understood that she was inside me. For years, I wondered what that meant. Was this a spiritual encounter? Was I being shown something about my future? Was there a message I had not yet understood?
Today, I find myself considering another possibility. What if Freyja was an image of my own emerging feminine power? What if the woman in my dream represented the strength, courage, and intuition that I was about to need? Because only weeks after that dream, my entire world began changing. My marriage ended. I entered a new chapter as a single mother. I faced emotional upheaval and circumstances that tested me in ways I never could have anticipated. There were times when I felt I was walking through a spiritual war. Darkness seemed to surround me. I encountered situations that challenged my peace, my trust, and my understanding of the world. Yet through it all, I listened to my intuition. That quiet inner knowing became a source of guidance when the world around me seemed uncertain. I learned to trust myself. I learned to stand my ground. I learned that my peace was worth protecting.
And gradually, through everything I endured, a stronger woman emerged. Perhaps that was the woman in my dream. Perhaps Freyja was not arriving from somewhere outside of me. Perhaps she was awakening from within.
The Warrior Goddess and the Battle of Transformation
Freyja is not merely a goddess who longs for her absent husband. She is also associated with battle, powerful magic, and the realm of the dead. Within Norse mythology, she embodies both love and strength, tenderness and fierce independence. What a fascinating combination. A goddess who knows the depths of love and separation, yet also possesses the courage of a warrior.
When I consider the events that followed my dream, I recognize both aspects of Freyja within my own journey. There was the woman who grieved. The woman who longed for her beloved. The woman who watched her marriage dissolve. But there was also another woman emerging. A woman who refused to surrender her inner knowing. A woman who discovered that her strength did not depend on the presence of a man. A woman who learned to walk forward even when the path was dark.
In Jungian psychology, a powerful mythological figure appearing in a dream can represent an archetype…an image that embodies qualities emerging into consciousness. Through that lens, Freyja may have symbolized a part of my own psyche that was preparing to take a more prominent role in my life. I was being called to embody the warrior, not merely admire her.
I don't believe suffering is necessary for a woman to discover her power. But I do believe difficult experiences can reveal strengths we never realized we possessed. And perhaps, for me, the battle became the place where those hidden strengths finally emerged.
"Do Not Be Afraid. You Will Know Your Mission."
These words from my dream carry an entirely new meaning today. At the time, I wondered whether they referred to a spiritual mission or contact from another realm. During my research, I even explored ideas about spiritual deception and whether certain beings might attempt to mislead people about their purpose. I have always believed that spiritual discernment is important. Not every experience needs to be accepted at face value. Even profound dreams deserve thoughtful examination.
But now, after considering what happened in my life, I see another interpretation. Perhaps the dream was not primarily about being contacted by mysterious beings. Perhaps it was about coming into contact with a deeper part of myself. A part that understood courage. A part that knew how to survive uncertainty. A part that would eventually discover purpose through personal transformation.
When Freyja told me not to be afraid, those words seemed to anticipate the courage I would need. And when she told me I would know my mission, perhaps the meaning was not that I had been assigned some elaborate supernatural task. Perhaps the mission was to awaken to my own power. To honor my intuition. To become my own protector. To transform grief into wisdom. To reclaim my voice as a woman, a mother, a writer, and a spiritual seeker. And perhaps, ultimately, to share that wisdom through my writing.
From Tears to Gold
One of my favorite symbols in Freyja's mythology is her golden tears. She weeps for the beloved who has gone away, but her sorrow becomes something precious. I find that image profoundly beautiful. So much of my poetry and spiritual writing has emerged from longing, separation, love, and the search for divine meaning. Writing has allowed me to transform deeply personal experiences into something that can be shared with others. What began as pain has, over time, become poetry, reflection, and understanding. I think about all the years I spent searching for answers outside myself. Searching through dreams. Searching through synchronicities. Searching for the beloved. Searching for God.
And somewhere along that journey, I began discovering something equally important. My own inner light. The beloved may have awakened something within me, but the love I experienced did not have to disappear simply because the sensation of his presence was gone. That love could become part of who I am. Part of my spiritual growth. Part of my compassion for others. Part of the words I leave behind. Perhaps that is my gold.
The Significance of Christmas Eve
There is one final detail that makes this dream so meaningful. Christmas Eve was not simply another date on the calendar. It was my wedding anniversary. The dream occurred at the threshold of a major ending, although I did not yet know how quickly my life would change. Christmas Eve also falls near the winter solstice, when the longest nights of the year give way to the gradual return of light. I find that symbolism especially moving. A dream of the goddess of love and war. A marriage approaching its end. A beloved whose familiar presence would soon fall silent. And a woman who would be forced to discover her strength in the midst of darkness.
I cannot prove that the dream predicted these events, nor do I need to. What matters is the meaning that has emerged as I look back upon my life. My intuition had already been telling me that something was wrong before my marriage ended. Perhaps my dreaming mind was giving form to that knowledge. Or perhaps, from a spiritual perspective, the dream served as a personal symbol of reassurance during a transition I had not yet consciously understood. Either way, it has taken nearly a decade for me to appreciate the depth of its symbolism.
The Woman Who Emerged
Today, I no longer see this dream only as a mysterious encounter with a Norse goddess. I see it as a dream about transformation. About the death of an old identity and the birth of a new one. About losing the familiar structures of love and learning that my own soul, my inner world, and my capacity for love were still intact.
For so long, I thought the mystery concerned who would contact me and what mission I was meant to fulfill. But perhaps I was asking the wrong questions. Perhaps the most important message was not about who was coming into my life. Perhaps it was about who was coming forth from within me. The woman who could endure the loss of her earthly marriage. The woman who could grieve the silence of her spiritual beloved. The woman who could face darkness without allowing it to define her. The woman who could transform her tears into gold.
I think of that mysterious gesture toward the chest, the reassurance not to be afraid, and the promise that one day I would understand my purpose. And now, all these years later, I feel that I understand something I could not have known on that Christmas Eve in 2016. Freyja was not only the goddess who searched for her beloved. She was also the warrior who possessed her own power. Perhaps the dream was never about waiting for someone to return. Perhaps it was about the woman I was destined to become. And perhaps the most beautiful revelation of all is this: The goddess I was searching for had been within me all along.
— Madison Meadows