Synchronicity of a Dream
By Nicki Garner
 For ten years, I had been a graphic designer/freelance illustrator and had many paintings dealing with spirituality in my head to be painted “some day.” As of the morning in February of 1999 when I awoke from a very vivid dream in tears, I had not painted one. In the dream, I was in an art gallery with amazing, huge paintings on the walls, the first of which was of the most beautiful angel I had ever seen. She was soaring above iridescent sunset clouds that changed colors as I looked from different angles. The angel was so regal and powerful yet full of peaceful grace as she looked down right into my eyes.
I was in awe.
As I continued walking around the gallery I then saw an old wooden box on a shelf with a plain wooden latch and I reached for it. The clerk told me to go ahead and open it. It was called, “The Gift.” Inside the box hung a smooth, iridescent, peach-colored Christmas tree ornament. As I bent down to look at it more closely, the inside of the ornament somehow
expanded into an incredible glowing golden light around which thousands of angels flew, spiraling upward. It was as if I were being drawn into the ornament and getting smaller as the space expanded all around me.
This was truly the most fantastic and beautiful thing I have ever witnessed. I awoke in a flood of tears, overwhelmed by the beauty of it all.
The dream haunted me all summer, pressuring me to paint what I had seen and by the Fall I had begun to develop a plan.
First, I needed a model, but I couldn’t think of anyone I knew that resembled the angels I saw. Then in October a friend of mine came to my studio with her friend, Caryn who was in need of a logo design. As I walked to my front door to greet them, all I could see was a head of long blonde hair. As Caryn turned to face me I think my jaw dropped open; she was exactly what I was looking for.
Now, how could I ever ask her to model for me? After we finished with the logo details, I summoned the courage to tell her my story and she immediately looked at our friend in shock and asked, “Did you tell her?” As our friend said no and I became very confused, she began to explain.
Two years ago, Caryn’s father had been very sick and had about six months left to live when she asked him with great difficulty to promise to look over her daughter, Chloe, then four. Reluctant to discuss his fate he eventually agreed. Months later he did cross over. That morning, Caryn and her husband noticed Chloe (who still knew nothing of her grandfather’s death) staring out of their kitchen window with a funny look on her face. When they asked her what she was looking at, she replied, “Oh, I’m looking at Papa. He’s flying around that tree, there.”
Caryn was so affected by this, she told me that she has since read almost every book printed on angels and that she would be more than happy to pose for me. Within a week of meeting Caryn, magically I began to paint. I produced over a dozen paintings by the following February, many of which included angels. Caryn did pose for me, and I did sell a beautiful rendition of the angel in the clouds that I had seen in the dream – on a much smaller scale, however. The final painting has yet to be created. I received wonderful feedback on my work and am thrilled that the dream inspired me to shirt my career from commercial art for tee shirts to fine art that uplifts others.
N.B. The following year, when I was going through a discouraged period with my work, my second grade daughter brought home a library book with a beautiful angel on the cover. I picked it up and read, amazingly, the story of a boy who received an ordinary-looking wooden box from an angel. He was so moved by the beauty of the angel that he became an artist in hopes of recreating what he saw. He was eventually very happy and successful, though it took some time. Don’t you love synchronicity?
Nicki Garner’s paintings can be seen at her studio in East Falmouth. Call to schedule a visit (508-548-9235) or stop by her website, www.artbynicki.com
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