I remember the first vision I had. I was 21 years old and was attending a conference out of town. When I got into my bed for the night I was met with a disembodied set of eyes looking into my own eyes and then down…into my soul. I jumped and could hardly believe what had just transpired. This happened two more times, sequentially. The second set of eyes in front of my eyes looked smoldering and powerfully seductive. Again, I jumped! They just appeared from out of no where. Then again a 3rd set appeared in front of me. These eyes looked like cartoon eyes. This time I sat in the silence. I wasn’t sure what was happening to me but I knew it wasn’t natural. It wasn’t normal. I finally was able to chill out from the experience enough to lay down and decided to go ahead and try to allow myself to fall asleep.

That was 23 years ago. Since then I’ve come to understand these are my visions. They are gifts to me. Given as tools of understanding. But, not just simple understanding. They’re very much like riddles. Exploring their meanings is truly a brain exercise for me that is helped along and aided by the supernatural realm. At first I wasn’t sure what to do with them and to be honest it’s only been in the last 4 or 5 years that I’ve really been diving deep and digging into them. What this process feels like for me? It feels like tiny but powerful nuggets of gold that are buried in the deepest part of the ocean and I am a woodpecker. I dive to the floor of the deep and peck into the sand until my beak feels the nuggets and then I begin to fish out what lies inside the gold. Ha! How’s that for a visual?? But, that’s what it feels like for me.

While I have a near endless list of visions and dreams and their interpretations I could share, I felt particularly called to write about my most recent visions of turtles and an elephant. I feel perhaps it could be like a timely message of sorts. We shall see.

About 3 weeks ago I began dreaming of turtles. Most of them were sea turtles, water turtles. I would wake up and the imagery of the turtles would linger in my mind. For instance, in one dream I was walking up a hill to what I would discover was a tall, muddy bank. Probably 15 or 20 ft high. It went straight down into a mud pit that had water in it. As I stood and looked into the water I could see dark images coming to the surface. The water was so muddy I truly couldn’t make out what it was that was actually surfacing until they broke the surface of the water. I was astounded and surprised to see in the seconds before the water was broken that it had been turtles I was watching and were coming up from the deep. After, I woke up, the words, “up from the deep” ran through my mind. Then immediately I went into a vision. In the vision there was a juvenile elephant with its back towards me. He was partially hidden in some trees. Then I heard the words, “hidden memories.” For a moment, I thought, “what do all of these scenes have to do with each other? Hidden memories??” Then one revelation came, “elephants are known for their memory capacity. It is said that, elephants never forget anything or anyone. Ever.” So the hiding elephant meant there are hidden memories and the turtles surfacing followed by the words, “up from the deep” tells me there are some internal things I need to both see (since they were “sea” turtles) and remember (since the notorious memorizer, the elephant was hiding from me.) See how that works? Just the process of interpretation alone….is fun. It is something I wish to lead others through because it is an amazing tool for shadow work! On that note, if you’d ever like to work with me doing this, please reach out! I would love to facilitate profound discoveries for your life and path.

Beyond the revelations, that I am certain will coincide with my practical research, there are some key takeaways that I wanted to present you from my studies about turtles. I think you will find these fast facts…deeply profound if you think through the implications of them.

1. Turtles have existed for millions of years. They have studied…us…much longer than we have studied them. Therefore, in my mind, it’s not so much that humans are turtle experts (which those with the education or training certainly are) but more like turtles have a better read on us than we do on them because they’ve been here longer than you or me. Think about that. Some species of turtles can live upwards of 150 to 200 years. Animals are like sacred wisdom keepers of our earth, ocean, and air. They have their own technology, their own unique intuition, and sensing mechanisms. And, because they are animals and their senses are quite different than our own we as humanity, even the experts amongst us, have made the mistake to presume that the animals and their technologies, their sensing abilities aren’t as advanced as humans, in most cases. Did you know only in the past few years has it been discovered that turtles actually have “voices” and talk to each other? They talk to each other while they are even still in the egg…and they coordinate a simultaneous hatching for themselves because their natural born intuition tells them that there is strength in numbers and that they will be less vulnerable if they flee to the sea all at once, and together. In the egg they have this wisdom and ability to communicate and coordinate for their survival! Now, let’s talk about their voice….
2. Turtles do indeed have voices. Thanks to the research of Dr. Peter Praschag and his center, Turtle Island in Austria, (https://turtle-island.at/en/about) the world, other scientists now have evidence of turtle communication. He has been able to decipher several meaningful conversations the turtles have with each other, for example, females will call to each other when its time to go ashore and lay eggs, turtles will call each other to dive deeper if there is a more abundant food source or if a storm is coming, males will communicate to each other & with females when they want to mate. So, how did we not know this until now? #1- Their communication isn’t audible to the human ear. They communicate in clicks and frequencies that have to be modified with special equipment in order to be heard by the human ear. As diligent as researchers and scientists around the world have been they long believed that these reptiles were both mute and deaf.
3. Until we knew they had a voice…we were dooming them to failure, unknowingly. In the wild when baby turtles hatch they have their mother leading them into the ocean. They observe how she does it but more importantly…she communicates to them what they need to know for a successful and safe launch. Per Dr. Praschag, there were turtle conservation efforts for up to 40 years in Malaysia, where the eggs were separated from their mother & released into the ocean by conservation teams. And, the survival rate of these releases were consistently and devastatingly low and after 40 years did nothing to help the populations recover. You can see and hear about this here (around the 10 minute mark a bit before and at least 17 seconds after.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_4l950Tmis
4. Because we didn’t know they had a voice we were contributing to their decimation. “Ignorance is the mother of destruction.” Is it not? Sit with this.

Now, this is just a snippet of all that I’ve taken away from these rich visions and dreams. I hope to share more later. But, here I wish to convey the facts you’ve read above into some bulleted food for thought for you….and myself.

1. Mother wounds- what happens/what has happened to us when our mother’s voice was absent, misguided, manipulative? Just like the hatchlings…we lose our way and our launch isn’t as successful as it could have been.
2. Lives on mute- simply because others do not believe us to even have a voice. Experts nonetheless! Authority figures. If they say it must be true, right?? Now, did the turtles EVER stop using their own unique voice because of the experts? No, they didn’t. But, because they weren’t being heard without intervention, the experts themselves lent to the crisis of their extinction. It is because of this, I think many of us, need to partner with others who have the medium, the technology, the platform, that it takes to ENSURE we are heard. We need each other. Because of one man’s compassionate heart and curious mind about his beloved turtles he has singlehandedly changed the game of biological research and not only has he GIVEN the turtles the platform for their voices to be confirmed as a factual existence, he can now turn around the extinction crisis. The salvation of these populations has come because their voices have been found, confirmed, validated. Think about that and what it means for you and maybe the voiceless populations you serve or the underdog family members, and friends you love and wish the whole world could hear them, their story, their voice and thereby preserve the deep treasures that lie….ONLY within them. Treasure that can only be catalyzed by being given a platform or medium through which they can work to raise and elevate their voice. To tell their story. My story. Your story. And thereby save the dying things in us and about us.

I want you to think on these two things my friends for they are profound and powerful and I truly believe are messages for such a time as this.

I would love to hear what you think about this and how it applies to you. I would love for you to share this far and wide if it resonates with you, encourages you, or someone you may know.

We are all in this together. And, if you have a voice, a platform or a medium through which you can elevate the “unheard” I encourage you to call in those voices, quiet as they are. Remember turtle voices are clicks and frequencies. Just because we don’t speak each other’s languages doesn’t mean it has to be a barrier that leads to the extinction of voices that may very well save not only themselves, but their listeners too. Be intentional about going after speakers who are not famous, who are not stage savvy and elevate their voice until the whole world can share in the medicine within them and thereby enrich this beautiful living planet.

More later.

Cozett Dunn

The Catalyst

The Poet

The turtle