Apr 15, 2026
A few weeks ago I wrote an article from the edge of a desert. I was about to head into Death Valley, hoping to see wildflowers bloom. I’d been thinking a lot about dreams, about how our unconscious mind is really on our side, and how trauma can push the truth of who we are underground—like a seed, just waiting for rain.
The news said it was going to be a “super bloom.” After years of dry, the conditions were finally right. I was ready to see patience pay off in a big, beautiful way.
I’m writing this follow‑up from the other side of that trip. Spoiler: we missed the blooms by a few weeks.
We found leftovers. Sprouts coming up here and there, but nothing super colorful. The big show had already come and gone. Timing just wasn’t on our side.
But here’s what I keep learning about allies—whether it’s your unconscious mind or the land itself. They don’t always give you what you want. Sometimes they give you what you need.
In my last article, I talked about a Jungian way of looking at dreams. The idea is that in every dream, you’re both the chaser and the chased. Every person, every thing in the dream is a part of you trying to get your attention. The goal isn’t to escape the nightmare. It’s to figure out what part of yourself is trying to be heard.
So I went to Death Valley looking for one specific image: the bright, colorful bloom. I wanted proof that waiting pays off in a way you can see and celebrate.
But what I got instead was everything around the bloom.
The land itself was breathtaking. Every color you can think of—except blue, which was saved for the sky. We caught sunrises with bright oranges and pinks and sunsets that faded into beautiful purple. We got up at three in the morning to stand on the porch of our Airbnb in the middle of the desert. Pitch black. It was a kind of silence that felt like the whole world stopped breathing, very peaceful. We looked at the stars with our children until we forgot which way was up. I'll have those memories forever.
Out there, in that quiet, I started thinking about my dad. He passed almost six years ago. And I felt this sense of being connected to the earth that I hadn’t felt in a long time. Like something ancient was holding me. It wasn’t the bloom I came for, but it was a connection I didn’t know I needed. Nature is so powerful and healing.
I didn’t dream much on that trip. Or, more honestly, I didn’t write them down. The practice I’d been so good about—keeping a dream journal, sitting with the symbols—fell apart. We were always in a hurry to get out the door before the heat hit. By noon it was 103, sometimes hotter. We were moving. We were chasing the cooler hours.
In my last article, I wrote that you already have the answers; you just have to make space to listen. On this trip, I didn’t make that space. I chose the hike over the quiet. And looking back, I think my unconscious was trying to tell me something there, too.
The few blooms we found were the stragglers. The late ones. And standing there, looking at them, I had a thought that hit me like a dream I’d forgotten to write down: everything has its own timing and its own pace.
Sometimes it’s not time to bloom yet.
Sometimes you’re a late bloomer.
Sometimes you set out expecting a big moment, and instead you get the in‑between.
This is where the idea of the Self comes in—the part of you that wants you to be whole. It doesn’t just send you dreams about being chased. It also arranges your life to show you where you’re holding onto a story that doesn’t fit anymore.
I went to Death Valley expecting to write a story about a triumphant bloom. But the trip handed me a different story: one about patience, about the beauty of the foundation (the earth, the sky, the roots), and about the honesty of missing your mark.
The lies trauma often leaves us with are things like, “If I don’t hit the peak, I failed.” Or, “I should have gotten there earlier.” Or, “Because I missed the main event, my experience doesn’t matter.”
But my unconscious—my ally—kept showing me the vastness of the desert. The blooms were a tiny part of the story. The real show was the endurance of the land itself. The colors in the rock. The silence that let me hear my dad. The stars that only show up when you’re willing to get up in the dark.
We come to our best, our truest, when we’re patient with ourselves. Not when we force the bloom, but when we pay attention to what our body—and our life—already knows. Sometimes the answer to the chase isn’t to run faster or catch the thing chasing you. Sometimes the answer is to stop running, look up at the stars, and let the quiet bring the answers to you.
So, did I get what I came for? Not what I expected. But maybe exactly what I needed.
If you’re keeping a dream journal, or if you’re on your own kind of search, here’s what I hope you remember: the point isn’t just to find the spectacular bloom. The point is to stay in conversation with yourself—even when you’re too busy to write it down, even when things don’t turn out like you hoped. The timing isn’t always yours to control. But the practice of paying attention? That’s always in season.