Cuppa Terrific

Dining with Dinah

• Sheree • Season 1 • Episode 5

Share episode

Send us a text

A cottage at dawn. Shelves that hum with memory. A giant teacup at the center of a circular parlor, where Dinah—part guide, part grandmother of presence—stirs bone broth and reads soft letters to a loyal Great Dane by the hearth. The dream we share isn’t about spectacle; it’s about the quiet magic that happens when attention becomes a ritual and the ordinary turns sacred. We travel through autumn light and steam, noticing how a chipped rim glints like a small autobiography, and how a single swirl can bend time just enough to let grief and love sit together.

We unpack the symbols with care. Dinah emerges as an archetype of attentiveness and soul time, a keeper of continuity who shows us that life gathers meaning in the smallest acts: stir, sip, spin, read, pause. The oversized teacup and saucer become a world axis, a stage for intimacy, a playful logic where the domestic becomes mythic. Bone broth anchors the theme—ancestral, alchemical, nourishing—turning endings into sustenance and memory into something we can hold. We talk about transformation, self-mothering, and the patient alchemy of fire and water that makes heaviness digestible.

The Dane’s gentle passing reframes loss as a shift in warmth rather than a tear in the fabric. Ritual continues, not to deny absence but to carry essence forward. Along the way, we offer practical ways to ground your days in small rituals that feed the spirit: read a letter aloud, stir with intention, witness a room until it answers back. If you’re drawn to dream interpretation, grief integration, ancestral healing, and the sacredness of the everyday, this story will meet you where you live—at the edge of light, where attention is enough.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with someone who needs a warm cup today, and leave a review to help others find the circle. Then tell us: what tiny ritual will you honor this week?

Support the show

Sheree:

Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Cuppa Terrific. I'm your host, Sheree, and today I've got a great episode for you guys. It is Wednesday, October 15th, and I am drinking a cup of pumpkin spiced latte, true to the season, October spooky season. I hope you guys are enjoying a lovely cup of something. I had a fun and festive dream recently that goes right along with the season. And it's all about rituals as well. Um so speaking of rituals, our ritual is to get cozy with a nice cup of something. I don't know what you guys are drinking. But I am taking a nice swig before I read my dream to you. I had this dream. I had this dream on over the weekend. And it was it was a good one. Like last week's dream. It also has a very fairy tale-like vibe to it. Um if you guys like studio Ghibli films like Spirited Away or My Neighbor Totoro, it has that kind of feel to it. Um I loved those films growing up. I still love those films. And it it definitely had those kinds of uh those kinds of effect, that kind of effect for me. But without further ado, I bring you the episode known as Dining with Dinah. So sit back, get your nice cozy cup of whatever, and get ready for a nice little dream. The cottage sits quietly at the edge of the waking forest. Frost clings to the window panes, catching the first light of late autumn dawn, sunbeams stretch across worn floorboards, illuminating shelves lined with treasures from a timeline of wandering, a chipped teacup from a city market, a brass elephant from a desert town, a seashell bleached by ocean sun, a faded photograph of a place I've long forgotten. Each object hums with memory. At the center of the parlor, a giant teacup rests on its saucer, forming a seat for two. Dinah sits at one side, her silver hair glinting in the morning light. The other side is empty, waiting for the ritual to unfold. Dinah lifts the ladle, pouring golden broth, bone broth into the teacup. Steam curls upward, carrying warmth and a faint aroma that mingles with the scent of old wood, autumn leaves, and distant hearth smoke. She watches the liquid swirl, catching glints of sunlight in its curves. You see even the smallest motion can hold the day. The great day lies at her side, enormous and serene, breathing slow and steady. I watch him, marveling at the calm rhythm he brings. He has been here for years, a silent witness to these quiet mornings. Dinah lifts the tea cup, tasting a sip. Warmth spreads through her, rolling across her chest, her fingers curling gently around the porcelain. She tilts the cup towards the empty seat. Here, you might want to feel the swirl yourself. The teacup spins, reflecting shelves, windows and shadows. Dinah picks up a folded letter and reads aloud, her voice soft and deliberate. She reads Dearest the wind has changed, but the hearth remains warm. I hope you find the quiet moments as I do. She glanced at the Dane, who lifts his head and dips it carefully into the tea cup, tasting a small lap of broth. Yes, it was all made for you, wasn't it? I noticed the warmth of the room, the curling steam, the tiny imperfection on the rim of the teacup, a chip that catches the light like a tiny story etched in porcelain. Dinah traces it with her fingertip. She lifts the ladle again, stirring the broth slowly, deliberately, the swirl reflecting the sunlight and arcs that seem to fold the room in on itself. Time bends here, the rhythm of the ritual. Stir, sip, spin, read, pause. Carries weight even in the quietest moment. Eventually, the Dane rests forever at the edge of the hearth. I feel the subtle shift in the room. The warmth remains, but his playful presence is gone. Dinah continues the ritual, stirring, tasting, observing, reading again. Even when someone is gone, the warmth remains. The swirl continues, and we carry it forward. The room is hushed, dust moats drift lazily in sunbeams. Every shelf, every object, every curl of steam carries memory, presence, and care. I realize as I watch her that participating, even silently, even as a witness, is enough. The ritual continues timeless, a swirl, a sip, a pause, a glance at the objects holding histories, and in this circle I feel held to. The teacup spins, Dinah leans back, serene, quiet, into the ongoing thread of care and presence that connects the living, the departed, the remembered, and all those who witness. In this circle, you are part of the rhythm, part of the ritual, part of the warmth that never truly leaves. The ritual persists. The cottage holds warmth, memory, and love. As anyone who stands here, anyone who watches becomes a part of it. So that was the dream. I hope you guys enjoyed it. It was quite emotional. Um, okay, so let's go ahead and get into the different elements that I picked out. The the first element that kind of stuck out to me was Dinah herself. Um and uh the fur the things about her were like her very powerful, small, deliberate acts that Dinah took and that she felt like some kind of guide to me. Um she like really inhabits each moment fully. Um she's someone who honors all life around her. It didn't matter whether it was a human, an animal, or an object. Um, in the dream, watching her move through the dream was like the ritual reminded me of the beauty of presence and detention. It was lovely. Um, another interesting note um in the dream I was aware that her name was Dinah. And I, of course, didn't I never known anyone named Dinah. Um, but I had to go and look it up, and I found out that Dinah means judged and vindicated, which judged and vindicated to me kind of mean two totally different things, which judged means, I mean, most people know judge means like judged, like someone is judging you. Um, but vindicated kind of means like people see that they have falsely judged you or that you are uh someone has or that you're innocent of some kind of claims against you. Um, but for those who don't know, in the book of Genesis in the Bible, um Dinah was actually the daughter of Jacob and Leah. And Dinah is the, like I said, the daughter of Jacob and Leah. And uh Jacob is tricked into marrying Leah. He doesn't actually love Leah, he actually loved Leah's younger sister, Rachel. Um so he's he's tricked into loving this woman, and then he winds up having an offspring with her, and one of the offspring's name is Dinah, which is just funny. That's the the first name that comes up as this is this uh is this name. But the the name's meaning is actually judged or vindicated, which I just thought that was kind of interesting. Um that it came in my dream because I kind of figured that it had something to do with this person possibly being a guide, um, and that she could represent in my dream helping me with my acceptance of um subconscious messages to myself. But anywho, on on with the messages or on with the analysis. Um okay. So possible things that uh Dinah could have represented are the keeper of presence. So she embodies uh attentive being. She exists fully in the moment, as I said before. She's a form of guidance. Um she is um a teacher. Um she says that life is in the noticing, it's in the small acts, the rituals that might seem ordinary, but become sacred when they're fully attended to. It's through her that we notice these things. She's the guardian of continuity. She reminds us that everything is connected, past, present, and future. Objects, rituals, and relationships are threads in a tapestry of lived experience. The act of spinning the teacup or stirring the broth isn't just physical, it becomes this symbolic movement, a rotation of memory, of care and life energy. So, like I said, she the act of spinning the teacup. Um, so in the dream, she she does spin the teacup, and she what she does is uh she actually so I said it's this big giant teacup that's like the size of the entire table. She's able to spin the entire table. That's like on a giant pivoting base. So inside this circular parlor, the whole saucer, which forms the seat, the base that you're sitting on, and the teacup makes the table, the whole thing like spins. That creates this ritual where she's like spinning and then reading her history. It's symbolic of movement and a rotation of memory and care and life energy. She transforms ordinary objects into vessels of meaning when she does this. It's just a teacup, and it's just broth, and it's just letters, and even just a dog, but they're all infused with significance by how she engages with them. She creates meaning with them. Archetypally, she represents the ability to find sacredness and small things. Everyday life becomes special, spiritual, even, uh, communal practice with the self and the unseen. She has this intimate relationship with loss and mortality. Um, she sees um her dog pass away, she sees the passing of seasons, she's aging herself, the aging of her objects and her travels. She embodies graceful acknowledgement of all of those things and holding the fragility of life all without despair. Um, so symbolically, she's teaching that grief and love are inseparable, and that presence and care transform this impermanence into substance for the soul. She acts as this mediator between worlds. She acts like a bridge. She's both this living and ancestral being. She shows that ritual creates portals for insight, for emotional processing, for communication with unseen guides or ancestors. She's also this embodiment for patience and wisdom. Her quiet demeanor and measured actions are a template for how to navigate life's subtle currents. Archetypally, she represents soul time, a pace beyond the rush of modernality, where insight emerges slowly, and attentiveness it is a kind of guidance. So overall, Dinah's archetypal role is the role of teacher, witness, guide, as I mentioned before. She shows that the ordinary can be sacred, that presence and ritual are what is transformative, and that love and grief both coexist on a continuum that sustains life. Her existence is one of quiet mastery, gentle authority, and compassionate attentiveness. The next element I wanted to share with you was the teacup and the saucer, which I kind of tried to develop a little bit in uh in Dinah's stuff just a minute ago. But they were definitely the central and anchoring part of this dream because their size and motion reminded me that even the smallest acts of care in the stirring and the sipping and in the paying attention can hold everything in balance. The saucer is uh so large, it forms these seats so that they can sit on it as a foundation and it's like this stage basically. And the teacup makes up the majority of the table. It's like the centerpiece and it's the access of the world. And when Dinah spins the cup, it's the entire booth, all of the saucer and everything. It spins in the parlor, and the room itself responds to the motion of her ritual. So some symbolic possibilities could mean that she's able to spin the axis of her world, and that the the teacup isn't just this drinking vessel like one that you would pick up from a table and put to your lips, but it's an anchor that things can be rested upon. And we've got this fun playfulness of the size differential here. It contains the swirl of experiences like memories and love and grief. Spinning it is a is also a kind of meditation, and it's a way to feel the passage of time and the turning of life. And in that passage of time, you know, turning the motion of turning, I could represent her agency, uh, her bit, her ability to set her world in motion, um, to stir what is inside of her, to observe what changes are being made and shape the experiences that she has, maybe even choose what solitude she may have. Um and or not, maybe she can choose that shared space or have intimacy. So in this case, it has seating um and it creates a literal closeness between her and her dane, and they inhabit the same foundation, they're sitting on the same space together. Uh, the table dominates their space, emphasizing their connection, and the rituals around it form the structure of their world. They sit at the same level as each other. The spinning of the teacup mirrors cycles. So the emotional, relational, creative, and temporal. The swirling broth inside is like life moving. Sometimes it's calm, but sometimes it's it's turbulent. Sometimes, you know, like if you spin something, it can ripple out of control. The room spinning as she spins is almost like a gentle reminder. When we spin our inner world, the outer world responds. Sometimes that can respond subtly, and sometimes it's dramatically. And there's like I kind of mentioned before, there's kind of a a subtle, like a, or not subtle, but there's like a whimsical or surreal magic that's happening here that you have to just accept in this dream world state, um, that is just so playful, it's absurdly large, it's so delightful, yet it naturally fits into the dream. It that we have this gigantic teacup and saucer that fits into the center of the circular parlor. Um, this element just blends domestic, it just it blends into this beautiful domestic comfort comfortably. It's so imaginative and it's it's wonderful to observe. It just becomes extraordinary in the dream space to kind of imagine what it would look like. The teacup and saucer represent the heart of the space that's created in this meeting space between the conscious and subconscious self. It's creating this magical space where uh things can happen, like a magic cauldron, if you will. And Dinah is reading male in a way she's like casting spells and making things possible with her rituals. The next element that I picked up on was the bone broth. So at first, when I was dreaming, I kind of thought it was onion, French onion soup, because it kind of looked like there was like cheese and bread and stuff and different herbs and things in the soup. But then after thinking about it, and as the dream kind of went on, I realized there's a dog in the dream, and it doesn't make any sense to me that a dog would put his head in onion soup when they can't eat onions. So I realized that it must be bone broth soup. Um so I just know that dogs are, you know, it's a poisonous thing for dogs to eat onions. So the only logical thing for me to draw from is that it must have been bone broth soup. So after looking more into that, this is kind of what I am thinking it actually means, which actually is pretty interesting when you really think about it. Um, because bones back in the day, right, when people would use bones, you would make a bone soup to um draw in your ancestors to call on them for help and assistance. Um and you, you know, I don't know, look for look for nourishment out of the bone marrow. There's more nourishment inside of bones than you realize. It's uh there's more nourishment than most people realize in bones. It's uh it's also a tangible expression of love and care to to drink bone broth. Um in this case, drinking it, sharing it, tasting it, it made me aware it was definitely a ritual to be doing so in this dream. Um in this dream, it also the bone broth, it it symbolized memories and a continuity of those memories and sharing them and the warmth of carrying them across time. So some of the elements that that could represent are some physical symbolism, which is the essence uh from the remains. So bone broth is literally made from extracting life from what's left behind. So that act alone carries um some associations. So we're talking about transmutation, okay? The slow, which is the slow heat of time, which turns death into sustenance, um, which means you heat something for a very long time, will turn that into substinence, right? This also represents patience and devotion. So this is a pro this example of a process that cannot be rushed. It's asking for attention without control. So it's an act of trust and transformation. This is also an example of intimacy without uh intimacy with decay. A lot of people um are not comfortable with the idea of death. Um, instead of fearing it though, um, and fearing what's been broken down. This is an example of um using cooking to welcome it, in fact, coaxing it from something and turning it into something holy and making something that is nourishing and healthy for us. You know, hence using the bones to make something that is, you know, nourishing for us because there's hidden richness there. The bones hold what the flesh cannot give us. You know, we eat meat, um, but the inside of our bones we have marrow and minerals in the in the depths of our bones. That holds value that you can't see on the surface. So in the dream, um the dream value here is that it points to a time when in my psyche, this is distilling nourishment from my past and not rejecting it. Um, but maybe simmering on some of my abilities from my psyche that I've buried long ago and drawing it back out to get those nutrients and start feeding them again. So that's kind of a a weird thing to do, to remember that all that stuff is still there. I've just got to get in touch with it again. Okay, so there's so that's the the essence from the remains idea. And then there's the elemental symbolism. So this is the idea of alchemy. You've got this idea of fire plus water. So making broth is in a very simple sense, alchemy, which you have fire, which is transformation, and then you get water, which is we're looking at emotion or memory, and then you combine those together to create something that bridges that bridges both the body and your soul. So your fire is could represent like the will to continue and to transform what hurts. So in this instance, the will to continue would be, you know, that life by itself is an experience worth living, and that their life is just full of circles and cycles, like uh the serpent biting its own tail. It's just a bunch of cycles. Um and then water is like the emotional field, memory, grief, using your intuition, um, to know that you're not always going to feel what you're feeling in the moment, even though it may feel very great in the moment, not to stay trapped there. Um, but that's wisdom is to to know that those feelings are are there and to honor them and to use your your memories to to honor them and to carry them forward uh to inform your yourself and your future um family members and and those around you as you as you carry that forward. Altogether, they produce something very warm and sustaining, right? Like I said, you carry it forward. This is the idea of alchemy. It becomes a symbol of integration rather than suppression. And dream language, the broth is the evidence that you've been metabolizing experience. So my inner heat and emotional waters are doing their quiet work. Even if my waking self isn't aware of it, my dreams are showing me that my psyche is steady and it's doing what it needs to to digest what's been going on, even though I've gone through some stuff that's been pretty hard to swallow in my waking life. So that's good. That's a good thing. Okay, so there's some psychological symbolism here uh using the bone broth, some kind of obvious stuff that you could draw from, uh, the self-mothering or reclamation. So this is the same idea of like, hey, chicken noodle soup. You know, anybody ever read the chicken noodle soup for the whoever's soul? So it's a primal comfort. Anytime you get sick or you need help with whatever, it's that first love language or first language of care, warm liquid offered by loving hands. So both psychologically and physiologically, it suggests a movement towards self-nourishment. Um, so this is just a dream of reparenting yourself through ritual, gentleness, and a little bit of creativity. So this is just um kind of a simple way of saying you don't need new ingredients to heal yourself. You already have the bones of what you've lived. So, because we're talking about bone broth rather than chicken broth, that's where I'm getting that idea of you know, you already have what you need. Spiritual symbolism. So it could also have something to do with some spiritual symbolism here because there could be some communion with ancestors. Now, I don't know if somewhere way back in my line I'm related to someone named Dinah, or if this has something to do with uh the collective unconscious and somebody named Dinah is connected to me, or if I've just completely created Dina out of the blue, and they're just some embodiment of my subconscious self trying to guide myself into accepting some of my subconscious ideas. In any case, um, this could just be a symbolism of our ancestors giving us ideas here. In many traditions, bones are the seat of ancestral memory, um, and as they are indestructible parts of us. To make bone broth is to call the ancestors into the pot, asking them to release their knowledge into your present. So it's an offering, a ritual of communion. The aroma rising like incense connects realms, the living and the dead, the now and the before. The broth becomes a kind of liquid lineage. You drink what they endured and transmute that into grace, which means Dina's act in the dream may be a way of showing spiritual inheritance, becoming digestible. I may no longer have to carry it as a heaviness, and I can absorb this. But who knows? Maybe this isn't an ancestor, like I said. It could just be a construct I've created for myself. Finally, the last symbol I came up with, it possibly could mean uh this bone broth is the dynamic symbol of the uh the universal symbol of the spiral. So the spinning cup. So the cup being spun, right? Dinah would spin the cup, but she wasn't just stirring the soup. She's spinning her entire world. And when she does that, the swirl itself mirrors the motion of galaxies and the cycles of creation and also dissolution. It's the centrifuge of emotion that keeps meaning alive. So in your dreams, visual logic, that swirl could be the moment of psyche recognizing its own continuity. So nothing is wasted. Everything, even the bones, finds its way back to the flow. Overall, what I think the bone broth represents as a living metaphor, it holds this elegant paradox. It represents that out of endings comes substance. Out of remains, renewal. Out of what was once rigid, fluid life. The last element I'll share with you is less of an object and more of a happening. And it was observing the Dane passing away. Now, this was a a layer of depth I didn't fully appreciate at first. Um at first he was this playful, loving, um, and grounding character, and yet his eventual passing reminded me that nothing lasts forever. So, and and his dipping his head into the teacup was this beautiful, small, intimate celebration of life. It was just very sweet in my dream uh for this big giant dog to be the same size as this little woman and so kind and gentle. He was he was such a joy, and he was such a representation of impermanence. Uh to and when he eventually faded, it was it kind of was difficult for me to catch. But this is this were these were some of the symbolic layers that I picked up once I started thinking it over. So he represented presence and loyalty. He was this steadfast companion. He wasn't just a pet, but he was a guardian of emotional and spiritual space. His passing symbolized the loss of grounding forces in life. He was a trusted companion, a stabilizing presence or part of oneself that provided emotional security. So there's also this transition and impermanence. So his death embodies the inevitable cycles of life. Dreams often use animals as symbols of life energy or vitality. So when they pass, it can reflect an internal shift, such as leaving behind old ways and letting go of attachments or acknowledging our own mortality. The Danes passing could represent a threshold moment in our life. It could represent the end of a chapter or some kind of emotional work that you know that just got finished. It could also represent some emotional resonance and integration. Grief in the dream isn't chaotic. It's measured and reflective and intimate, as is evidenced by Dinah's behavior. Symbolically, this suggests integration of loss into life, transforming absence into awareness, sadness into attentiveness, and love into memory that sustains rather than destroys. It could be that um seeing seeing him pass away in this, he could repli uh could be a reflection of an aspect of the dreamer's psyche. So he's because he's a loyal, protective, or general gentle part of the self that's aging, leaving, or evolving, he could, it could signal a passing, or that I've got to acknowledge a part of myself or honor it, and that I need to carry it forward into a different part of my life that is a potential idea of the dream. But I don't think that that's the overall point of the dream. I think the overall point of the dream is more focused on Dinah herself. Connection to ritual and presence. The Dane's presence frames Dinah's rituals, meaning that she spins the teacup, stirs the broth, and reads the letters to him. Symbolically, his death reinforces the importance of ritual as continuity, that even when a source of comfort or grounding disappears, one can sustain the essence of connection through deliberate acts. After him being a witness and her developing her ritual, she's able to carry on because he helped ground her in those rituals. And it's a way to help her cope with his with her loss of him. And the last part of thinking about him and reflecting on his loss would be mortality, memory, and love. His passing highlights the fragile, precious nature of life and love. The dream frames mortality not as tragedy alone, but as invitation to reverence, to cherish what is present, honor what is past, and continue nurturing life in the ways one can. The Dane's passing is rich with meaning. It's about loss, transition, and continuity. It's a gentle teaching about impermanence, about carrying love forward even when the living presence is gone, and about transforming grief into ritual memory and awareness. The dream doesn't just show comfort, it shows alchemy and progress. Dina's cup is your soul's cauldron, quietly transforming memory, pain, and inheritance into a source of strength and insight. The dream invites reflection on how we inhabit life fully and the small acts of attention and care. It shows that even in loss, presence, ritual, and love we endure. The story is a meditation on impermanence without being sad. It's gentle, luminous, and deeply human. And here's a poem inspired by the dream to cherish. Life is not in the grand gestures, not in what is loud or celebrated, it's in the noticing, the spin of a cup, the swirl of a broth, the way someone listens without judgment. I have learned that care, patience, and attention are the quietest forms of magic. A letter read aloud, a hand resting on a companion. These are bridges. They connect what is gone, what is here, and what is yet to come. Even in loss, there is sustenance, the bones of what remains, the aroma of memory, the presence that lingers after absence. These are treasures. They nourish even when nothing else can. So I spin the cup, I stir the broth, I speak to those who listen, and to those who cannot. And in these simple acts, the world bends, if only a little, to the rhythm of care. Remember, even small actions matter. Even quiet love carries weight. Even stillness can guide. Thank you for joining me again for another episode of Cuppa Terrific. I hope you enjoyed it. Please send me an email at Cuppa.Terrific@ gmail.com. Feel free to listen to me anywhere you get your podcasts. I have an Instagram, and I have you can find me on um Facebook as well. I look forward to hearing from you. Please feel free to submit any of your dreams to my email, or if you have feedback on my dream, feel free to message me on Facebook. I look forward to hearing from you. And remember, even as things pass away, the essence of care and presence can be carried forward. Small acts, a swirl of a cup, a shared meal, a remembered smile are enough to anchor life and give it meaning. But for now, may all your cups overflow.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Sheree

Host