As a child, I escaped through reading.  I found my way to mythology books about Goddesses the world over, and I discovered that most were not like the Virgin Mary who my mother wanted me to honor and emulate.  These other goddesses embodied wrathful, crazy, sexual, and loving creative forces simultaneously. They birthed more than messiahs, but rather entire universes. These mythologies opened my eyes to realms of infinite possibilities. I started to dream of wise women who came to me and carried me onto the backs of birds into the sky. I dreamt of books full of knowledge filling library buildings that seemed the same both right-side-up and upside-down. I dreamt of snakes chasing, consuming, and speaking to me. I had precognitive dreams of events that soon happened in real life. Something had changed in me.