Bones are the structure that remains: the essence, the ancestors, what lasts after the flesh is gone. In shamanic traditions, being reduced to bones is a sign of initiation and rebirth.
When the dream feels light
Clean, white bones speak of essence, inner strength and the wisdom of the ancestors.
When the dream feels dark
Broken bones or a skeleton that frightens point to a structure in your life that is cracking, or fear of death.
Ask yourself
What is the bare essence of my situation?
Correspondences
- Archetype
- Death and Rebirth — The great transformation: something ends so that something else can live.
- Element
- Earth — body, matter and the real
- Planet
- Saturn
- Tarot card
- Death
- Alchemical stage
- Nigredo, the Blackening
What remains when all else is stripped away: the essential structure of your life.
Words that call this sign
bone, bones
Related signs
The Serpent · The Butterfly · The Frog · Fire · The River · Rain · Blood · The Dead
The card of this dream
Death. An ending that clears the ground for what must be born. Death rides a white horse beneath a black banner with a white rose; kings fall, while the sun rises between two towers. It is rarely physical death: it is an end that clears the way, a transformation, a door that closes so another can open.