I woke up one morning from a dream that wouldn’t let me be. It wasn’t the kind of dream you forget after your coffee; it was one of those dreams that lingers, demanding that you do a psychoanalysis, Freud-style.

In the dream, I found myself in a place that resembled a summer terrace. I was walking quietly when I suddenly ran into an old friend, a very beautiful woman I hadn’t seen in years. I admit, I wondered why it was her. Perhaps sometimes the subconscious doesn’t bring people, but messages. Perhaps a feminine voice asking for help.

In the dream, she was surrounded by three men. She was in the arms of one while the others made crude remarks about her. She didn’t seem to resist. Nor to participate. She simply accepted. I watched the scene for a while, then felt a clear impulse to leave, to break away from that suffocating chain.

I descended some old wooden steps, at the base of which lay a dirty, muddy water that I had to cross (water, the classic symbol of the subconscious). I crossed it and arrived in a clearing. There, I felt I could finally breathe. I thought I had escaped.

Only, on the path leading home, right in the middle of the road, there were two Mioritic shepherd dogs. I didn’t feel fear, but I couldn’t pass. So I chose another path. But there, the dogs were no longer dogs. They were lions. Sitting the same way, in the middle of the road. Authoritative. Unmovable.

I turned back again. Not afraid, but determined to find a way.

Then, the cherry on top of my dream was that I woke from sleep hearing a man’s voice saying: “You will never succeed in breaking these chains.”

These words lingered. They didn’t scare me. They didn’t upset me. They just put me in a state of numbness, waiting for a response from me. I went for a morning walk and reflected. Lately, my closest friend had become Christ. So I turned my heart toward Him, and guided by Him, I consciously returned to that voice and said: “I don’t know who you think you are to tell me that. But I know who I am. And whatever you tell me I cannot do, I can.”

Only then did the dream begin to make sense.

The shepherd dogs weren’t ordinary dogs. They represented sexual energy. I remembered their symbolism from my favorite writings, The Emerald Tablets of Thoth Atlantis, which say that when you leave your body and travel to other worlds, if you hear a dog bark you must immediately return to your body. And, importantly, always travel through spheres, not corners, because on corners you will be caught and bound until the end of epochs.

The lions, on the other hand, were something else. Authority. Institutionalized power. Patriarchy. Emperors standing in the middle of the road, deciding who passes and who doesn’t. (A little too much subtlety here, I’d say.)

And the scene with my friend was no longer just a dream. It was a collective image: decayed sexual energy, masculinity that consumes, and the sacred feminine that has learned to accept, because she was taught that otherwise she wouldn’t pass.

My flight wasn’t fear. It was refusal. And here the dream connected with my life.

Years ago, I quit my job and chose the path of art. After almost nine years of creating, I noticed something simple, beautiful, yet painful: 99% of my collaborations were with women. Not for ideological reasons. From experience. Because that 1% taught me quickly that the interest of many men was never in knowing or appreciating my art, but in me—as an ‘object’, as ‘sexual energy’.

I quickly learned the unwritten rule: if you give yourself, doors open. If not, they close aggressively and block all paths. Symbolism? Dogs ~ sexuality. Lions ~ authority. You give, you pass. You don’t, you don’t pass. And sadly, this is a message that reaches directly into the subconscious of many women from a very young age.

And here I return to a serious question that has been following me for some time. Why are so few women recognized in history for their talent?

I know, we’ve lived long under the shadow of the lions ~ patriarchy. But let’s look deeper at the mechanism of this gaslighting, which is not at all new. Yet it can be seen most clearly in contemporary reality.

I’ll give one name. But in reality, there are extraordinarily many. In every field.

Dora Maar. Not “Picasso’s girlfriend,” but an extremely talented surrealist photographer. Picasso fed artistically on her personality, but constantly undermined her confidence, discouraged her career, pushed her into a secondary place. After breaking up with him, she collapsed psychologically and almost disappeared from artistic life.

This answers, in case anyone still wonders, why women seek independence with such intensity. The answer lies directly in the collective feminine subconscious deprived of real feminine values, silenced, and, most tragically, heavily sexualized.

Now, let’s take a step back. What’s really going on here?

Most likely, the real problem isn’t women’s sexualization or patriarchy, but a rupture from the sacred. The confusion between eros and consumption, between power and domination, between creation and possession.

When the feminine becomes currency, and the masculine becomes the gateway, the whole world falls out of balance. The chains are not just personal—they are collective.

Liberation doesn’t come from fighting the lions or fleeing the dogs. It comes from refusing to play the game. From claiming one’s own value, from returning to truth, to uprightness, to the sacred—both masculine and feminine.

That’s why it’s so important to remember who we are. To remember what genuinely moves us toward our Self. Toward Home. That place where the masculine is freed from the constant need to control—a need that translates into frustration when it cannot dominate—and where the feminine remembers that her gifts matter. That they deserve to be seen and heard without needing to pay for it in any way. The true journey of consciousness is neither about patriarchy nor matriarchy. It’s about a warm, harmonious meeting in the middle.

And while the ideal space is androgynous, this remains a ‘taboo’ subject for this beautiful blue planet. Until then, opposites must first meet, see each other, recognize each other, and unite their gifts for a higher good. That’s where the chains are undone. Not created by some boogeyman, but by our own subconscious, perverted and disconnected from its true essence: vitriol.