Our son, our second child, is due to be born very soon – in fact the due date is tomorrow – and I wanted to mark the occasion with some kind of creative act. On our honeymoon we visited Canada, and met some First Nation craftspeople who made dreamcatchers and came back laden with these beautiful crafts for family and friends.

The story among the Ojibwe people goes, or so I understand, that the spider goddess who protected children could not keep up with the number of babies being born, so mothers would create these dreamcatchers that looked like webs as talismans to place over the cribs as the children slept, to mimic the spider’s protection.

I had always understood that dream catchers snaggled nightmares as they drifted down through the ether, and allowed nice dreams through. I am not sure where this story originated, or if two disparate but related traditions got merged along the way. Either way, they are both beautiful stories, and I have been inspired to give it a try, because I want my son to be safe and full of sweet dreams.