My Grandson Dreamed of Avalon

When I picked up my grandson after school the other day, he came with a bundle of surprises.

“I had a dream that felt like heaven,” he said, sounding like he’d been waiting to tell someone who would really get it.

I wondered what that would mean to an 11-year-old: unlimited pizza, perhaps. Or video games with no glitches.

Instead he said: “There were lots of apple trees. Everywhere. Like, as far as you could see.”

My inner Celtic mythology nerd sat up very straight.
“That sounds like Avalon,” I said with a hint of wonder in my voice.

The Isle of Apples: What Is Avalon?

He wanted to know what Avalon was, so I told him all about the Isle of Apples in Arthurian lore.

In case you’re not familiar with Avalon, here’s the scoop:

The name itself likely comes from abal, an old Celtic root meaning apple. It’s described as a magical island where the veil between worlds is thin—a place of healing, beauty, and faery wisdom.

In some versions of the lore, it’s where King Arthur was carried after his final battle, tended back to wholeness by the faery healers who live there, specifically Morgan le Fay and her sisters. He’s said to reside there still, waiting for the day when England needs his return. Hence he is known as the “once and future king.”

The Lady of the Lake who gave Arthur his magical sword, Excalibur, was the leader or high priestess of the isle.

I gave my grandson the two-minute version while he ate his snack. Apple trees. Faeries. Healing island. Magic.

He nodded in the careful way kids do when they’re deciding whether you’ve completely lost it.

Conversation over. Or so I thought.

The Symbol He Shouldn’t Have Recognized

A couple of hours later, he was helping me sort through some of my course folders for Faehallows School of Magic. He came upon a page of symbols from my Faery Reiki training when he stopped cold.

Finger pointed. Eyes wide.

“That’s what I saw in my dream.”

He was pointing at the Faery Reiki Master Symbol—the one used to open a connection to Avalon.

Here’s what gave me a chill: he had never seen that symbol before. Not in a book, not in a class, not taped to the fridge between grocery lists and kid’s drawings. It wasn’t something he’d glimpsed and filed away subconsciously.

He recognized it the way you recognize someone you actually know.

Curious about Faery Reiki? It gives you a direct connection with Avalon and you can be attuned from a distance. Email Bernadette if you have questions.

Children and the Thin Places

There’s an old idea—found in Celtic tradition, in mysticism, in folklore across cultures—that children are closer to the unseen worlds. Not because they’re inherently magical, but because they haven’t yet built the mental habit of explaining everything away before it can surprise them.

An adult sees a coincidence and shrugs. A child sees a coincidence and says whoa.

My grandson wasn’t making these connections for my benefit. He wasn’t trying to make the moment meaningful. He just pointed at a symbol he’d never seen in waking life and said, with complete matter-of-fact certainty: that’s the one.

What Avalon Actually Is (And Isn’t)

Whether Avalon is a literal place, a dream landscape, a faery realm, or a beautiful metaphor is a question that mystics, scholars, and people with too many mythology books have debated for centuries.

My own view? It’s probably all of those things at once.

A place where healing happens. Where the natural world and the unseen world are woven together. Where something older and wiser than ordinary life occasionally reaches out—not with trumpet fanfares, but quietly.

In a dream about apple orchards.
In a symbol recognized out of nowhere.
In the small chill that runs down your spine when the universe decides to wink at you.

Staying Open to the Synchronicities

Moments like this don’t arrive on schedule. You can’t manufacture them. But you can stay open enough to notice when they happen—which means resisting the reflex to explain them away the moment they occur.

My eleven-year-old grandson dreamed of Avalon before he knew what Avalon was. Then he taught me a magical lesson about synchronicity and seeing through the veils.

After all, Avalon is really not so far away. It’s right here with us, waiting for us to wander into it like an errant knight following a white doe through a magical woods.

And I’m sure, somewhere beyond the ordinary maps of the world, there really is an orchard where the apples grow abundantly all through the year and the healers of Avalon are still doing their quiet work.

Stranger things have happened. I know an eleven-year-old who seems to know the way. 🍎

Your Invitation to Avalon

Would you love to learn more about Avalon and Arthurian lore, connect with Morgan le Fay, Nimue’ and other faeries of Avalon? Let Merlin be your guide in Faehallows School of Magic’s Merlin’s Path Arthurian Magic Course.