Whittling
Carving small shapes from wood with a knife — quiet patient work done with the hands while the mind rests.
Whittling in a dream is the dream's image of quiet patient work done with the hands while the mind rests. The whittler is not making anything urgent; the stick is being shaped a small shaving at a time, and the work is as much a way to occupy the hands as a way to produce an object. The dream brings whittling when something in your life — a small daily craft, a hobby that does not need to be impressive, a private discipline of slowing — is currently the small kept practice that keeps the hands and the mind together. Whittling done by a fire with no audience is the dream affirming the small private practice. Whittling abandoned, the knife and the half-shaped stick on the bench for weeks, is the dream noting that the quiet work that used to occupy the hands has been let go, and the hands have not yet found anything else to do at the same pace.