In the Wings

(Friday, December 13, 2013)  An epic dream with many parts:

Our dream group is walking around the world. We are journeying to the dream conference together. The sky overhead is dark; perhaps it is night.

I make a detour to my home to check on a construction project. The lower level is being refinished. I walk down some shallow stairs into the space, which is very familiar: it’s the room I had for both Mr. Georgius’ speech class in tenth grade and for Mrs. Kunze’s kindergarten class. Because the room was designed for presentations there is a small, elevated stage at one end. The door where I enter the room, at the foot of the stairs, is also the side door of the stage.

From the stage I walk down two steps to the main floor. The room is long and narrow with an aggregate, institutional-style floor. The floor of my memory. At the far side of the room is another stage that is very shallow: it’s a film stage, which does not exist in waking life.

I hear a fluttering/clattering noise. Suddenly all four walls are being covered with narrow, hinged panels: tall screens that fold and expand like wings. The surface of the panels has a dark-light, brown-cream pattern, similar to the Cecropia (giant silk-moth). Thousands of winged dakinis (or moths?) are creating the screens instantly before my eyes. Beautiful.

I leave my house and meet up with Bonnie. We are scheduled to assist one of the main presenters at the dream conference, so we hurry to the event.

At the hotel we enter a room with chairs arranged in a circle. The presenter, who looks like the breathworker Terry Peterson I met at the Mankato Women’s Spirituality Conference, is very nervous. It’s her first dream conference. But Bonnie and I continue on: we walk through a side door into the next room, which is a half-circle and has descending levels, like the band practice pit at my old high school. It, too, has a hard, aggregate floor. This is the main presentation venue.

I feel guilty, however, about abandoning a new presenter. I tell Bonnie that I am going back to help Terry. I’m nervous myself, and when I am affected by nerves or stage fright I often suffer from coughing jags. I prepare a glass of cold chai latte (brown and cream) and store it in a little backstage room off of the main meeting room.