(Saturday, March 8, 2014) Either I am Jennifer Aniston, or I am closely observing her movements through a very long dream.
Jennifer is recognized by all the other dream characters as both a movie star and a star athlete. She and I are at a winter sports competition, maybe the Olympics, participating in a ski event. At this moment in the dream our bodies seem united because I have the sensation of racing down the ski slope. All goes well on the mountain. It’s exhilarating.
After the ski run, Jennifer heads back to the Olympic village for something to eat. A waiter holding a tray enters the dining room and chats her up. Here I begin to separate from her. The waiter’s brashness initially seems presumptuous to me, but he is respectful of her talent and status. He’s an actor, trying to break into the movie business. It’s Bill Murray, before he became famous on Saturday Night Live, before he made the beautiful and amazing films of recent memory. The observer me finds him attractive and senses his genius, which is as yet hidden from the world.
But Jennifer sees herself as the Big Star. She’s moving on to another part of the world to demonstrate a new piece of sports equipment that is a cross between water skis and a wake board.
The inventor of the water gear is late to arrive with his invention. Jennifer is biding time in a hotel meeting room when Bill Murray reappears. She still doesn’t acknowledge him as a true star, a real artist.
Jennifer’s audience lines the banks of a river and grows impatient. The show must go on. She ends up having to be pulled downstream behind a power boat, skiing on her bare feet.
Day notes:
The new company president was at our staff meeting this last week. He is from Chicago and his mannerisms immediately brought Bill Murray to mind (also from Chicago). I saw Bill Murray on Charlie Rose a couple weeks ago. He was gentle and thoughtful.
Tomorrow I am meeting a woman named Jennifer Money (dba Frost Flower Astrology). She is doing my solar return chart, my birthday present to myself. Stars, astrology.
My brother used to water ski barefoot. Very difficult!
Skiing on snow, and then on water. Frozen (crystallized) water, liquid water. Frozen emotion, flowing emotion. Reminiscent of the mermaid dream I had before leaving for Virginia Beach last year: I swim in the deep end of a pool while my sister breaks through ice at the shallow end of the same pool.
In the first part of the dream Jennifer moves effortlessly, with the aid of gravity, a natural and invisible force. She skis downhill. The skis on her feet reduce the surface tension of the snow. In the second half of the dream, she has to be pulled by a motor, a man-made machine. She is pulled through choppy waves and deep water. The surface tension of water provides strong physical resistance. Her feet are bare/vulnerable. She has lost her connection to the earth. Yet you could also say she is walking on water.
In the second half of the dream Jennifer’s star starts to dim/fall. Race to the bottom. Bill’s star begins to shine. Jennifer is a television and then a B-movie actress. Bill Murray starts his career on television (following live performances at Second City), moves on to film comedies and grows into an actor of indie art films. He waits for the proper time to reveal his true nature. The difference between celebrity (ego) and artistry (soul).
I did not recognize the waiter as Bill Murray until I was awake. That’s been happening lately: dream details reach their full potential as I stay present with the dream, from sleep to full wakefulness. Like an image that develops from a cloudy, two-dimensional blur to a sharp three-dimensional form.
I know nothing about Jennifer Aniston. I never watched “Friends.” The only film I have seen her in is “Office Space.” She plays a waitress in a restaurant who is required to wear “37 pieces of flair” on her uniform.
Bill Murray’s second wife was named Jennifer, according to Wikipedia.
Jennifer is a feminine given name, a Cornish form of Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere, consort of King Arthur), adopted into English during the 20th century. It may mean “white fairy” (from Proto-Celtic *Uindo-seibrā “white phantom”).
Murray (Irish) from Mac Muireadhaigh or Ó Muireadhaigh “descendant of Muireadhach” or Mac Giolla Mhuire “descendant of the servant of the Virgin Mary.”