(Sunday, February 1, 2015) Waxing gibbous moon in Cancer / tarot: eight of swords
Patrick James and I are at a workshop. The leader of the class is a slender man with shiny black hair. He looks a bit like Eric Christopher, the past-life regression therapist. The floor of the room is hardwood. There are no desks or tables so it seems to be a yoga, t’ai-chi or exercise class. We all have thin wooden tubes that we breathe through as part of our training, so maybe it’s a breath-works class. The tubes are draped with feathers and beads like peace-pipes. Maybe they aren’t wood at all, but bone or fired clay.
When the workshop is over, Pat and I walk out of the classroom into a second room, on our way to the outside door. This room is a small elevated auditorium, full of desks. The dark-haired teacher follows and offers us tickets for a free workshop. This makes me suspect of the value of the class and teaching we have just completed. Even though earlier Pat and I agreed it was worthwhile.
We take the grey paper tickets and walk out into the beautiful blue-sky day. That’s when I see that the building is a small adobe, painted with glossy red paint. Red stone building. Part of the house, a one-room addition, is pink. Or perhaps the red paint is covered by white salt crystals. Lucid moment: I am aware that this is incredibly odd. Adobe buildings are always the soft, matte color of desert sand – pink, rust, tan or brown but never brilliant red. I stare at the adobe, trying to make sense of the dream symbolism. I decide it’s alchemical: rubedo, philosopher’s stone.
We are in Santa Fe, and the light rail runs along the street by the red house. The rails are a couple feet off the ground, to our right. Pat hops on one rail, lays down on his belly and is whisked away. At light speed!
Day notes: Patrick James and Eric Christopher are men with two first names. Pat, Eric and I have all attended breath-work sessions at the Salt Caves from Terri Peterson. Terri has black hair. Terri can be a man’s name too. When I had this dream I was unaware that Pat had just had a past-life session with Eric the week before. Another dream of Pat that has a focus on his belly/stomach. We had a mixer at work. Each of was given two tickets for drinks at the bar. I used just one grey ticket and put the other in my purse. That is the image I have included with this dream. At work we are gathering a care package of Minnesota souvenirs to send to our new coworkers in Portlandia. It made me think about Red House Records, the local recording company. Comments from Pat: That was quite an interesting dream, very dense, I would say. I have a lot of responses. First, the workshop: a place of construction perhaps, building something new, or working on something and focusing – as opposed to a place to party or relax. Also a place of learning of course. The fact that Eric Christopher is there leading the class, and his role for you and I currently is as to guide us to greater past life knowledge, makes me think maybe the three of us knew each other in a past lifetime, and maybe a Native American one – in the area of present day Santa Fe? The wooden tubes are like peace pipes: this work is about finding greater peace. Pipes typical involve music or smoking, both of which would be included in a tribal ceremony. Feathers and beads together make me think of the sky spirit and the earth energy coming together. And, of course, the pipes combine air and wood – breathing in this case. The breath work that Terri teaches is transformational in nature. Interestingly, I before I read your email I watched a detective show on Netflix in which a murder happens on an airplane. One of the passengers is carrying with him some wooden blow pipes that are supposed to come from a tribe in South America and they become the focus of the investigation. One of the detective keeps calling them “wooden tubes” instead of pipes. But you can see the connection with “blow pipes” and wooden breathing tubes. The part about the “free” tickets and questioning their value, reminds me of Peter’s dream where he gets the “free key” to unlock the gate in the river. Also, the word workshop has “shop” in it. When you go shopping, you don’t expect to get things for free. This is like getting something without having to work for it. And the dream seems to be making a point of this because we get tickets. Why do you need tickets to a free event? The act of forming this question leads to a kind of revaluing. The color of the adobe and your response is amazing! I didn’t know about the philosopher’s stone or rubedo before this so I did a little research. You probably already know this but rubedo, or reddening, represents the final stage of the transformation of the philosopher’s stone. This is where the base metal turns to gold. Its all about enlightenment and transformation to a higher spiritual state or consciousness. “The philosopher’s stone is a legendary substance, allegedly capable of turning inexpensive metals into gold.” http://www.crystalinks.com/