Author: Denise

I am a sculptor of clay animals and those luminous hybrid creatures that sometimes appear in our dreams, if we are lucky and if we are paying attention. The slow process of hand-building something from clay can really deepen the visitation of a dream. I have faithfully tended these wondrous images, transcribing them to journals since I was in my early 20s.
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We Are One, We Are None

In the third week of June, 2023, I had two nearly identical dreams.

I am in a community space that is unlimited. Membership in our community is also unlimited. I have no plot or agenda in the dreams. Neither do any of our community. I have no sense of being the focus of the dream or even the observer. We are all equal. The dream is about our eternal, universal connection to each other and manifested dimensions. At least that is my take based on Thich Nhat Hanh’s discussion about the nature of existence in his book “No Death, No Fear.”

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Trusted Property, Unsimplified

(Sunday, June 18, 2023) new moon Cancer / tarot 8 of swords

I dream my siblings and I have received a new large house. It is packed full of old furniture, clothing, knick-knacks and storage boxes. Strewn about: there is nothing left we will need. So we go through things together, and I reach a point where I wonder where our bedrooms are. Jodell shows me hers. She will rest at a distant, small house. It is full of content, just like the large house.

Day notes:

I spent three days at Jo’s small lake home. She is extremely organized but her house is full of food, furniture, pictures, up-north decorations, fishing and swimming equipment. No room in her garage for the cars. She is in charge of our parents’ will and we had a lot of discussions about it. She showed me the actual document. I stopped at my parents’ house on my way home and was overwhelmed by the yard and house work they still have at nearly 90 years old. It feels like a huge stress for them, especially my mother. It will be a stressful time for us once they pass and we have to sort it all out. I love my passion for simplification.

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Journal: Kahlil Gibran “House”

(Tuesday, June 6, 2023)

I opened my old book “The Prophet.” to page 31, which talks about the idea of Houses:

Then a mason came forth and said: Speak to us of Houses.

And he answered and said:

Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house within city walls.

For even as you have home-comings in your twilight, so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone.

Your house is your larger body.

It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of night; and it is not dreamless. Does not your house dream? and dreaming, leave the city for grove or hill-top?

Your house shall not be an anchor but a mast.

It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye.

You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling, nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down.

You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.

And though of magnificence and splendour, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing.

For that which is boundless in your abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night.

The Dreamsters Union