Author: Denise

(Thursday, June 30, 2016) moon: waning crescent Taurus / tarot: Judgement

I started working on my new Edie the Herbalist piece yesterday. It went incredibly well. I have changed my medium from white stoneware to red stoneware, and am very happy about that. I never really liked white stoneware, but Continental Clay did not carry a good mid-fire red. Now that Minnesota Clay has moved to within a mile of my house, I shop there, and they stock a nice red stoneware. The white has a musty odor and a stickyness that irritates. The red smells like the earth after a cloudburst. Love it.

I have an older ceramic piece that was inspired by my luminous black sow dream. Claudia named the sow Edie, thereby connecting the sow and the herbalist dreams. The Celtic goddess Cerridwen sometimes appears as a sacred sow. My original Edie dream takes place in Celtic Cornwall. I was never happy with the surfaces on the black sow piece, so yesterday I took advantage of some “post-firing techniques.” I coated the outside with a black wax that has a silver sheen, and then used some gold leaf on a part of the inside. Better.

Today I was walking around Lake Harriet and saw, for the first time, the older gentleman who created the small elf door tending to the letters people leave for him. He was quite elegant, wearing a fine linen suit coat and a broad-brimmed hat. Since I have been so focused on Edie, I was very pleased to see another human who shares my affection for the faery realm. (link to elf house here, and here)

I am hoping that the year-and-a-half I have spent away from clay is a marker for a new chapter, a chapter with more creative success than in the past. I smashed three mediocre pieces this afternoon and put them in the trash bin. Some art teachers say one should not destroy work but I find the need to do so overwhelming at times. I never regret it. An instructor I had a few years ago says the Mississippi River is full of pots tossed into the currents by U of M undergrads.

(Tuesday, June 28, 2016) moon: third quarter Aries / tarot: Witch (Magician)

My U.S. marketing coworkers and I are visiting the Netherlands. Sem W., from our Amersfoort office, is taking us on a walking tour, like the one Willem does in Kerkrade/Herzogenrath at the dream conference. Cyndi and Louis are there (Bonnie and Peter?). We are standing on a stone plaza. Sem points out a new building at the edge of the square that is his favorite: many stories tall and made of bricks the color of Dutch chocolate.

I realize I have not brought my purse with me, even though it is a small travel-size bag. I tell everyone I need ten minutes to run back to the hotel and fetch it. I climb several flights of stairs to get to our suite. It seems I am sharing a room with Cyndi. We have a huge walk-in closet, and I decide I need to change into clothing more suitable for a hike.

I pull out white wooden drawers, one by one, from the generous built-in dresser and examine the contents. Everything is Cyndi’s, which means the capris she so favors are too short and too wide for me. The patterns are wildly floral, the colors bright. Trousers for an extrovert.

I manage to find a pair of my own trousers crumpled on the floor of the closet, and I step into them. They are the black hiking capris I wore in the Netherlands in 2011, full of useful, zippered pockets. I fill a top pocket, near my waistband, with my ID and credit card, and velcro it securely shut. The pocket is too small to use for heavy Euro coins, so plastic will have to do. My search for clothes and money has taken much longer than the ten minutes I promised.

Day notes: 

Funny how my dreams are mirroring the dream conference, and stirring up old memories. Peter would say Cyndi is my shadow side. We share a closet.

Drawers = trousers, pants, underwear, and also people who draw pictures. Draw toward oneself, physically and energetically. Manifest.

I require walking clothes (an outer covering), clothes for movement and travel. Exploration. I had wished to attend a workshop by Jill Purce (purse) prior to the conference. 

(Monday, June 27, 2016)

This dream is from Sunday morning, but I was too busy all day cleaning my studio to have time to record it.

Part 1:

The dream begins at my house, which is very large and feels more like a hotel. Dozens, maybe hundreds of people are inside. Probably I am dreaming of the Rolduc conference. There is a young woman in one of the back rooms that I am connected to. She looks like my old coworker Maggie (from the English, meaning pearl) Reinhardt (from the German, rein meaning counsel, hardt meaning brave, strong).

Part 2:

I am flying far and wide, in search of Maggie Reinhardt. We are to meet at the edge of a whitewater sea. I cover many miles, many countries, with my arms outstretched like an airplane.

Part 3:

I spy Maggie below me, so I land on a grey wooden dock. Our goal is to dive into the water, retrieve a form of magical sustenance from deep below the surface and bring it back to the conference. Oysters? Pearls? The bed where the seafood rests is far from the dock. We will need to swim a long distance.

Maggie jumps in with no hesitation. The water is foamy white and roiling. I am afraid. It is winter, I expect the water to be bitter cold. But I leap into the 6-foot waves and am surprised to discover that the temperature of the fluid is the same as that of my body. Even though ice is visible along the edges of the channel where we swim.

When I become immersed, I realize that the liquid is not water. It is bubbly and thicker than water.

Maggie and I reach the bay where we will dive for the treasure. Again I am fearful. We must dive all the way to the bottom of the sea, and I don’t know if my lungs will be able to carry that much oxygen. Maggie dives first, and I follow.

Day notes:

I just completed a chapter in Barbara Tedlock’s book about hallucinogenic plants and mushrooms. She describes a side-effect of peyote: white, soapy foam sometimes oozes from the mouth.

Muskrat was the dream I shared at Rolduc in 2011. Muskrat is the hero of Dakota and Ojibwe creation stories. After the great flood, muskrat dives to the bottom of the sea and retrieves a paw full of clay earth, which becomes Turtle Island.

Bonnie sent an email yesterday from Rolduc. This morning I recalled the restaurant in Kerkrade that we ate at together. The waitress asked if we wanted “still” water or “fizzy” water.