Author: Denise

(Friday, February 19, 2016) moon: waxing gibbous Cancer / tarot: Magician (Witch)

Dream 1:

The Dreamsters are meeting at my house. At the evening’s end, Pat and Peter tell me they appreciate the privacy of the room, and the fact that it is primarily reserved for our group. They say good bye and head outside. I panic a bit. There has been a big snow and I haven’t had time to clear the walkway in a safe manner. I rush outside. The path is covered in melting mounds of icy snow. Pat and Peter are already gone. I become the Observer Me and watch myself travel along the snow-path towards the street. I am wearing little in the way of warm winter clothing and my small, real-life black purse hangs prominently from my shoulder: the leather bag I bought for traveling that was in my dream of the zoo I shared with the Dreamsters a few months ago.

Dream 2:

The Dreamsters are meeting at Peter’s house. He and Sara are in the middle of a major remodel. Their house is a very large, modernist structure with floor-to-ceiling windows and a great hall expansive enough for several sitting areas. Wallpaper from the 80s and 90s is being removed and the walls refreshed with paint. Countertops are full of construction debris and materials.

I am holding two paint brushes in my hands: one is about three inches wide, good for painting doors, and the other is a small detail brush. I am preparing to leave, so I place the brushes on a cluttered countertop. Sara becomes very angry with me. It seems the countertop is one used for food prep. I apologize and explain to her that I have cleaned the brushes very carefully. She explains to me that she has just finished sanitizing the countertop. I feel shamed, and concerned for the health of Seth and Orion.

I can do nothing to alleviate the situation, so I turn toward the door. Pat and Peter are having a conversation. Everyone’s shoes are still scattered on the entryway floor, and I spy a pair made of different colors of leather sown together in harlequin style. Lovely! They are Peter’s shoes. He tells me that he is only able to get his feet in part way, that the shoes are too small. I slip my feet in and there is resistance at my upper arches. I wait; soon the leather softens and releases, allowing my feet to slide all the way through to the pointed toes. I tell him I think this technique would work for him. But the shoes have embraced my feet Cinderella-style. I walk out the door and up the street.

Day notes:

The Dreamsters met at my house this week. Pat thanked me for hosting, in a warm and generous way that made me extremely grateful.

I have been painting painting painting.

Walking a mile in Peter’s shoes?

I was very struck by the image of the purse. It felt important, like I was being shown a pun or a visual message. I thought of Jill Purce when I woke up.

Leather purse, leather shoes. Both items used for travel. The Fool in the tarot carries a bag and wears harlequin shoes. Jeanne told the tale of her New Zealand trip at our last meeting, an amazing story of adventure and of literally jumping off cliffs (skyscraper and airplane). The ending of both dreams has me leaving a house where dreams are shared, and traveling along a path, a street, a road. Alone.

Two dreaming men, both named after saints.

My small, quiet, intimate house. Peter’s grand, chaotic, energetic house. The white, snowy environment in my first dream made me think of Nigel and the albedo.

 

 

(Friday, January 29, 2016) moon: waning gibbous Libra / tarot: seven of wands reversed

I have moved into an old cream-colored two-story stucco house, built around one hundred years ago. It is a city house, but located in a neighborhood with large lots. The front of the house has a huge, rusting metal decoration over a section of the upper floor that looks to me like a subtle, faded face. Ghost of a face.

When I stand in the front yard and look behind the house, I can see mountains and forests, stretching for miles and miles.

The house is a little sad and neglected. I walk inside. Above a back stairwell I notice a tall mesh bag with a few logs of firewood inside. The bag hangs from the redwood-beamed ceiling of the attic loft. I need to replenish the firewood, so I walk up the stairs into the scarlet-colored loft space to figure out how to do this.

There is a dark-haired woman standing in the attic, behind the mesh bag and near the eaves. I know that she is a ghost. She has lost her child and is inconsolably bereft. She clasps her elbows and forearms with her hands, rubbing them over and over with great anxiety. Is it possible to comfort a spirit? I walk over to her and begin to caress her arms, surprised to feel that they are transforming from the ethereal. Turning into wood.

Day notes:

I am spending all of my free time painting the upper bedrooms of our house. I think that must be why I am having so many dreams of houses that need work.

Fuel for the fire coming from the upper realms? Needing replenishment.

My grandmother’s house had a woodbox built next to the kitchen. The box was filled with firewood from the outside of the house. It had a door inside the kitchen, near the wood-burning stove, so one could stoke the fire in the winter without having to go outdoors. The mesh bag in my dream seems to serve a similar purpose.

My coworker Cyndi (who has stage 4 breast cancer) emailed us an x-ray today of her latest femur surgery. They inserted a rod into her hip and another into her “good” femur. X-rays look very ghostly. Her living bones are slowly being transformed into metal rods and brackets.

 

 

(Thursday, January 28, 2016) moon: waning gibbous Libra / tarot: Magician-Witch

I am scheduled to take a trip with a large group of people, but I am running late. I rush into my bedroom closet, rummage the top shelf, only to discover that my mother has already packed my things for me. I’m relieved and grateful. The prerequisite for this trip is that we must all travel lightly. Carry very little baggage.

Mother and I hurry outdoors to the railyard. Either the dream skips, or I have lost the memory of the journey. Suddenly we arrive at another train station and are walking along the elevated wooden platform. At the end of the platform we find an art gallery built of grey adobe. Small, illuminated display windows are inset deep into the outer gallery walls. It’s a heavenly, blue-sky day so the gallery doors are wide open, inviting us and the other members of our travel club to meander into the space.

The gallery footprint is large and square, with a high white ceiling and white stucco walls. The floorboards are shiny, aged golden oak. Painted white sculpture stands, built in ziggurat form, are set against the walls. Colorful, translucent pieces of handblown glass artwork fill the room. Some of the sculptures are animals, some are abstract shapes like mountains or clouds.

The gallery owner, a tall, friendly gentleman with dark hair, is standing behind one of the sculpture stands. Our eyes meet and I gasp in joy and amazement: at the very top of the display is a huge glass serving platter with my name, Denise Luther, scripted in glass in the center of the dish. I am a simple tourist, just passing through this little town. How did this beautiful coincidence, this transcendent synchronicity, come together so perfectly?

I ask my mother for my camera but we cannot find it in our bags. One of my traveling companions, another dark-haired gent, kindly takes a photograph of the platter for me. By the time I am able to locate my own camera, the serving dish has disappeared.

Day notes:

I awoke with an overwhelming feeling of magic. Of being gifted. Completely happy. Seeing my name in the center of the glass touched the center of my heart.

Still reading Connie Kaplan’s book “The Invisible Garment.” My midheaven is in Service. Is there a connection between service and serving platter? Am I being served (by art)? Am I (and my creativity) in service to others?

I have a turkey platter that was handed down to me by my favorite uncle (via my mother). Charlie Wolf had been a Minneapolis cop. Years ago, when skid row was in the Gateway district, he helped a homeless man who repaid him with the shiny serving dish. Today on my lunchbreak I went to visit the wild turkeys. I have found that if I go to a certain park in Mendota at 11:30 I can watch a flock of a dozen turkeys walk slowly through the woods.

Every element of this dream has lightness. Light baggage. Passing through. The joy of being on vacation. Viewing art. Translucent glass. Evaporation of a physical object. Photography. A warm, loving relationship with my mother. Santa Fe skies and fragrant, pure air to fill my lungs.

Nameplate. 

From dreammoods: “To see stained glass in your dream signifies spiritual healing and enlightenment. You are seeking guidance from a higher source.”

I seem to be with my soul group in this dream. Relaxed and supported.

I am journeying to my soul work, my creativity, very late in life (The West), but I am arriving with joy and energy, nonetheless.