Author: Denise

(Monday, December 14, 2015) moon: waxing crescent Aquarius / tarot: Dreamer (Fool)

I enter the lobby of a large gymnasium or sports arena filled with people. I have wrapped myself in a scarlet silk comforter, and I am bare-breasted beneath the blanket.

My idol, the poet and musician Patti Smith, is talking to a small group of small, brown women, all of whom are very excited just to be in her presence. As am I. Patti turns to me and shares a few minutes worth of her brilliance and wisdom, the memory of which I have lost. I love the deep vibration of her warm voice. I love the power of her heart energy. Her humility.

I move on into the gym, which contains stacked wooden bleachers like a high school basketball court. I climb up to the very top row and sit next to my lover. He is famous among the fans in the arena, but in my dream I am not sure why, though I wrack my brains about it. I feel his affection for me. I should know who he is, but I don’t know who he is.

I am a bit anxious about my full, bare breasts, even though I am covering them with the comforter. The generous blanket also embraces an infant cradleboard, which lies at my feet. Like the comforter, the cradleboard is wrapped in scarlet silk, giving it the distinct appearance of a birth canal.

When I first peer into the cradleboard, I see Lola’s shiny black face and beautiful turquoise eyes. A bit later, when my lover and I look into the cradle, we see our baby’s little bald head deep down in the wrappings. Baby is fearful. We understand that our papoose needs to emerge from the cradleboard into the world, without fear and anxiety. Gradually our infant finds calm and courage and is able to rise to the top of the cradleboard. Our luminous, joyful bairn.

At this point I step down the steep bleachers to a locker room or dressing room on the main floor. Walter B from IASD is there, teaching a small class. We greet each other. We are good friends. I find my bra and clothing, dress myself without shyness, leaving the room, leaving the dream.

Day notes:

I have started reading a book by Joseph Chilton Pierce, whom I love. I read his book “Magical Child” when Cullan was an infant and it profoundly changed my ideas about mothering and babies.

One of the most amazing experiences of my life was seeing Patti Smith at First Avenue with Chris. I will never forget it. It was like she was channeling the most powerful possible energy through her frail body. We were right next to the stage. Chris and I recently listened to a podcast that Patti just published on iTunes. It made us both so happy.

The word “gymnasium” in German means high school.

Several years ago, during one of Chris’ extended hospital stays (maybe his 2010 bout with sepsis, or his 2011 aortic dissection), Lola was suffering from severe cystitis. The vets that were caring for her at the time tested her and diagnosed her with early kidney failure. I disagreed. I had been feeding her a raw diet, which can skew kidney tests. They told me to start giving her daily subcutaneous fluid injections.

I tried that for a couple days but it was so difficult I ended up putting my head on the kitchen table and sobbing uncontrollably. I decided to find a vet that was open to alternative therapies, and began working with Minnetonka Animal Hospital. They agreed that there was no evidence of kidney disease.

I felt it likely that Lola’s time on the planet would be brief. Her infections would flair every 4 months. I went to see Marlene, the tarot reader that I have been seeing for many years, to ask her about Lola and other issues in my life.

Marlene said Lola would be around for awhile yet. She said that Lola’s energy field is very expansive. She is no ordinary feline. She is my familiar, and extremely sensitive. Her illness is related to her sensitivity. I thought that was intriguing information, and completely unverifiable.

Perhaps a year after the reading, I had a dream that felt lucid, wildly alert: I am seated on the ground under the white pines in the front yard. I can hear everything going on in the two nearest houses, especially the one right next door. I can hear my neighbor Heidi talking to her small children, and I hear their replies as if they are speaking into my ear. I hear every footstep, the shuffle and crackle of every piece of paper, every subtle sound. It took me a few months to understand that the dream was from Lola’s perspective. I was dreaming Lola’s dream.

Six months or so ago a dream fragment presented itself. I realized when I awoke that it was a message from Lola. She showed me the grassy sand dunes of Moore Lake, where I played with the neighborhood kids and where our cat Boots would hunt for ducks and muskrats. Boots and I were deeply connected. Lola told me, telepathically, that she had been Boots in a past life. Boots died a horrible death from poisoning, so perhaps if Lola is the reincarnation of Boots, her compromised immune system is a reflection of that. Who knows.

In October I had this dream: I have entered a living room where my friend Mary (Mother Mary!) is caring for her father, who has Alzheimer’s. My awareness is close to the floor. I can see all of the cat toys and dust bunnies under the sofa. When it is time for me to leave, I search the entryway for my shoes. I can find only one of my canvas flats. It has a pointed white toe.

This time it took only a few hours to connect this dream to Lola. I am her kitty mother and I do care for a man with dementia (Chris has cognitive impairment from his brain tumor 20 years ago). Lola has white toes on her rear paws.

Day notes:

I started writing this yesterday. At 5:30 this morning I had to take Lola to the emergency vet to be treated for another infection.

When I was at Peace Valley in the Ozarks I roomed with an animal communicator named Faun. She felt she already knew me from somewhere. Perhaps it is a good idea to ask her about Lola. I have been so distracted by Chris’ health issues I have not been in contact with anyone I met there.

(Wednesday, December 2, 2015) moon: third quarter Virgo / tarot: Crone of Cups

I travel to a building that has been in my dreams for over a year. I think it first appeared in my dream of the white-haired Philip Seymour Hoffman. It was in the last dream I had before the 2015 IASD conference in Virginia Beach.

The building is deep red brick, built in the style of my old high school. It is a single story, simply but elegantly constructed, with a central, rectangular courtyard. Most of the courtyard is filled by a large pool of water. Many people stand along the banks of the man-made lake.

I walk along the shoreline, entering a door that leads to a small room that has the feeling of my childhood bedroom. On a table sits a glass jar with a small Mr. Magoo type character inside. My 3D project. The tiny bald doll holds two fabric banners, each of which say “SALE.” Also on one of the banners is printed the image of a human skull. The skull was not processed correctly before it was printed (it’s full of “artifacts”) and needs touching up in Photoshop. I have been working with the company president and vice president, both of whom are highly critical. Their minds change with the wind. I lose my patience. I can’t do this kind of commercial work anymore. I decide to leave both the room and the design profession.

At the moment I make this decision a tall white-haired man appears next to me. He is a master healer and teacher, serious and calm in nature. I receive a telepathic message from the community of souls on the edge of the pool that this is a great blessing. This teacher is a very evolved entity. But I do not know if he is here to heal me, or to teach me how to heal. I think of Chiron, The Wounded Healer.

My teacher and I converse as we walk along the lakeshore to a wooden wharf that opens to the sea. On the wharf are dozens of women of every age, all wearing identical tan dresses, lounging about like joyful sea lions. The brown, sun-kissed skin of the mermaids glows. I receive another telepathic message: powerful solar rays have penetrated to their bones, healing them.

We turn back along the shore and enter the building again. I see a thin, lovely woman in great emotional pain, standing with her belly to a countertop, her back facing me. I drape a soft gold and magenta shawl (cashmere? prayer shawl?) around her shoulders. I am surprised to understand that this gift has healed her.

At this moment my teacher morphs into a trickster figure. He is fey, with a peaked tuft of snow white hair, what the character Jonathan Strange would describe as “thistle-down.” I receive two telepathic messages: he is a famous intuitive healer from two hundred years ago. And he heals by drawing energy from the earth, up his shins, along his belly to the top of his pointed mane.

I know he cannot be Edgar Cayce, because the timeframe is wrong, and his persona is that of an elemental. But during his time on the earth plane he was a famous as Cayce.

I walk along the banks of the lake, meeting many souls, sometimes finding the ability to heal those in need. When my energy becomes drained from this work, I kneel on the ground and my fairy guide covers me like a blanket, an etheric blanket I cannot feel with my physical body. This is how he heals me.

Day notes:

Chris’ surgery is tomorrow.

Last night I was reading about “earthing.” Grounding the electrical charge of the body.

The serious white-haired teacher reminds me of my dream character Harry the Magician.