Author: Denise

(Saturday, July 11, 2015) Moon: waning crescent Taurus / Tarot: ace of swords

A night of long dreams but I recall just this: Chris and his “brother” Scott (childhood friend from Chicago) are entered in a race. Before the race begins, Scott raises an ancient brass ewer and pours a large amount of lavender oil over the top of my head. I feel it slowly cascade over my face, the back of my neck, all the way down my body. Like a warm, twisting river along my spine. I breathe deeply, eyes closed, to pull in the pungent scent.

Day notes:

A week of tests at the Methodist ER and Park Nicollet Heart and Cardiovascular Center, triggered by another one of my fainting spells, ends in a clean bill of health: low blood pressure combining with a gastric reaction to the iron in my multivitamins. Doctor recommends taking vitamins in the evening and drinking coffee in the morning to raise my blood pressure! I think of my recent dream of Lou (“Health Message”) discussing his ERD disease with me. ERD: Esophageal Reflux Disease.

I do think there is also a spiritual component to these symptoms. Call me crazy. T’ai-Chi Rob thought my vertigo was a kundalini symptom. I believe the fainting could be as well. The Hindu word for it is “Murchha.” There is a popular (and information dense) website called The Biology of Kundalini that goes into this symptom in some detail. “During the peak heart expansion event (Heart Nova or Solar Heart) again the sympathetic and parasympathetic are dueling at their maximum and the dorsal vagal complex again kicks in bringing on a freeze response. But in this particular situation instead of paralysis a dive reflex occurs, essentially pulling the individual into the ground and making them lie flat. That way the heart that is already laboring at max due to the expansion doesn’t have to work at pumping against gravity to get the blood around the body.” Fainting. The day I fainted (Tuesday) two small garter snakes crossed my path on my walk at Big Rivers.

This website also says sleep paralysis “with its complete or partial atonia, most likely is the result of hyper-parasympathic activation of the DVC (dorsal vagal complex). Sleep paralysis is experienced when the individual bypasses directly to REM dream sleep with its beta-wave cortical activity. The REM sleep phenomena is associated with the inhibition of certain motor neurons; inhibition of sensory input; rapid eye movements; activation of brainstem neurons that control the movement of facial muscles; and important to the hallucinatory experiences associated with sleep paralysis, the activation of visual pathways.” Sleep paralysis is something I have experienced since childhood. Ryan Hurd of IASD has written books on this subject. A gateway to lucidity.

Lavender is purple, the color of the crown chakra. Lavender oil is one of the “Twelve Holy Attars” (from Persia, Arabia, Israel, Egypt, the Far East). In my past-life regression at the A.R.E. I went back to ancient Persia, where I was a Zoroastrian priest.

From Wiki: “The holy anointing oil formed an integral part of the ordination of the Hebrew priesthood and the High Priest as well as in the consecration of the articles of the Tabernacle (Exodus 30:26) and subsequent temples in Jerusalem. The primary purpose of anointing with the holy anointing oil was to cause the anointed persons or objects to become qodesh, or ‘most holy’ (Exodus 30:29).”

I bought a new box of Mrs. Meyers lavender dryer sheets this week.

 

(Saturday, July 4, 2015) Moon: waning gibbous Aquarius / tarot: Life Weaver (Wheel of Fortune, Spider Woman)

Many periods of awakening and dreaming last night. The recurring story of attending the dream conference appears. I am standing in a group, listening to Lou talk about his digestive health issue. He calls it ERD disease, not GERD disease.

I have a burning question for Lou. I have had a spark of inspiration and believe that, in addition to artists, the conference needs the wisdom and beauty of poets. I listen for quite some time, very respectfully, because his level of education far surpasses mine. His experience with dreaming, at least professionally, far surpasses mine. He has run for the board of the IASD and organized several regional events in New York.

Finally, I interrupt, blurting out: “I have a question!” Lou looks at me with great disapproval. He pulls me aside and spends several minutes explaining the pain and complexity of his disease. I feel terribly guilty and give him my full attention. I listen with compassion and patience. Eventually he finishes. He allows me to ask my poet question. I am surprised that he finds my idea to be very valuable.

Day notes:

When Chris awoke this morning, he told me he had suffered terrible stomach pain in the night, keeping him up for hours. I immediately thought that my dream of Lou was connected to this, even though Lou and Chris are not alike in any way.

Perhaps the dream is saying that Chris is more evolved on a soul level than his simple life suggests. I remember years ago reading “The Tao of Pooh” by Benjamin Hoff. From Wiki: “Hoff regards Pooh’s simpleminded nature, unsophisticated worldview and instinctive problem-solving methods as conveniently representative of the Taoist philosophical foundation … Winnie-the-Pooh himself, for example, personifies the principles of wei wu wei, the Taoist concept of effortless doing, and pu, the concept of being open to but unburdened by experience.”

I have been considering suggesting to the IASD board Ann Baring as a keynote speaker next year at Rolduc.

(Saturday, June 27, 2015) Moon: waxing gibbous Scorpio / Tarot: eight of wands

Lots of dreams last night, at least four or five. I wake up feeling very immersed in all of them.

***

In one dream, I am at a conference, in a large hotel. Again, deep red brick like the dreams before the IASD conference. I am standing in front of a retail counter in the lobby, buying a few snacks: a small bag of peanuts and some beverages. The space has the same relaxed ambiance of the coffee shop at the Virginia Beach Convention Center. A woman in her forties, shorter than I and with frizzy grey-blonde hair, is ringing my order. As I hand her my currency, a door kitty-corner from us flies open. A small black boy rushes out. He grabs the bag of peanuts and runs back to his room.

To my great surprise, the cashier charges me for the peanuts that the boy has stolen, but does not replace them with another bag from her stock. In her mind, there is no need to accost or punish the child, since I have enough money to pay for the goods. I argue with her but get nowhere. So I walk the few steps to the boy’s hotel room, knock on the door, and initiate a discussion with his sister. She is also very young, but quite cagey, and I discover that the boy grabbed the peanuts under her orders. She refuses to pay for the peanuts or return them and shuts the door on me.

I go back to the store, trying one last time to get the cashier to either give me my money or relinquish the simple snack from her inventory. I threaten her, I tell her I’m going to talk to her manager, but she doesn’t budge.

Exasperated, I walk down a shallow flight of stairs to the hotel’s brightly lit lower level, where the management offices are located. Betty Davis, the African American hypnotherapist who guided my past-life regression at the Edgar Cayce A.R.E. (Association for Research and Enlightenment), is the hotel manager. Betty takes my hands and holds my arms lovingly as I tell the tale. Her gentleness calms me and I let go of the whole incident. She walks me up the stairs to the hallway that leads to the hotel exit. I feel very nourished and grateful to her.

I walk to the end of the corridor and come across my coworkers Cyndi, Louis and Steve. There is a fancy car parked in the middle of the hallway: apparently the three have come for an auto show, but are now ready to leave. Louis and Steve walk out the glass door, but Cyndi is stuck and deeply upset. She needs help from me with something before she can make her way out of the building. When I awake I don’t remember what it is but in the dream I am able to provide for her emotional healing (she has stage 4 breast cancer).

I leave the hotel, traveling on foot to the Norfolk Airport. I get on a huge plane that is scheduled to fly to Europe. I have been on this plane before in my dreams.

I walk past the pilots and attendants with my ticket in hand. It’s the kind of white paper tear-off ticket one gets at a deli or bakery. I see three digits, and I know them in my dream, but I’m not certain of them when I wake up (354?).

The plane has two sections at least four seats across with a wide center aisle and equally wide aisles along the windows. I see my coworker Christine (who just returned from a month-long vacation in Italy) and a male coworker friend of hers that I don’t recognize. He is in my seat. I show him my ticket. He smiles, refusing to move. He tells me there are plenty of empty seats on the plane, which there are, so I find another seat in the left section.

Once settled, I walk to the front of the plane to talk to the pilots. On this flight, no one is required to remain seated and no one is required to use a seat belt. Party plane. I stand slightly behind and to the right of the friendly copilot. He bends his head back a bit to chat with me, grinning, informing me of the flight’s destinations and flight path.

I hold on to the back of his seat and watch through the front window as the plane taxis over a causeway, like the bridge from Chincoteague to Assateague. Once across the narrow channel, the big plane lifts dramatically up into the air and heads for the clouds.

***

In another dream, I arrive via canoe or kayak to the island within Moore Lake, the lake one block from where I grew up (across from the red brick high school). Only in the dream, the island is on the east side of the lake, not the west. People say the real island is an Indian mound.

From the sand beach I walk up a steep embankment. My sister Jamie’s fiance Bob has planted a trio of small pines near the top of the hill. I caress the slender branches, then continue on to the peak, to the raku pit where I have created beautiful, large pots for many years. Other potters are there to greet me. Some are relatives but we are all like family. We talk about the vessels we have made and the ones we are working on now. I hold one of mine in my hands: the surface has a rough, fingered edge that glistens iridescent blue and purple.

I look down toward the lake and see that Alea and Cullan have arrived in their kayaks. This makes me very happy. When they reach the pottery all of us roll down the back side of the hill, away from the water, into a large sand basin. Like children at the beach. The sand is warm and deep and brown.

***

Day notes:

I think the first dream is a synopsis of some of the events at the IASD conference. Why peanuts? They are a Virginia crop, kind of a big deal. Going nuts, getting petty. Worrying about peanuts. There were only two African Americans at the conference that I saw, a young man and a young woman. Betty Davis was pretty amazing, a gentle and healing presence. And next year we fly to the Netherlands for the conference.

Perhaps some of the news and discussions about the hate crimes in Charleston, South Carolina are filtering in too.

Forgiving my mischievous inner children.

The second dream was triggered by my nephew’s wedding last week and the delightful hours spent with family. I had a great time with Alea and Cullan. He is looking so healthy and happy and healed.

Boats and pots are both called vessels.

Moore Moor More