Author: Denise

(Monday, September 30, 2013)  I’m on a circular-shaped island with coworkers. The island is the high ground left after a flash flood. We discover that the flood waters are so salty that we can bob on the surface as though swimming in the Great Salt Lake. It’s impossible to drown, which thrills Larry McGowan as he is not physically fit. And anyway, the water is quite shallow. We head out to swim and play and explore.

I paddle westward, and am horrified to discover beneath the clear water hundreds of dead animals: sweet, tiny dogs who were trapped by their leashes and unable to flee to safety. I’m anguished by the fact that humans have caused this great loss of innocent life.

Day notes:

When we began driving out of the Rapid City blizzard on Sunday afternoon, the ditches were lined with dead cattle. It turns out ranchers lost between 20% and 90% of their herds. Animals were still dying of pneumonia days later. When we arrived in the Black Hills I remember thinking that the pastures dotted with hybrid varieties of beef cattle should have been full of bison instead. So in that way, the hybrid small dogs, so far removed from wolves because of genetic manipulation by humans, are very much like the cattle. The human interference in their genetics and environment doomed them in the storm.

The coworkers in my dream are the people I snowshoe with in the winter.

(Friday, October 11, 2013)  Louis Hall called to say that Larry McGowan died on the way to work this morning. He didn’t have many details. Larry had a medical emergency, maybe a stroke or heart attack, and crashed his car. He was the same age as I am, 56. In my morning tarot meditation, I drew the four of cups: “sorrow.” Great Salt Lake: tears, mourning?

(Saturday, September 28, 2013)  I’m standing at an elbow-height counter at the back of a bar, facing a Tuscan gold stucco wall. There is an old-style wooden phone booth around the corner to my left. Angela Swenson stands at my left shoulder, Angela Niemann to my right.

Angela Swenson looks up at me, her head thrown back in loud laughter. I’m at least a foot taller than she is. I feel my Nordic stature. My left arm is bent at the elbow with my fingers pointed at the ceiling, hugging my frame in a relaxed Tai-Chi blocking posture. She says, “I didn’t realize you were so powerful.” She’s laughing, but she means what she says.

Angela Niemann is silent but looks into my eyes with a long, meaningful gaze. We are the same height.

Day notes:

I work closely with Angela Swenson (Sven = young man, young warrior) and Angela Niemann (nie = never, not: not man, not human?) in the marketing communications department (phone booth). Both women have expressive brown doe-eyes (mine are pale blue). I think we three are probably of similar height, except Angela Swenson always wears heels and Angela Niemann wears her hair in an elegant bouffant. Interesting to me that both angels have male surnames.

A main focus of our marketing efforts is to promote sit-to-stand workstations (basically, moveable countertops).

Angela Swenson has an extroverted trickster quality. She is always laughing. Angela Niemann is strikingly beautiful with the appearance of reserve. Both women are warm and open-hearted.

“Angel” is the name Chris calls me. Never my birth name.

I am reminded of the day I found two Liberty half dollars in the sand at my Grandmother’s farm: two great, striding angels. The angels are still with me?

“Three angels walked into a bar …” What’s the punch line? Good thing I’m ready with my blocking move.

I walked out the front door in the afternoon and a hatchling mourning dove flew up at me. She had been sitting on one of the large boulders along the walkway. She flew to the roof and looked at me for a few moments. Small, smooth and beautiful.

(Saturday morning, September 28, 2013)  I am standing on the rounded top of a red granite causeway, with water to either side. The causeway circles the earth like a serpent. Is it the spine of the earth? Part of it is visible above the sea, part of it is buried in the ocean mud, like a lotus. In fact the hollow center of it is filled with black mud. Compost. Bone marrow. I see the red rock begin to undulate, vertically, off in the distance. The wave will soon reach me. I lay on my back and grab a few small tufts of grass that are growing into the rock. I am spine-to-spine with the stone serpent. I feel the giant wave begin beneath me. It lifts me into heaven. The power of it is overwhelming, disintegrating. Earthquake!