Author: Denise

(Friday, March 28, 2014)  This morning I wake up from a dream that is not dreamlike at all. Real. Real. Real. Everything is as real as this moment that finds me sitting in front of my computer. I don’t know if the technical term would be lucidity, as I make no attempt to change any facet of the experience. It is as if I’ve boarded a plane and am visiting a new place, absorbing every intricate detail.

In the dream, a beautiful young couple in their mid-thirties have just moved into a charming stone cottage near the ocean. I feel that the ocean is the Pacific, perhaps the coastline near Santa Rosa or Petaluma. The hills are covered in seagrass, swept by the wind and murmuring softly.

The cottage, however, is more like a structure one would expect to find in Cornwall or Scotland or Ireland. The stones are thick and grey, chiseled by hand centuries ago. Yet the windows are framed in modern black metal casings to protect the interior from howling west winds.

I have a connection to the young woman in the dream. Perhaps she is a younger aspect of myself, a daughter, I am not sure, but we are extremely close. I have left Chris to come to this new country. He is very sad and upset. I have a sense of many other people also being disappointed in me for leaving him behind. Some of these people want me to bring Chris to the coast, but I do not wish to do so. I want to start my new life. I’m trying not to feel guilty.

The serious young man is busy unpacking and getting the house organized. Rooms materialize as we observe empty spaces. Like opening a gift or a flower.

The young woman and I walk outside. The sunlight is brilliant, reflecting off of the cloudless sky and the dancing sea. The salt air invigorates. There is a low wooden picket fence surrounding the cottage, also grey. Inside the fence grows more wild seagrass. A domesticated vine that I recognize but can’t remember the name for is crawling up the wall of the house. Tendrils with small suction cups are tightly clutching the rough stones and the window glass. The vine climbs so quickly I can watch it grow inches at a time. Maybe it is Passion Flower, but it is the color of lavender bergamot (bee balm) rather than deep purple.

Day notes:

Chris’ sister Kathy called last night. Their 95-year-old mother fell and has been admitted to the hospital. She has pneumonia. Chris is very upset.

I wonder if the young couple are Cullan and Alea. Perhaps they have moved away from the midwest and I follow, in expectation of a grandchild. Pure speculation.

A few weeks ago I spent four hours with the astrologer Jennifer Money. I wanted my chart drawn because I had heard there is a cardinal grand cross formation due to be exactly stationary at 13 degrees near the time of my birthday, April 27. Additionally, there is a lunar eclipse April 15 and a solar eclipse April 29. The cardinal grand cross (with Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Pluto) falls exactly on my natal cross of matter: my ascendent, IC (midnight point), descendent and MC (midheaven). On April 12 Pluto is conjunct my descendent in my seventh house, the house of marriage and partnerships. When we sat down together, that was the first thing she pointed out. According to Jennifer: “You are in a period of great transformation, as though you have now learned what you needed to learn, that you have been diligently healing old wounds and paying back old karma. Now it is time to matriculate, to move forward in your north node. It is time now for radical and irrevocable change.”

From the web:

“In the Druid perspective, the vine earned its symbolism from its growth patterns. They recognized the vine grows opportunistically, and would dig in wherever feasible in order to gain a strong foothold to assure its own growth.

“This is a powerful metaphor of ‘going with the flow’ or ‘growing where you are planted.’ In other words, it is a message that when we observe the best of our environment/situation and stay in a relaxed, flowing state of mind, will likely gain our highest advantage.

“Lastly, the ever-watchful Celts also recognized the vine’s predominant growth formation is in the shape of a spiral. This has long been considered a sacred symbol for consciousness.”

(Saturday, March 22, 2014)  I dream Chris has died. I apologize to Cullan for the medical crises he has had to share and observe over the years. It is the present day, but I am apologizing to his energetic, positive 10-year-old self, the age he was when I met Chris.

(Saturday, March 8, 2014)  Either I am Jennifer Aniston, or I am closely observing her movements through a very long dream.

Jennifer is recognized by all the other dream characters as both a movie star and a star athlete. She and I are at a winter sports competition, maybe the Olympics, participating in a ski event. At this moment in the dream our bodies seem united because I have the sensation of racing down the ski slope. All goes well on the mountain. It’s exhilarating.

After the ski run, Jennifer heads back to the Olympic village for something to eat. A waiter holding a tray enters the dining room and chats her up. Here I begin to separate from her. The waiter’s brashness initially seems presumptuous to me, but he is respectful of her talent and status. He’s an actor, trying to break into the movie business. It’s Bill Murray, before he became famous on Saturday Night Live, before he made the beautiful and amazing films of recent memory. The observer me finds him attractive and senses his genius, which is as yet hidden from the world.

But Jennifer sees herself as the Big Star. She’s moving on to another part of the world to demonstrate a new piece of sports equipment that is a cross between water skis and a wake board.

The inventor of the water gear is late to arrive with his invention. Jennifer is biding time in a hotel meeting room when Bill Murray reappears. She still doesn’t acknowledge him as a true star, a real artist.

Jennifer’s audience lines the banks of a river and grows impatient. The show must go on. She ends up having to be pulled downstream behind a power boat, skiing on her bare feet.

Day notes:

The new company president was at our staff meeting this last week. He is from Chicago and his mannerisms immediately brought Bill Murray to mind (also from Chicago). I saw Bill Murray on Charlie Rose a couple weeks ago. He was gentle and thoughtful.

Tomorrow I am meeting a woman named Jennifer Money (dba Frost Flower Astrology). She is doing my solar return chart, my birthday present to myself. Stars, astrology.

My brother used to water ski barefoot. Very difficult!

Skiing on snow, and then on water. Frozen (crystallized) water, liquid water. Frozen emotion, flowing emotion. Reminiscent of the mermaid dream I had before leaving for Virginia Beach last year: I swim in the deep end of a pool while my sister breaks through ice at the shallow end of the same pool.

In the first part of the dream Jennifer moves effortlessly, with the aid of gravity, a natural and invisible force. She skis downhill. The skis on her feet reduce the surface tension of the snow. In the second half of the dream, she has to be pulled by a motor, a man-made machine. She is pulled through choppy waves and deep water. The surface tension of water provides strong physical resistance. Her feet are bare/vulnerable. She has lost her connection to the earth. Yet you could also say she is walking on water.

In the second half of the dream Jennifer’s star starts to dim/fall. Race to the bottom. Bill’s star begins to shine. Jennifer is a television and then a B-movie actress. Bill Murray starts his career on television (following live performances at Second City), moves on to film comedies and grows into an actor of indie art films. He waits for the proper time to reveal his true nature. The difference between celebrity (ego) and artistry (soul).

I did not recognize the waiter as Bill Murray until I was awake. That’s been happening lately: dream details reach their full potential as I stay present with the dream, from sleep to full wakefulness. Like an image that develops from a cloudy, two-dimensional blur to a sharp three-dimensional form.

I know nothing about Jennifer Aniston. I never watched “Friends.” The only film I have seen her in is “Office Space.” She plays a waitress in a restaurant who is required to wear “37 pieces of flair” on her uniform.

Bill Murray’s second wife was named Jennifer, according to Wikipedia.

Jennifer is a feminine given name, a Cornish form of Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere, consort of King Arthur), adopted into English during the 20th century. It may mean “white fairy” (from Proto-Celtic *Uindo-seibrā “white phantom”).

Murray  (Irish) from Mac Muireadhaigh or Ó Muireadhaigh “descendant of Muireadhach” or Mac Giolla Mhuire “descendant of the servant of the Virgin Mary.”