Category: Denise

(Wednesday, February 25, 2015)  First quarter moon in Gemini / tarot: ace of cups

A dream of very insistent characters who focus on physical and emotional connection. I am beginning to understand Robert Waggoner’s idea that certain kinds of dream visitors are independent entities. They are not metaphorical or archetypal. This might be easier to discern in a lucid dream but it is evident in other kinds of dreams as well:

I am in the car with Chris and he is driving. We are traveling though the city in a torrential downpour of rain. He is unwell; we may be driving back from the hospital or a doctor appointment. He is losing his concentration and ability to drive, especially in the dangerous weather conditions. He actually stops the car in the middle of an intersection. He has fallen asleep. I shake his arm, insisting that he pull over so I can grab the wheel.

He parks the car next to a curb. We switch seats. I am so distraught, and visibility is so poor, that when I pull away from the sidewalk I knick the bumper of an old Renault parked in front of us. I drive a few feet and park in front of the lightly damaged vehicle. I feel frustrated with myself, and overwhelmed by Chris’ failing health.

The woman who owns the Renault is seated next to her car, at a table in a sidewalk cafe. It’s still raining in the city, but the clouds have opened around her and she is perfectly dry. I approach her to apologize for the accident. She is a tall, auburn-haired, handsome woman with a kind face, beautifully dressed.

She’s not even interested in discussing the accident. She invites me to sit on the metal cafe chair across from her and begins to ask me questions about my life. She asks if I am multilingual, speaking to me in French, even though, based on her appearance, I think she is Dutch. I tell her I cannot speak French but I can understand it and read it a little. Other languages as well, because of the design work I do with translated text. She continues to chat in many other languages, amazing me with her fluidity of tongue. I am in the company of a brilliant and sophisticated woman.

She starts to tell me about the work that she and her husband are doing with young people. Her teen-aged daughters and their friends are sitting in the cafe too, laughing, coming by periodically to tease their mother, with great affection. The presence of the girls creates memories of other parts of the city, other times, other events. Layers. Perhaps I am experiencing telepathy or remote viewing with some of them.

There is a slight commotion and we look behind us. The woman’s husband is heading towards us, crossing the street, with one arm wrapped around Chris. He is supporting Chris with strength and compassion, looking directly into Chris’ eyes. He has that laser-beam gaze I am beginning to recognize in dreams. Like in my Ben Franklin and “Shaking Hands with George” dreams. It’s very important for this man that Chris recognize him. There is love between them.

The husband is tall and European like his wife. A jolly soul. The clouds part for him as well, even though the rest of the city is drenched.

I converse warmly with this couple for many minutes, and then we say good bye. At the moment of our parting a tremendous wind stirs and tears a book from the hands of the husband, which opens and lands face down on the street beneath my car. The book is many pages thick. It is their life story. Unfortunately the publisher made critical errors during production: the photo and font links are broken, making the text illegible (appearing almost like hieroglyphs) and the photos dark and blurry. The images of the couple look shadowed, ghostly.

Chris and I get back into our vehicle and drive to our condo in the city. The walls of the condo are high, maybe twenty feet tall, made of black and grey granite. Like a monument or mausoleum.

Day notes:

When I awake I have a message in my head that this dream is called “Yoga Couple.” Which is a clue that the couple is Dutch. I am subscribed to an email newsletter from Ekhart Yoga in the Netherlands, which is run by a husband and wife.

This dream has many precognitive elements, but it is primarily a past-life dream. Sabine said my dream called “Double Dutch” was a past-life dream about a life Chris and I had in Holland, and I think this is about the same couple. The intensity and physical presence of the characters is a clue. So is the book (Akashic Record). So are the tomb walls and the winds of change.

 

In the afternoon I am at the Sprint store getting help with my new iPhone 6. The Sprint employee reinstalls my Google Translate app. He ask why I need the app and I say I do translation work as part of my job, and I am going to Europe next year.

 

(One day after this dream) Sem Wildenburg from our Amsterdam office (who speaks 5 languages) emailed me at about 4 in the afternoon for some help on tradeshow graphics. It was 11 in the evening in Amsterdam, which is a pretty normal time to hear from him. After I sent Sem what he needed he said he wished there would be an opportunity to see me again because he would like to take me out to dinner to thank me. I told him I would be in the Netherlands in 2016 and he could certainly take me out to dinner then!

 

Comments from dream group March 18

 

Pat: 

 

I was thinking last night that the French word for rain and cry are fairly close in pronunciation and spelling – “I cry” Pleure and “rain” Pluie. This came to me because the woman at the cafe is, at first anyway, speaking French and several of us saw a connection between the rain in the dream and heavy emotions. So, if it were my dream, The two would appear to be connected since I (the dreamer) am just coming out of that heavy downpour. Also, the wind seems important. The other husband is about to leave with the book in his hands, apparently not intending to share it with the dreamer. But a force comes along that is larger and unseen, the wind, and literally tears the book from his hand and sends it to land under the dreamer’s vehicle, where it would surely be noticed and picked up by the dreamer. This reminds me that the narrative of the dream is larger than any individual characters. There is something essential about the contents of this book (life story of the other couple, apparently encoded), be brought to the conscious mind of the dreamer, in the dream, but also upon awakening. I think wind is often associated with spirit moving through, impacting everything it touches. I also associate it with change, big wind = big changes. It may also be blowing away the clouds and rain that obscure one’s vision.I know we covered this last one in the group, but I don’t recall everything so I will just add this. Hieroglyphics (combination of word and picture) – ancient language that’s been, to some extent, lost to our modern understanding. The work of the dreamer going forward, perhaps, is to connect the dots of understanding through time, bringing ancient ways of communication into the present time.The fact that, in the cafe, there is this amazing ease of communication – all languages easily understood, telepathy the norm, seeing layers of the city in mental images (remote viewing). Perhaps this ease of knowing is part of what we have now lost which is ancient.

 

Bonnie:

 

I was thinking about what you said (Sabrina told you this if I have it correct) that our higher self is our most enlightened past life. It seemed to me that your Dutch woman fits that roll. Maybe also, the man was Chris’ and it is nice to see that his higher self is “supporting” him and working at getting him to see. What I take from your dream is that my higher self is always sitting at that cafe eager to talk with me. And that I am so very appreciative.

Wednesday night Chris and I watched “Owl Power” on PBS. We loved it, and Thursday night I sent an email to my friend Jeanne C. (nickname: Birdwoman) to ask if she had seen the show. Of course she had. Friday morning, a little before sunrise, I saw the shadow of a large bird fly past the window. I looked out to see a huge owl land on our neighbor’s arbor. For many years we have heard a Great Horned Owl “hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo” in the backyard, but have never seen it. I think this owl may have been even bigger, maybe a Great Gray Owl, because the bird I saw did not seem to have any “ears” like the Great Horned Owl.

The owl perched on the arbor for several minutes and then swooped down to the ground. She/he sat in the snow next to some bushes for a few more moments, maybe watching for mice or voles, then lifted into the air.

This felt like a blessing to me and to Chris. He has been researching “owl boxes” and we are thinking of putting one up this spring to attract even more beautiful ghost birds.

(Thursday, February 19, 2015, Lunar New Year, Year of the Wood Sheep)  New moon in Pisces / tarot: four of wands

I often have to sit with my dreams for a day to tease out an order of events. Maybe dreams happen in a single moment and the illusion of linear time is added in waking memory. I’m still unsure of the sequence of images in the following dream:

I am visiting Bonnie’s new house with Cullan and Alea. Bonnie first shows us the kitchen, which has two rooms: a butler’s pantry and the preparation area containing countertops, sink and appliances. I am surprised that the house is smaller, cozier than was suggested by the photos I have seen. Even the appliances are the reduced size common in my childhood. The refrigerator is black.

The interior colors are warm and earthy. Floor tiles of polished quartz crystals explode underfoot in complex patterns like starry mandalas. I am mesmerized by their beauty, but I also notice sticky areas on the tiles and I try to polish them clean with my feet. Bonnie’s students must be raiding the kitchen and making messes.

Bonnie is teaching an art class to very lively young children. I can’t locate the exact space where class is being held. Sometimes it seems to be in a large studio next to the kitchen. Sometimes it seems to be in the upper floor, next to the bedrooms. Sometimes it seems to be in the barn next to the house. There is a glass patio door in the kitchen where the kids can run in and out. They are creating costumes from found objects. One child has made a nun’s or witch’s habit out of two stacked black plastic waste baskets: the top is a hood and the bottom is a cape. I think the effort is lazy and brilliant at the same time.

Cullan, Alea and I walk upstairs to see the sleeping loft. We surprise two young lovers in bed. I assume it is Kelsi and her boyfriend, yet both of the lovebirds are black. Very beautiful with large doe eyes. He is an actor I recognize, and she is his exact twin. Kelsi is a little sheepish and I can tell she does not want me to say anything to her mother. Maybe I wink at her, gently.

The three of us, Cullan, Alea and I, head out to the barn. We pass a triangular field of thick, waving grass. The root system is so ancient and deep that it rises several feet above the dirt road. Almost like a salt marsh or a hedgerow.

We notice paper litter strewn in the grass. Cullan and Alea pick it up and put it in a large metal trash container. But they leave a roll of black plastic sheathing in the grass, maybe in their hurry to get to the barn.

And the barn is certainly worth the trip. The barn IS a trip. Taking up a large corner of the stone floor is a potter’s kiln that is breathing huge orange breaths, in and out, in and out. Shaped like a sea urchin, round and squat, covered in furry sweetgrass, it’s on fire and alive. Like a character out of a fairy tale by The Brothers Grimm.

Cullan and Alea stay for a long time, observing this surrealistic creature, but eventually turn back to the house to sleep. I cannot leave the presence of the kiln. I sit alone in the dark for many hours, watching it breathe. When the fire finally ebbs, I reluctantly leave and walk outside, into the peaceful night. On my way to Bonnie’s house I pick up the neglected plastic debris and put it in the waste bin.

Day notes:

 

Where to start? Bonnie has loaned me a wonderful book called “Braiding Sweetgrass.” Sweetgrass is a sacred plant to NDNs. It has reminded me of the potter Amy Sabrina, who lived at Sweetgrass Farm in Dalbo before she passed from breast cancer. The book is a powerful inspiration to respect all of creation, both organic and inorganic.

 

Two mothers and two young couples. Double triad. Six is the number of partnership, marriage, creative collaboration and balance. Union of internal opposites.

 

People whose skin is black (grounded, of the earth, ancestors), black refrigerator (chill? preservation? sustenance?), black plastic (artificial, transformation from organic to inorganic material). Hamilton says there are two kinds of black: that which is distorted/unconscious and that which veils the hidden light. A black plastic sheath could be used to veil light, I suppose.

 

Waste containers are used in the costume/art project, and for holding debris. Cleaning the floor (the ground of being), removing waste (what is not essential), purification of old “habits” and karma. Letting go. New house, new life phase coming into being.

 

Bonnie’s art classes at the IASD are held in multiple locations.

 

The Kiln God has great power! Many potters create a little creature from clay called a kiln god which is used to bless each firing. I made a kiln witch to guard my pieces.

 

Kilns transform earth into stone. Kitchens transform plants and animals into meals, sustenance. Art is transformative, alchemical. A critical point in the firing process happens at 1063 degrees, called quartz inversion. Silica (sand) molecules transform into quartz crystals. Quartz crystals are a recurrent theme in my dreams lately. From wiki: Quartz belongs to the trigonal crystal system. The ideal crystal shape is a six-sided prism terminating with six-sided pyramids at each end.

 

The grass-covered kiln is reminiscent of a muskrat house, a sacred portal revealed to me in my muskrat dream a few years ago.

 

(From Hamilton) mandala: alchemical symbol, balance of the four elements as well as the masculine and feminine.

 

Pat agrees that Terri Peterson’s breath-work is transformative. The interior of the Salt Caves where she holds her Soul Breathing sessions is full of Himalayan salt crystals which glow orange in the light. It feels to me like being inside the body of a working kiln. Terri is doing a workshop at Peace Valley Sanctuary in Arkansas. The site holds an Earthkeeper Crystal and was the area where Caddo and Tula tribes lived. Guests are invited to dig for diamonds and quartz crystals. Nearby Lake Ouachita flows over quartz crystals. The Sanctuary has a loft and a barn. Maybe I am being summoned …