(Thursday, January 30, 2020) waxing crescent moon Aries / tarot two of swords
I am stepping down a huge wooded hill that slopes to the bank of a wide river or ocean sound. Vancouver? The soil beneath my feet is deeply fertile and black. Moist and aromatic. The trees are tall, old pines with no undergrowth beneath them. Their canopy shields the sun in a gentle way. It’s completely quiet: an ancient forest.
In my arms I hold a rainbow-colored salmon or trout the size of a domestic cat. She rests peacefully on my right arm and I cuddle her with my left.
As we get closer to the water’s edge the trees thin and the sun shines warmly on our bodies. I notice a high-bridge to my right that I have dreamt of before: the bridge to The Ancestors. It is not my time to crossover.
We reach the shoreline. My beautiful, shimmering rainbow fish suddenly disappears from my arms, then manifests on a large boulder in the water. Resting. The flowing channel is too deep for me to step into and join her. The boulder is exactly like the one Lola would sleep on for hours in the summer.
Day notes:
Salmon spirit animal is rebirth, eternal life, happiness, fertility, creativity.
(Monday, January 27, 2020) waxing crescent moon Pisces / tarot: Sunday 9 of swords, today Moon
Our beloved feline Lola began having serious health issues last week. She would choke on her food or treats, and her voice changed dramatically. All of her life she had a tiny, high-pitched voice. She never really meowed; she just made a short squeak. “Anh!” She was now meowing at a low pitch, and her purr sounded like a loud rattle.
The vets discussed end-of-life plans but also suggested feeding her gruel: mixing her canned food with warm water. That was really helpful for four days. She seemed happy. Then on Saturday afternoon she howled at the top of her lungs, vomiting three times. She stopped eating. She slept next to me all night and vomited two more times: spittle, not food.
In the morning she went to hide under my bed, so I knew it was time to end her pain. I, the human, howled in agony. I began to sob and shutter as I called MN Pets to schedule her in-home euthanasia.
The vet, Dr. Susan, came at 10:15. I have told everyone I can that she is one of the earth’s Kind Souls. Half of her professional time is spent putting animals gently to sleep, and it shows. She’s been doing it for over 20 years. Lola was shy and a “one-person cat.” I worried that having a stranger come to her home could be disastrous. It was the opposite. Dr. Susan loved Lola’s tiny white elephant toes. She completely took care of Lola, and she took care of me too.
I held Lola in my lap as the two doses of medication were injected. Surprised, I felt a lump on the side of her abdomen I had never felt before. Later, Chris told me the same. He had been feeling lumps on her body. Her brain tumor must have spread to her throat and her stomach.
She passed rapidly, peacefully. Her body was soft and beautiful. I kissed the top of her head, then Dr. Susan and I carefully placed her into her cremation basket, covering her with two green plaid blankets.
Later, in the evening, I sat in bed next to the candle I’d lit for Lola’s passing. I was ready to put out the flame. I looked out the window at the trees that had given me a vision the day I returned from Vancouver. Through the branches I saw two illuminated windows in the house kitty-corner from our yard. They were exactly adjacent, warm gold in color. Lola’s eyes were exquisite, sometimes turquoise and sometimes golden. These windows looked just like her eyes! I felt she was gazing at me from the darkness. I blew out the candle. Amazed. Grateful. Broken-hearted.
I am the passenger in a vehicle that skims along the edge of a country road and brushes against the side of a startled deer. The driver laughs. I guess it is my father, a hunter who has little compassion for wild animals.
Later in the dream I stand on a ridge, looking into the bottom of a grassy hollow where a small pack of dire wolves are heading up the steep hill. Time for humans to vamoose.
In the next scene I am inside of my grandmother Sheehan’s farmhouse. Our ancestral home. We know that the dire wolves are on their way, but we as a family have negotiated with the pack. They will not harm us. We have agreed to place a sacrificial offering, a large basket full of egg yolks, in the front yard for them to eat. They direct us to pull down all window blinds when they arrive. As I quickly lock the front porch door, a huge wolf rises up the concrete steps, gazing at me through the screen.
Day notes:
(April 19, 2020)
This is my second dire wolf dream. When I shared the first one with my dream group, I saw it as a message of mass extinction (dire wolves became extinct 10,000 years ago). Now I see the wolves as symbols of the coronavirus. Dire straits. Nearly every journalist uses the word “dire” to describe aspects of the the pandemic. The journalist Rachel Maddow calls the virus “a beast.”Today the global death toll is 161,270.Mass extinction.
A peak of the US virus was during the Easter season. The golden egg yolks bring to mind the spherical shape of the virus. The yolks also look like the sun. The solar outer atmosphere is called the corona, which is only visible to humans during an eclipse. In ancient times, eclipses were considered episodes of punishment and abandonment.
