Category: Uncategorized

(Wednesday, October 23, 2019) waning crescent moon Virgo / tarot 5 of wands

The spectacular ending to a full night of dreaming:

I carry a seven-month old baby boy in my arms. We share deep love between us. I cherish holding him so close to me. We walk through the entryway to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, heading toward an escalator sheathed in ice.

But before we make it to the central escalator, we turn to the left and enter a military infirmary full of young soldiers who are victims of a pandemic, the Spanish flu of 1918. In the dream I am aware that baby and I are time travelers. Every detail of the room is potently real: layers of blankets, woolen stockings and caps, wooden paneled partitions. The young men watch us carefully as we pass through each aisle. They seem astounded, perplexed by our presence, yet say nothing. We walk past the nurses’ desk and return to the MCAD lobby.

The pathway to the escalator is long and dangerously slick. At my age I do not trust my balance. I’m afraid the trail will cause me to topple with baby. I get down on my knees and hold baby up under his arms so he can do a little toddle-walk. I crawl, he walks.

Once we reach the steps, after slow and careful movement, we are unable to mount the escalator. The handrails are covered with thick stones of ice that shatter and fall when touched by my palms. It’s like trying to climb a glacier. Impossible.

This causes me deep, deep sorrow. I want us to experience art school together. We have visibility to many of the floors and studios, but we cannot reach them.

We move to the right, to a second lobby with an even higher escalator. It’s the Minneapolis Institute of Art, hurrah! Excitement returns.

This escalator is easily accessible. I hop on, cuddling baby, and he blurts out his first word: “Clay!” I am astonished. I am in ecstasy. I know of no infant who began talking at seven months. I am even more pleased that his first word is one of my passions in life, the art of ceramics.

He adds a few more random words to his story, experimenting with language. Then he digs in and creates complex, beautiful sentences about art theory and the details of exhibits at the MIA, particularly ceramics and sculpture. He points energetically at the subject matter of each exclamation as we rise along the escalator. An experience of rapture for us both. Joyful baby genius.

Day notes (Saturday, March 21, 2020):

I had this dream when my grandson Wyn Franklin was four months old. It was curious to me that he was seven months old in the dream. When the coronavirus hit Wuhan, Wyn was seven months old. At the time of the dream, I thought it was a past-life memory of the 1918 Pandemic, which it very well may be, but now I also find it prophetic of COVID-19. Wyn started walking at seven months, needing just a small amount of support under his arms.

In the dream, I have no access to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. All schools and universities in Minnesota shut down in early March. Museums, including the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, closed a little later (MCAD and MIA campuses are adjacent to each other). Being a member of the MIA, I received an email after their closure promoting their online galleries, which in a subtle way reminds me of viewing the galleries from an electronic escalator.

(Wednesday, October 2, 2019) waxing crescent Sagittarius / tarot 9 of sparks

I’m up north, near Lake Superior, in a large conference center full of people moving from white room to white room. There I meet with an older, platinum-haired woman, an art professor who is mentoring me. We walk outside, heading on to the Grand Marais Art Colony.

We enter the Art Colony studio. My teacher stands in front of an old altar-stage, like the one in the original wood-frame church, facing two rows of student chairs. I sit in the back row, against the wall, one seat away from the left aisle. My feet are wearing elfish slippers and my right ankle crosses my left knee. A woman comes to sit next to me, on my left, on the aisle, and nearly bumps my toes. She looks into my eyes in a very pointed way, but says nothing.

The professor begins to present, painting rapidly to illustrate her story, and not just with quick, loose brushstrokes. One swash of her brush creates a complete, three dimensional image. Spectacular.

Eventually we leave the studio and walk to the edge of an astonishing cliff. She gently begins coaxing me to leap over the edge of the chasm. Terrifying. The fall is tens of thousands of feet, maybe more. I can’t even be sure I see the earth below. My guardian gives me a sturdy garden shovel to help with my downward journey. I hold the handle and stand on top of the blade. We descend together.

Day notes:

I mailed Jill’s thank you card to London today. Jill has white hair and is similar in size to the guardian in my dream.

I found out about my old studio-mate Denisea’s “The Art Goddess” blog yesterday and read a very fine entry about her aunt’s spirit presence. I met Denisea on my first trip to the Grand Marais Art Colony. That was one of the most mystical experiences of my life. I need to add that story to my blog.

I spent Saturday with Bonnie at the Park Rapids “Art Leap” festival. This photo that she took we call my “Hanged Man” pose.

A dream of heaven and the angelic realm.

(Thursday, September 12, 2019) full harvest moon Pisces / tarot seven of sparks (wands)

Bonnie and I are at the close of Healing the Ancestors. Bonnie has wavy dark hair and looks like a combination of Joanne, Kiah and her own body. She and I have been Jill’s assistants, like Leah was on Cortes Island. The dream environment doesn’t look like Hollyhock, though: it looks like the building in the first retreat dream I had in June (Love On A Tibetan Peak) and even a little like the Airbnb dream.

My sister Jamie was in attendance with us. She is leaving with all of the other participants. She doesn’t feel that it was a successful practice for her, which surprises me because I don’t think many people would have said that about the real event.

Bonnie and I finish cleaning up the site and finish up paperwork too. I decide to head out into nature, towards the sea. The sky is blue and clear. I follow the rocky shoreline, sometimes needing to lean and touch the big boulders with my hands to help my balance. It’s a tricky walk.

I come to a long, long bridge that connects to the distant, western mainland. I feel no temptation at the moment to enter the bridge, but I know it is something I must do in the future. I sense the overlapping layers of bridge dreams I have had over a lifetime.

I walk a few steps past the bridge and see the most astonishing sight. A huge, graceful seal is flying through the air, weaving and spinning as if it is swimming under the ocean. So beautiful, so inspiring! Yet in a few seconds it is gone.

I decide to carefully head down the stony bank to the water. I have another surprising, joyful experience: a small boy greets me, having just entered the earth plane from the fairy realm. He sparkles! He fully radiates magic. It is Wyn, I am certain. My heart is full to the brim.

Day notes:

I listened to Jill’s talk last night on the Shift Network’s sound healing webinar. She was as wonderful as I expected she would be.