Category: Uncategorized

(Saturday, April 6, 2019) waxing crescent moon Taurus, tarot Hanged Man

I dream that Chris and I have moved into a different house. It is much more expensive and expansive than our 1960 ranch-style house in Plymouth. The neighborhood is a modernized village, built along hillsides, haphazardly structured: the buildings twist and turn. No grid. There is very little space between lots and houses. It feels like Tangletown, where Cullan and Hillary live.

In the beginning of the dream, I walk with a female friend down an old, grassy dirt road. The atmosphere is cosmic grey. We are heading together to the new house.

We arrive. The house is several stories tall. It’s busy. People enter and are involved in events on multiple floors. Chris participates in some of these events, but I cannot, because my heart is broken. I miss the wide range of animal lives that joined us at our Plymouth acre. The animals inspired me and touched my heart deeply, birds and mammals of a wide variety. I remember the contract I created with Jill Purce in Glastonbury: “love for the animals.”

I stand in the kitchen with my friend, focusing on the physical environment. The wallpaper, carpet and furniture disappoint me. They are dated and lack design sophistication. The rooms are too full of furniture, artwork, knick-knacks and utilitarian objects. Packed. The carpet is a dreadful floral pattern. I dislike the wallpaper, too, and start to peel it off the wall behind the sink. This house needs my renewal skills.

Day notes:

We have results from Chris’ MRI. His Hepatitis C has grown, and he is now diagnosed with early-stage cirrhosis of the liver. His weight is down to 160 pounds. His spine has weakened into scoliosis and he has declined from 6 feet in height to less than 5 feet ten inches. We are full of grief. My wages are almost fully required to pay our medical expenses, but we must move forward with the prescription for Hep-C as soon as possible or he will die of cirrhosis.

I wonder if the multi-story house is a hospital. Or a different dimensional reality. Chris is socially comfortable; I am overwhelmed with sorrow.

Memorial Day 2019: The multi-story house seemed to match Fairview Southdale Hospital Day Surgery, where I had my eye operation in April. Surprisingly outdated decor and furniture.

(Thursday, February 7, 2019) waxing crescent moon Pisces, tarot 8 of swords

I drove Jeanne Cowan to her knee surgery on Wednesday, then brought her home and stayed overnight to make sure she could manage her pain and her ability to walk.

A motion-detecting knick-knack of two little cardinals rests on a shelf near her stairs and front closet. As I draped my coat on a hanger the red birds started to sing wildly. We both laughed. “Jim is here,” Jeanne said. Her theory is that the spirit of her deceased husband Jim Jankowicz activates the birdies. It seems true enough, because I passed by the cardinals many times over the next two days and they never made a sound. They cry when I first enter the house and then are silent.

I slept in the guest room upstairs, next to Jim’s old bedroom and across from Jeanne’s room. The last time I stayed at the house I saw an illuminated orb hover over the top of Jim’s funeral urn. A shade fell crashing from a window, along with a few other odd events I have forgotten. He greeted me in multiple ways.

This time I awaken in the middle of the night with sleep paralysis. Lying flat on my belly, a mysterious pressure pushes my whole body into the mattress. Eventually I am able to break free.

I fall quickly back to sleep. Suddenly, my phone chimes more loudly than I have ever heard before. Bells are ringing like a cathedral. I reach over to grab the mobile from the night table. The screen is flashing and alerting me that the battery charge is almost empty, so I put my hand behind the headboard to push the charger into the wall outlet more firmly.

The charger thunks onto the wooden floor. Irritated, I get out of bed to turn on the lights, but the lamp on the table does not work. Neither does the lamp on the wall. I lucidly understand this as a false awakening, because the experience is one of hyper-reality. As I stand by the door, recognizing the dream state, I hear Jeanne’s voice issue a firm, one-sentence directive from Jim’s room.

Her voice is much deeper than normal. Masculine. I sense she is standing in the dark, wearing a black priest’s robe. I cross the threshold, enter the room, and my body dissolves into the void. Jeanne’s presence disappears.

I remember her directive (even though when I truly awaken it is forgotten) and move out of the void, back into my physical form. I step into her bedroom. She is lying delicately on her mattress. Her body is weak. I slide my arms beneath it and lift her out of bed, carrying her over to a west-facing, rough-hewn square window that overlooks a large green field. The atmosphere over the field is the grey void.

Jeanne kneels and rests against the wall, talking quietly with me. I stand, looking outside. There is no glass or screen covering the window, so I lean out as if reaching through a Dutch half-door.

I see a young, round-faced boy, perhaps 4 or 5 years old, playing alone in the field. It feels like I am viewing the distant past, and that the little boy is Jim. I watch him for a long time.

Day notes:

When I tell Jeanne the dream, she says that Jim used to stay with his grandmother at her farm during the day. His parents were working at their small-town newspaper in Verdigre, Nebraska. The bed I slept on once belonged to Jim’s grandmother.

This is the same day I found out about the male gender of my grandchild. Is this related in some way? My father’s name is also Jim. He grew up on a farm and had a Czech grandmother, just like Jim Jankowicz. The farmhouse my father lived in had a Dutch door in the kitchen.

(Saturday, February 2, 2019) Groundhog’s Day, waning crescent moon Capricorn, tarot Moon

I awoke early this morning and thought I had not dreamt. This one sifted up slowly, vibrantly in some scenes. The very end fades so I cannot be completely certain of the final episode.

I sit in the middle of a tiered lecture hall that is beginning to fill with people. The narrow, vertically rectangular room is attached to a huge, beautiful art history museum that is world-renowned, at the same plane as the Louvre or the Rijksmuseum. The structure is made from refined stone walls with an elegant sheen. Granite? The building is many stories tall and acres wide. Perhaps infinite in size.

The lecture hall is the place where people bring their entries to the NCECA exhibits (National Council on Education for Ceramic Arts). Everyone is carrying cardboard boxes full of ceramics. The room where the judges sit is between the hall and the museum: a connecting space, a bridge, located on the second floor over the top of the large ground-level entry door. A skyway between the two-story lecture hall and the museum.

I am the newest member to this group of ceramic artists. My pieces are small and raw. Primitive. As I sit awaiting my turn with an art juror, I sense the incredible wisdom-energy of the museum and am grateful to be able to enter it soon.

I wait and wait. I begin to feel uncomfortable that my level of expertise about this process is flawed, so I enter the jury room to ask some questions. A stern older woman judge sits on a wooden chair in the middle of the room, interviewing applicants. The room is full of boxes of accepted work. I see that my sculptures are not properly packed. They have no foam protection. I suggest to the judge that I wrap them in paper, but that is not good enough. I leave the room, dejected.

The dream shifts to a resort-style area on the edge of an immense, blue Minnesota lake. The sloping, grassy shore is populated with large deciduous trees. Boats float on the water. I walk and walk on the green mound. 

I end up in the kitchen of my grandmother’s farmhouse. The industrial designer from work, John B, is sitting on the wooden chair my great-uncle John Sheehan used when he visited during lunchtime meals.

John has made a large white porcelain or stoneware teacup with a matching white saucer. The dishes are refined yet roughly hand-hewn at the same time, with a vibration that reminds me of Alice in Wonderland and the big cup slurped by the Mad Hatter at tea-time.

The cup has a delicate black matrix pattern and also a few spontaneous, colored brushstrokes. I ask John if the grid is a decal. He says yes.

The dream shifts back to the lecture hall, which is now nearly completely full of artists who will be exhibiting in the conference shows. I search desperately for a chair. I end up at the top of the room, at the very back row. Second story. The dream really fades. I think I get the last chair in the far corner of the room (right to me, left to the professor presenter).

Day notes:

The NCECA conference is at the Minneapolis Convention Center this year. My ceramic-artist friend Anne is coming from Chicago with her professor and studio mates. We both applied for a ceramic show at the MCBA and were rejected. I then joined the Minnesota Women Ceramic Artists and applied for their show called “Unapologetic: Women!” That deadline was yesterday. I’ll find out February 13 if I make it in to their gallery at the Northrup King building. There is also a show in New York that I am going to apply for called “The Emotional Animal” juried by Crystal Morey. I have seen her porcelain sculptures of white wolves and other animals at Northern Clay.

The designer John B used to work at Kohler in Wisconsin, so he is familiar with white porcelain! Potters do not normally make saucers for cups these days. That is quite formal.

I follow a YouTube channel called “Jon the Potter.” He lives near Lake Waconia and owns a coffee shop called “Mocha Monkey.” The shop sells his pottery, using his ceramics for customer beverages and treats. Jon is lovely, energetic and fun. Maybe he will be at the conference. One of his videos was about packing pottery safely. Scenes show him throwing boxes of cups off of the rooftop of his house.

The tiered lecture hall is a recurring theme for me. This time I dream of an art conference, not a dream conference.