Famous Woman (Two Dreams)

(Saturday, May 28, 2016) third quarter moon in Aquarius / tarot: moon

Friday morning dream: only fragments remain, as I was falling in and out of sleep in the early morning. But extremely vivid fragments. A powerful, tangible sense of physical reality.

I’m in a room busy with activity. It reminds me a little of Sheila Asato’s old Monkey Bridge Arts teaching studio, full of white plastic folding tables and chairs. Temporary, moveable. I’m standing in front of one white table, organizing small items on the surface. Teaching a class? Below the table lies the shrouded body of my sister Jamie. Her head and torso are covered by the right side of the table but her feet stick out into the room. Her shroud is lightly wrapped so that details of her body are clear. Both feet. The shroud is not white (orange?) and it may be soft fiber paper rather than cloth. There is additional wrapping of a different color (blue?) loosely covering her hands and torso.

I have grief about the close intimacy of death, but not overwhelming grief. I know it’s part of the story of the dream, and that there is more to come.

Beneath the left side of the table sits Lola’s cat carrier. The fastener clips are open and a stick of wood is balanced across the top, midway. An inner voice tells me that even though this is a physical object with a mundane function in daily life, the shape of it has meaning in the spiritual dimension. The metaphysical shape is a rectangular cube holding a wand at midpoint. I find this information deeply satisfying. It confirms my passion for the sculptural.

The dream memory skips to a conversation with other women, students from the art studio. We are now standing in the twilight in a beautiful St. Paul neighborhood with winding, hilly streets. I tell them that Linda Ronstadt grew up here. One woman refutes my statement (Linda is really from Tucson) but I have an irrevocable sense of Linda singing the song “Heart Like a Wheel,” which was written by Kate and Anna McGarrigle (I do prefer their version from 1975):

“Some say heart is just like a wheel
When you bend it, you can’t mend it
And my love for you is like a sinking ship
And my heart is on that ship out in mid ocean

They say that death is a tragedy
It comes once and it’s over
But my only wish is for that deep dark abyss
‘Cause what’s the use of living with no true lover

When harm is done no love can be won
I know it happened frequently
What I can’t understand, oh please God, hold my hand
Why it should have happened to me

And it’s only love and it’s only love
That can wreck a human being and turn him inside out
That can wreck a human being and turn him inside out”

Day notes:

I saw horrible news footage the day after this dream of ships carrying Syrian refugees sinking in the Mediterranean.

My coworker Kate lives in St. Paul and is a music lover. We traveled to Phoenix together. She has a big, open heart.

Saturday morning dream: foggier in sensibility, a long meandering dream that seems to take all night.

A group of my Phoenix female coworkers and I have flown to Virginia Beach for meetings. Midweek we are supposed to fly to New York City, and then at the end of the week fly home. A famous actor, who was in the movie “To Kill a Mockingbird,” is a member of our team of women. Her name always escapes me. Maybe because none of the actresses in that film were truly famous, other than for their participation in a great masterpiece. Scout?

The actor has taken a shine to me. She needs to leave early, and she wants me to come to New York early too. She departs, telling me she has bought a ticket for me that leaves Virginia at 10:30 the next morning. No more information than that. I don’t know the airline, the ticket number, my confirmation number, my seat. Nothing.

I grab a cab first thing in the morning from the hotel, but, rather like the crazy ride Bonnie and I took from the San Francisco airport to Berkeley, the cab meanders. When I finally arrive at the airport, I quickly run to a ticket counter, trying to find my flight. I am handed off to an achingly slow-moving woman who takes me on a tour of the airport, up and down elevators, through gates and corridors. We discover my flight and confirmation number at 10:50, when the plane is already in the air.

I have to make a decision. Do I try to catch another flight? Do I go back to the hotel where my coworkers are staying? Do I cater to my frustration and go home?

I find a new, peaceful hotel room in Virginia Beach and rest there for a few days, alone.

Day notes:

As I was writing this, a huge old possum walked across the back of the yard. In 20 years of living here, I have never seen a possum. “Opossum’s greatest form of protection is to play dead … opossum has developed an act that would receive an Academy Award in the animal kingdom (Jamie Sams).” I wonder if it was a mama possum with babies in her big pouch. Possums have 13 nipples, a lunar number.

Last night on the news I saw Ali McGraw, the actress and animal activist from Santa Fe. The turquoise sky and rose-sienna adobe in the background made my heart ache to be there.

Mockingbird spirit animal helps you find your sacred song, your life purpose.

Memorial Day, dreams of passing.

It seems a powerful, creative female guide (songstress, actress) has messages. Rest. Change your work. Focus on dreamtime.