TheDreamstersUnion

Several years ago, during one of Chris’ extended hospital stays (maybe his 2010 bout with sepsis, or his 2011 aortic dissection), Lola was suffering from severe cystitis. The vets that were caring for her at the time tested her and diagnosed her with early kidney failure. I disagreed. I had been feeding her a raw diet, which can skew kidney tests. They told me to start giving her daily subcutaneous fluid injections.

I tried that for a couple days but it was so difficult I ended up putting my head on the kitchen table and sobbing uncontrollably. I decided to find a vet that was open to alternative therapies, and began working with Minnetonka Animal Hospital. They agreed that there was no evidence of kidney disease.

I felt it likely that Lola’s time on the planet would be brief. Her infections would flair every 4 months. I went to see Marlene, the tarot reader that I have been seeing for many years, to ask her about Lola and other issues in my life.

Marlene said Lola would be around for awhile yet. She said that Lola’s energy field is very expansive. She is no ordinary feline. She is my familiar, and extremely sensitive. Her illness is related to her sensitivity. I thought that was intriguing information, and completely unverifiable.

Perhaps a year after the reading, I had a dream that felt lucid, wildly alert: I am seated on the ground under the white pines in the front yard. I can hear everything going on in the two nearest houses, especially the one right next door. I can hear my neighbor Heidi talking to her small children, and I hear their replies as if they are speaking into my ear. I hear every footstep, the shuffle and crackle of every piece of paper, every subtle sound. It took me a few months to understand that the dream was from Lola’s perspective. I was dreaming Lola’s dream.

Six months or so ago a dream fragment presented itself. I realized when I awoke that it was a message from Lola. She showed me the grassy sand dunes of Moore Lake, where I played with the neighborhood kids and where our cat Boots would hunt for ducks and muskrats. Boots and I were deeply connected. Lola told me, telepathically, that she had been Boots in a past life. Boots died a horrible death from poisoning, so perhaps if Lola is the reincarnation of Boots, her compromised immune system is a reflection of that. Who knows.

In October I had this dream: I have entered a living room where my friend Mary (Mother Mary!) is caring for her father, who has Alzheimer’s. My awareness is close to the floor. I can see all of the cat toys and dust bunnies under the sofa. When it is time for me to leave, I search the entryway for my shoes. I can find only one of my canvas flats. It has a pointed white toe.

This time it took only a few hours to connect this dream to Lola. I am her kitty mother and I do care for a man with dementia (Chris has cognitive impairment from his brain tumor 20 years ago). Lola has white toes on her rear paws.

Day notes:

I started writing this yesterday. At 5:30 this morning I had to take Lola to the emergency vet to be treated for another infection.

When I was at Peace Valley in the Ozarks I roomed with an animal communicator named Faun. She felt she already knew me from somewhere. Perhaps it is a good idea to ask her about Lola. I have been so distracted by Chris’ health issues I have not been in contact with anyone I met there.

(Wednesday, December 2, 2015) moon: third quarter Virgo / tarot: Crone of Cups

I travel to a building that has been in my dreams for over a year. I think it first appeared in my dream of the white-haired Philip Seymour Hoffman. It was in the last dream I had before the 2015 IASD conference in Virginia Beach.

The building is deep red brick, built in the style of my old high school. It is a single story, simply but elegantly constructed, with a central, rectangular courtyard. Most of the courtyard is filled by a large pool of water. Many people stand along the banks of the man-made lake.

I walk along the shoreline, entering a door that leads to a small room that has the feeling of my childhood bedroom. On a table sits a glass jar with a small Mr. Magoo type character inside. My 3D project. The tiny bald doll holds two fabric banners, each of which say “SALE.” Also on one of the banners is printed the image of a human skull. The skull was not processed correctly before it was printed (it’s full of “artifacts”) and needs touching up in Photoshop. I have been working with the company president and vice president, both of whom are highly critical. Their minds change with the wind. I lose my patience. I can’t do this kind of commercial work anymore. I decide to leave both the room and the design profession.

At the moment I make this decision a tall white-haired man appears next to me. He is a master healer and teacher, serious and calm in nature. I receive a telepathic message from the community of souls on the edge of the pool that this is a great blessing. This teacher is a very evolved entity. But I do not know if he is here to heal me, or to teach me how to heal. I think of Chiron, The Wounded Healer.

My teacher and I converse as we walk along the lakeshore to a wooden wharf that opens to the sea. On the wharf are dozens of women of every age, all wearing identical tan dresses, lounging about like joyful sea lions. The brown, sun-kissed skin of the mermaids glows. I receive another telepathic message: powerful solar rays have penetrated to their bones, healing them.

We turn back along the shore and enter the building again. I see a thin, lovely woman in great emotional pain, standing with her belly to a countertop, her back facing me. I drape a soft gold and magenta shawl (cashmere? prayer shawl?) around her shoulders. I am surprised to understand that this gift has healed her.

At this moment my teacher morphs into a trickster figure. He is fey, with a peaked tuft of snow white hair, what the character Jonathan Strange would describe as “thistle-down.” I receive two telepathic messages: he is a famous intuitive healer from two hundred years ago. And he heals by drawing energy from the earth, up his shins, along his belly to the top of his pointed mane.

I know he cannot be Edgar Cayce, because the timeframe is wrong, and his persona is that of an elemental. But during his time on the earth plane he was a famous as Cayce.

I walk along the banks of the lake, meeting many souls, sometimes finding the ability to heal those in need. When my energy becomes drained from this work, I kneel on the ground and my fairy guide covers me like a blanket, an etheric blanket I cannot feel with my physical body. This is how he heals me.

Day notes:

Chris’ surgery is tomorrow.

Last night I was reading about “earthing.” Grounding the electrical charge of the body.

The serious white-haired teacher reminds me of my dream character Harry the Magician.

 

 

(Monday, November 23, 2015) moon: waxing gibbous Aries / tarot: nine of swords

I meet family members at a square restaurant table, near the Stone Arch Bridge. Alea and Cullan are there, and my two sisters Jo and Jamie. My brother Kurt’s energetic presence is also there, but not his physical body. Everyone is seated on two sides of the table; the other two sides remain open. Alea and I sit on the same side of the table, at opposite corners.

Alea is in such tremendous grief she does not look up when I seat myself and she does not speak to anyone at the table throughout the course of the dream. I discover from my sisters that her father has developed such serious asthma that he is dead or close to death. This is a huge shock to me on several levels. I am deeply hurt that no one has communicated this news to me in the conventional manner. And I am ashamed that I have not accessed the information on my own via social media (Facebook), as my sisters have done.

I step away from the table and walk out onto a grassy field. I fold my hands over my face and sob for a long time, trying to wash away the pain and shame. I am lucid enough in my dream to recognize a bit of ego in this, and when no one pays attention to my tears, I walk back to the table and sit down quietly.

The essence of Cullan is always with me at the table, even as he tries to console Alea. So very comforting to me.

My sisters and I decide that I need to empty my bag, the small black leather shoulder purse that I bought years ago for traveling (it closes with zippers, not just flaps or snaps). I carefully remove all the items and determine which I will save and which I will discard. I’m grateful for this process. It’s a relief to let go. I hand over the empty bag to Cullan. I notice that I am holding a wallet in my lap that my sisters gave to Alea and Cullan as a housewarming gift a year ago. Cullan and Alea have “taken what they need and left the rest.” I hand the wallet to my youngest sister Jamie, who sits to my left, between Alea, Cullan and me.

Then I look up. Bonnie is standing at the left, open side of the square table. She asks me, rather sternly, when Chris is having his surgery. “December 3,” I say. It seems this is the first time I have communicated the date to my family.

Suddenly I am in another landscape, a large park, rather like the Como Zoo, walking around a huge square pit with a young father and his son, holding on to the metal rail with my left hand. Traveling counter-clockwise. Biding time as Chris undergoes his surgery. The pit is full of animals on display. Small fish jump out of a pool and land on the ground in front of my feet. I desperately scoop them up and return them to the square pond. Trying to save them. Trying to give them oxygen.

Day notes:

Chris is having osteo surgery December 3. He thinks these are our last few days together.

I am hosting Thanksgiving, preparing the table for my family.

The area of the Stone Arch Bridge is the oldest area of white settlement in Minneapolis. Cullan works in St. Anthony Main. There once was a limestone island sacred to the Dakota below St. Anthony Falls called Spirit Island. It was mined for the limestone and is no longer visible above the water of the Mississippi. The edge of the river is guarded by iron handrails like those in my dream.

My two sisters are very domestic. Family (their children and grandchildren) is the most important focus of their lives. But they both have cut themselves off from my brother and have not spoken to him in 25 years. The irony of this is quite painful to me. Forgiveness heals not just the one forgiven but also those that forgive.