TheDreamstersUnion

Sunday, February 3, 2013

I’m in New Mexico, taking a workshop from the ceramic artist Debra Fritts (who lives in Abiquiu, 50 miles north of Santa Fe). The class is being held outdoors, on a low sandy mesa in the high desert. The day is warm but not hot. The sky is clear and blue: it could be August monsoon season, my favorite.

I’m sitting on the ground on a large Indian blanket, cross-legged. There is a water-filled ditch below the shallow mesa, a little to the right of where I sit. I get up and walk down to the water to retrieve my clothes, which have been soaking in the crystal-clear water.

Floating in the water is my old white blouse, a loose-fitting, square-cut shirt with three-quarter length sleeves that I used to wear at least ten years ago (until it yellowed and I threw it away). There’s a dark-colored jacket, maybe a jean jacket or maybe a black jacket, I’m not sure; also a pair of cheap brown work gloves and fancy white lace fingerless gloves. Tops and gloves are all made of cotton.

I pull everything out and see that the water has purified the cotton fibers: whites are brilliant and dark colors have deepened.

I head back up to the blanket to prepare for the workshop but another woman has taken my place. She is quite haughty; she hasn’t noticed (or doesn’t care) that I had already been seated on “her” corner of the blanket.

I find her irritating and petty. Instead of picking a fight, I pick up my clothes, journal, pencils and other art supplies and move onto another blanket to right of her, a few feet lower on the mesa. I sit alone on the upper left corner of the second blanket, writing in my journal.

I have great respect for Debra and am excited to start the workshop. I’m looking forward to sleeping in the desert, beneath the stars.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

In my dream I wake up on a double bed, inside a small, windowless bedroom on the upper floor of my grandmother’s house. A simple wardrobe stands to my left. The doors of the cabinet face the bed, and the door to the bedroom is next to the wardrobe. Everything is white: the ceiling, the walls, the doors, the wardrobe and the bedclothes. It’s possible that the wallpaper has a small, floral pattern which has faded to white, but I can’t be sure.

A huge male lion is sprawled next to me in bed (on my left side), happily dreaming. He lies on his back with his enormous paws in the air. Even though his mane is thick and mature, his fur is white, flecked with soft grey spots like a baby lion, wonderfully clean and fluffy.

I have been content to share the bed with him all night, but when I awake I begin to have second thoughts.

I get up and walk to the bedroom door, which is only slightly ajar. Someone is on the other side. We discuss our obvious concerns: what if the lion wakes up and escapes the room, attacking the other people in the house? We decide that I can use my design software to contain him. I’ll create a table (chart) and place the lion within the cell of the table, then put a row on top of him and a row below. The empty rows are the key to keeping him safely boxed.

Here I really wake up, before the plan can be implemented or before I know if it should be considered. I don’t know if the lion is a source of danger.

Day notes:

I have never read C.S. Lewis’ book “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” But I thought of it a few days after this dream. The children enter the magical world of Narnia through the doors of a wardrobe. The White Witch is evil, despite being White (she brings the cold of winter and frozen emotions). She kills the lion Aslan, the King of Narnia, on the magical Stone Table. But he is resurrected the next day. Am I the White Witch, fiendishly plotting to vanquish the lion? I’ve rented the film; it’s due to arrive tomorrow.

A lightly floral paper covered the haunted box of my Black Sow dream. It appears again here as wallpaper. The upper floor of my grandmother’s house is the place where The Ancestors reside. I speak through the door to someone “on the other side.” The door is slightly ajar: dreams and meditation are pathways we have “on this side” to access other dimensions.

Am I trapped by my fear of my animal instincts, my true raw power? I plot to imprison the lion with my virtual reality tool, an abstraction. A myth. Why do I fear him in one reality (waking) but not the other (dreaming)? My daily life as a graphic designer imprisons my authentic heart. I am boxed in. The cells of the jail are spiritually empty.

Only in a dream or in a flawed belief system can a 3D lion be imprisoned in a 2D drawing!

I think this lion loves me very deeply. The double bed is the marriage bed. He lies on my left side: my instinctual, creative side.

The Black Sow was covered in velvety fur. The lion is covered with the pristine fur of a lion cub. Fur: royalty, comfort, warmth, prosperity. “A dream of fur on a live animal signifies love, warmth, and happiness.”

My “soul card” in tarot is Strength. The image in the Ryder deck is of a maiden holding open the jaws of a lion.

In waking life I have second thoughts about my mate. Even though I know that in dreamtime, in other dimensions, he is a King. King of awaking from Coma, King of Resurrection from the Dead.

The bedroom feels like an abstraction. The walls are paper. It’s just a theatrical set made of the humblest of materials, a thin skin between my small life and the deep mystery where The Ancestors gather. A gentle sneeze would dissolve the room into a cloud of dust.

When searching for a white lion image for this post, I stumbled on the Global White Lion Protection Trust. I ordered Linda Tucker’s book “The Mystery of the White Lions.” A photo of the white lion Aslan graces the book cover.

May 31, 2013

From Wikipedia:

The Snow Lion, sometimes also Snowlion, (Tibetan: གངས་སེང་གེ་, Wylie: gangs seng ge; Chinese: 瑞獅; pinyin: ruìshī) is a celestial animal of Tibet. It symbolizes fearlessness, unconditional cheerfulness, east and the earth element. It is one of the Four Dignities. It ranges over the mountains, and is commonly pictured as being white with a turquoise mane.

The Snow Lion resides in the East and represents unconditional cheerfulness, a mind free of doubt, clear and precise. It has a beauty and dignity resulting from a body and mind that are synchronized. The Snow Lion has a youthful, vibrant energy of goodness and a natural sense of delight. Sometimes the throne of a Buddha is depicted with eight Snow Lions on it, in this case, they represent the 8 main Bodhisattva-disciples of Buddha Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha. Associations: main quality is fearlessness, dominance over mountains, and the earth element.

Tomorrow I am attending an intro to meditation class at the Shambhala Center. The two Tibetan Buddhist texts I have been reading this spring are published by Snow Lion Press (recently merged with Shambhala Publications).

Friday morning 11.30.12

Chris and I are at home in our very large house. The building’s plan is open and there is an atmosphere of muted, golden twilight because the floor and the furniture are made of oak.

We have been busy, maybe with holiday events, and I have come down with pneumonia. Chris has invited one more guest, Scott, his boyhood friend from Chicago. Scott has never seen the house. So I understand why he has been asked to come but I feel so unwell I plead with Chris to delay the visit. It’s too late, however; Scott is on his way.

I have to call in sick to my old high school. Of course I can’t remember the phone number; I graduated in 1975. I open my clamshell cell to dial 411. The keys are full of red clay and I have to brush off the mud to see the digits.

After the call I stand at the kitchen counter and hear clattering noises in the basement. I go downstairs to investigate. The basement is as generous as the upper level, uncluttered but clearly used for storage, not for living space.

I find an old gift box under the staircase that seems to be the source of the disturbance. It’s a long, narrow box, almost the shape of a florist’s box for long-stemmed roses. The box top and bottom are still encased in giftwrap, many seasons old. I hold the box in my hands and I see the shape of a face pressed into the lid, “looking” at me. Frightening. I lift the cover; there is nothing but tissue paper inside.

I tell the spirit inside the box that I am going to tear the tissue into the tiniest bits, dissolve them in water and wash them into the ocean. But I hear Scott arriving, so I run up the stairs. Exorcism interrupted.

I greet Scott. The three of us catch up near the kitchen. I turn to my left to see a giant, black, velvety sow. The spirit in the box has transformed into a creature with luxurious, shimmering fur, like a domesticated rabbit or a sleek black cat. I am gripped by this vision. The sow stands quietly, patiently, peacefully: luminous with power.

* * * * * * *

Day Notes:

Thanksgiving was at our house, a tradition that I love. Tiring, though.

My chronic childhood bronchitis and respiratory illnesses came up in conversation yesterday with the woman at Pathways who was helping me write my healthcare directive.

Lola chased a mouse all last night (clattering noises), bounding up on the bed occasionally, to no avail. Right now she is crouched on the floor to my left, facing the bed, waiting for the mouse to reappear. Silky black cat.

Last week when our regular Tai Chi instructor Eddie was in Australia, his Master Teacher Rob was our sub. Rob asked us to notice the chi “shimmering” through and around the body.

We worked in red clay at the workshop I just attended in Santa Fe.

Female pigs, bears, badgers and hedgehogs are called “sows.”

From the web: Sow is considered a very powerful being in the Otherworlds and a creature of death and rebirth, according to the ancient Celts/Druids. She’s associated with the Sacred Cauldron and bestows wisdom and inspiration.

My Welsh step-grandfather raised hogs: black, white, black with a white stripe at the shoulder, red.

* * * * * * *

Evening Notes:

Chris and I saw Lola’s mouse! I screamed; we were both horrified. It’s the biggest deer mouse I have ever seen, the size of a chipmunk, with huge black bug-eyes. It’s a pig of a mouse, a mouse monster!

I know these animals can carry hantavirus (the lungs fill with fluid). I head to Home Depot for a live trap. The one I buy, “Havahart” Live Animal Cage, is shaped like the box in my dream. I bait the trap and open the front door of our house wide to the outside. Mouse Queen ends up running through the door on her own, escaping cat and cage.