(Saturday, September 20, 2025)
I just read my email from Dr. Sharon Blackie. Her new book, called “Ripening: Why Women Need Fairy Tales Now,” will be available in June of next year. She has done research for over two decades on European fairy tales, stories from the oral tradition, passed down through generations by our folk ancestors. My fairy tales will be from my dream work, and definitely about the strength of the feminine.
(Saturday, September 20, 2025) new moon Virgo / tarot High Priestess / Oracle Consolation
Dream 1:
It is late in the night at a large community park along the edge of a still lake. The shore is not a sandy beach, but is grassy with many large trees that are fairly far apart. The way city parks are created. The gentle, green hill has simple campsites with single mattresses, not tents, many of them empty and waiting for a dreamer.
In this dream I am an observer of a distinctly unusual young blonde woman. A very different personality than mine. She has walked along the edge of the peaceful lake and found a spot to sleep, on one of the comfortable camping mattresses. She lies down and slumbers for a while, but wake ups and needs to go to urinate.
There is a small building nearby, a restroom. In the dark, she heads over to the door and sees a young dark-haired man standing outside. He smiles and says, “Go ahead,” so she walks inside. He follows, which terrifies her. She perceives that he is a rapist, and can deeply sense his evil. She has a rather quiet voice but starts to scream as loud as she can. She continues to shriek, then yells, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”
The young man watches her, does not yet attack her, when a taller man bursts into the unlit bathroom. He is also dark-haired, definitely strong enough to intimidate and capture the predator.
The rapist is standing in front of the woman. She is facing his back. To signal the tall, protective man, she lifts a big, furry muskrat behind the shoulder of the aggressor, symbolizing: “He is a RAT!”
Thoughts: Odd that the community feels completely safe to sleep at night out in the open, yet a young woman is confronted by a violent man of her age. It feels like Father Hennepin State Park (on Mille Lacs).
Dream 2:
A large group of people travel along the same highway from a city along a lake to a spot where they are planning to hold a dream conference. I am one of the members. A younger, hippie-style man with curly brown hair is getting us all together in a very large circle of friends. He likes to joke. I’m not sure how knowledgable he is about dreaming. We are waiting for an official IASD board member or employee to arrive. To make this official.
Dream 3:
A woman is standing to my left, but I don’t see her in the dream. We are inside a shopping mall, facing the wide, open doors in front of a female clothing store. The store executive is organizing the individual department managers, maybe five women, into a theatrical event. They are all middle-age, maybe in their fifties, not particularly attractive. They look a bit rough, like their working lives have been full of stress and surprises.
Each of them step up independently, one at a time, as if they are the main onstage actor. I am impressed, surprised about their powerful, creative personalities. They are in charge!
Dream 4:
My waking life friend Amy and I are in a large hotel-style room with lots of comfortable, chairs and an oval white dining room table that fits dozens of people. I am sitting on a soft, cushiony chair next to the table. The fabric is decorated with leaves. Amy is nearby.
The middle element of the dream has disappeared. Amy and I do something important together, but I don’t remember what. Because of our completed task, we move to the back of the room, away from all of the people eating a meal together. Two smaller, cushioned chairs are against the wall and we sit down.
Thoughts: Amy’s 93-year-old father from Cambridge just died. My 92-year-old father in Cambridge says he expects to die soon. People eating together at a large table remind me of funerals. Maybe the dream takes place inside a funeral home.
Day notes:
Jeanne and Peter often have four or five dreams in a night. Remembering four makes me happy. Each of them were still deeply vivid when I woke up at 4am.
Yesterday afternoon I spent a couple hours reading dreams from the past. The details and beautiful writings I did in those old dreams amazed me, made me pleased with my vocabulary and memory.
(Friday, September 19, 2025) waning crescent moon Virgo / tarot four of wands
I am working on my fairy tale project and decided to sift through my old dreams again. I typed in “2014” and this is the first one that came up, “Protection”:
(Valentine’s Day Friday, 2014) I have purchased a house from an elderly woman. I think her husband has passed away. She does not want to sell, but she is too old to take care of the place now.
In 2020 I did purchase a house from an elderly widow (Marvalene) and I will always miss my Plymouth house. From the dream: I prefer my house on Circle Park because of its large, private lot. The living room in the newly purchased house: Hardwood floors are covered with old-fashioned wood. Very true.
Sunday, September 21 (fall equinox/eclipse): There is another element of this dream I did not realize is precognitive: Glass display cases in the living room hold boxes and boxes of firearm ammunition. It’s frightening. This morning I remembered the crack that looks like a bullet-hole in the medieval-style glass window at the front of my house.
A second dream from 2014 also has a prescient element. I did not know at the time of the dream I would move to southwest Minneapolis. The dream is called “My Path”:
I hear my friend Jeanne C’s disembodied voice directly behind me. I’m startled and don’t catch what she first says to me.
“Jeanne, is that you?” I cry out.
“Yes!” she says with her characteristic cackle. I turn in a complete circle but she is nowhere to be seen. Her voice seems to come from the other side of the concrete wall.
“You won’t find a man until you go to the southwest,” she says.
I’m baffled. Where in the southwest? Southwest of what? Do I move there or just visit? What kind of man: mentor, friend. lover, shadow? When does this meeting take place?
I suppose the dream could mean Arizona or New Mexico, but I think it means Tangletown.
