Philip Seymour Hoffman (Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead)

(Thursday, April 9, 2015) Waning gibbous moon Sagittarius / tarot: devil reversed

Chris and I are lying in bed, in our apartment at the Northern Warehouse Artist Co-op in Lowertown. It’s morning. We are waking up and making love, wrapped in white sheets. Everything feels the way it used to be when we first moved in together, warm and sweet. But something distracts him. He gets up and walks into the middle of the loft.

Co-op management has decided to install a convenience mart in our apartment! I step across the grey concrete floor into the store and pick up a handful of candy bars and cookies, then put them back on the shelf in disgust. There is nothing healthy or edible in stock. The market is located between our bedroom and the kitchen, so I will need to pass through it if I want to make something good to eat. I am very sad, too, that our private life is now completely compromised by such a tawdry, commercial establishment.

I return to the corner of the open loft where we have our bed and look out through our huge floor-to-ceiling window. It’s a beautiful view of a green, grassy slope at the edge of a river of deep blue water. A stone bridge is just visible at the left edge of the window. Curiously, the verdant bank is evenly populated with many different kinds of animals who are lying on their backs, facing the sky. Human-style. I am transfixed by this strange sight.

The animals are comatose, taken over by a very deep slumber. I focus my attention on a large black quail at water’s edge, enchanted by the head plume of this elegant bird. Out of the corner of my right eye I notice a magical creature moving between the beasts and waking them up, one by one. Coyote? Pan? Fairy? Angel? I don’t know, but it is miraculous. The spell is broken.

Chris has returned from the shop with a package of cheap chocolate chip cookies, probably Chips Ahoy. I am upset, but say nothing. He is accompanied by Cullan’s uncle, Jay Eggers. The three of us decide to go for a walk, and when we reach the outside of the building, we are no longer in the St. Paul warehouse district, but in the Minneapolis warehouse district instead.

As we walk along the red macadam streets, I see that Chris has morphed into Cullan’s estranged father, Sandy Eggers. I am still very excited about the awakening of the animals, so I start to tell the tale to the brothers, Jay and Sandy. Sandy interrupts me rudely and aggressively. He is full of hatred for me, as in waking life. But I have a holy image in my heart of the resurrection, so I turn away and continue exploring the beloved city on my own.

I walk into one of the red brick buildings, up a few flights of stairs to a spacious art gallery. The floors are grey concrete, like the Northern. Huge, long tables fill the space, draped in heavy tan muslin. Preparations for an art show are underway.

A lively entourage of friends enter the room, led by a special, regal, enthusiastic woman. I have met everyone in the party before, in the land of our dreams. The special woman might be Patricia Garfield. Her friends hang on her every word. She turns to me and starts to discuss the artwork hidden beneath the muslin, lifting a corner of the fabric to reveal a radiant, glossy porcelain plate glazed in sunny yellow. She picks it up and clasps it to her heart. Her passion is infectious. Her style is theatrical.

She considers this sculptor to be a great genius and a great dreamer. I don’t know if the muslin covers the works because they are yet to be created, or because they belong to another time and place.

She invites me to her home and so I follow her and her dreamers. Her house is built along the edge of a river. One whole wall is floor-to-ceiling windows, overlooking the flowing water. The house is modern, geometric, spare, open, with grey concrete walls, ceilings and floors.

While dinner is being prepared we are entertained by a film, or a dream. We are watching Truman Capote, lying on a sandy beach. I am sensitive to his genius, but also to his platinum hair and his pale, flecked skin. His slightly doughy build reminds me of Chris’ comfortable body and I am attracted to him. When Capote turns to make love to a woman next to him on the beach, I realize that I must be watching Philip Seymour Hoffman. Capote was gay. Not Hoffman.

Suddenly I am seated in the far corner of the great hall, on a red leather or vinyl seat, like a dining car booth on a train. Philip Seymour Hoffman sits in an adjacent booth. We are both turned backwards on the seats, facing each other. I am lucid and reminded of my train dream where Sabine Lucas shows me movies of my past lives. The shape of the room with the row of windows is train-like. So I know I am traveling in multi-dimensional space. Dream within a dream.

The presence of Hoffman adds to the lucid mood of the dream. It feels like the real Hoffman. I am sure it is the real Hoffman. We have a powerful heart connection. Love and genius emanate from him and penetrate every part of my being.

Day notes:

I usually experience a dearth of dreams after I share my dream with the Dreamsters. In the last month I recall several about the dream conference, but that is the only theme I remember. Dreams of the conference and of the warehouse district are prominent in the last couple of years. I used to have recurring dreams of my grandmother’s farm, which I think represented the Source (and ancestors). But now it seems the Source is an urban area of historic, red-brick warehouses filled with art galleries. For me, warehouses symbolize the Akashic (Jung’s collective unconscious and Sheldrake’s morphic resonance). 

An aspect of my instinctive (animal) nature is awakening, magically. A playful, mercurial spirit guide assists.

The field of professional marketing has usurped a huge area of my life. My middle years. It doesn’t fit and it doesn’t feed me (spiritually). I have to get past it (leave it?) to reach what truly nourishes me.

I enjoy (and am educated by) the company of the dream tribe but am most enchanted by the artists. That is a heart connection.

I no longer accept the destructive male energy I grew up with, not the internal and not the external versions. I have walked away. A new, sensitive and expressive masculine side of me has entered the room. He is not the normal cultural hero or leading man but I am completely smitten.

Quail totem symbolizes group nourishment and protection. “The Quail is associated with the mysticism of names. It will help you learn your soul name, the name that stays with you lifetime after lifetime.”

Nourishment is indicated by the long banquet-style tables in the art gallery. Patricia hosts a feast for the dreamers and the artists. Hoffman and I sit in dining car booths, entrained to each others’ souls.

So why Philip Seymour Hoffman? I first responded to him in the film “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” even though I had seen him in “The Big Lebowski” years before. I loved his everyman quality, his wild wit, his big soul brilliance. I felt the grief of his passing for many months. For me, a huge light has gone out on the stage of the world. I didn’t even remember he’d won an Oscar for “Capote” until I looked him up on Wikipedia the day after this dream.

Concrete: solid foundation, confidence, certainty, permanence.

Grey matter. Grey power (the wisdom of age). Blending of black and white, yin and yang.

Star power. Hoffman, Capote, Garfield.

The morning after this dream I find an empty package of chocolate chip cookies in the garbage. Chris had eaten the whole little plastic box himself.