Two dreams from the last week or so:
Last Sunday:
I am meandering through a mansion in the English countryside. Room after room, floor after floor, all lavishly decorated in a style not of recent decades. My husband is with me sometimes, and sometimes he is not.
The first clear memory I have is after having been in many rooms on other floors, I am in some part of the house that has a huge skylight -- it is almost like a solarium but it is positioned in the center of the mansion (or at least, that is the feeling). Sunlight floods in from the ceiling and from avenues that lead out behind me, to my right and to my left. It feels like a greenhouse, very warm and humid, though I don't particularly remember many plants. I get the sense of them but I don't remember seeing them. The floor under my feet is concrete.
The strange thing is, before me, up a few steps, there is a structure with many panes of what I think are mirrors. I see "myself" in them and as I move the reflection shows me the exact same movements, I realize that it is not me as I am but a very tall English woman (don't ask me how I know, I just know she is English, just like I know the setting is in England). As I move to the left, so does she. To the right, so does she. She mirrors my movements exactly but seems unaware of me.
She is wearing a powder blue straight, drop-waist shift with a jacket and matching cloche hat. The jacket sleeves seem a bit short for her long arms. She wears sensible heels, a taupe color. It strikes me as not a particularly fashionable outfit but something more practical, and she strikes me as a practical person, Athena kind of energy, engaged in intellectual affairs. She isn't particularly glamorous or beautiful either; "handsome" would be a more accurate word. She has medium brown hair; I can't tell if it is short and curled or long and pinned up under the hat.
As I move out of the mindset that she is me but not me, she begins to move of her own accord and the mirrors become panes of glass. She is speaking to either a servant, assistant or some other inferior, and they are working at something on a table before them which I cannot see. I get the feeling that it has to do with plants and we are indeed in a greenhouse and I am looking in at a scene in a workroom.
I move on and deeper inside the mansion I enter a room with dark rose wall paper. It is carpeted. A big window lets sunshine in. I am immediately drawn to a low wide shelf against a wall upon which are very old porcelain floral teacups and saucers. Inside one of these teacups are some earrings and perhaps a ring. There is emerald (this I remember distinctly, I comment explicitly on the emeralds in the dream) and perhaps pearl in them but I don't remember the exact design. I know they are mine, even though I am in this strange house. I just... know it. It is a very strong feeling. I hold them in my hand and try to remember how it is exactly that they are mine. My husband looks on, somewhat quizzical but also not questioning this immediate connection I have with these jewels which I have never owned (in this life anyway).
Looking further amongst the teacups I find a pair of earrings which I do recognize -- these are gold rosettes with amethyst in the center given me at my birth by my maternal grandmother. I wonder how they got there.
Suddenly a petite woman with shoulder-length dark hair appears behind us. She has big nervous eyes. She appears to be of this century. She is not the owner of the mansion but some kind of caretaker... or perhaps the best description I can think to give her is "tour guide." She seems to have appeared because she is concerned that someone (myself) has gotten into the private rooms and is handling valuable objects. She doesn't say this out loud, of course, but hovers closely and offers her "help." I have a sense that I should ignore her, and while I acknowledge her politely I don't give her much attention. I continue to gaze at the jewelry, trying to make sense of it.
She gets more agitated and begins to chirp nervously, so I put the jewelry back in the cups, not feeling particularly regretful about it, and leave the room with my husband. She follows close behind, and as we pick up speed so does she, talking and talking and generally regarding us with suspicion. Through the halls of the mansion, down ruby-carpeted wide stairs we go, until we are back in the solarium/greenhouse and I mention to her my experience of the woman in blue. I don't know why I am compelled to tell her, but I do, and it feels like it validates my presence here. This really sets her off, and either she tells us point blank to get off the property immediately, or it is a sense we get from her (I can't remember exactly).
So now we're half running and she is trailing us all the way, when finally just as I am emerging from the mansion into the gardens she is at my side, pursuing me now, and she has actually turned into a monster -- a hydra-like being! I pay her no mind and know that as soon as I get up the ivy-trailed steps and onto the lawn, there is a 'secret' path off the property into the woods, and she will be no problem.
Marty is already waiting for me when I get onto the path, which comes off the main lawn and down through some bushes onto a dirt road leading into the forest.
Either attached to this dream sequence or else separately but related, we are helping three little boys "escape" the mansion via the secret path into the woods as well. I'm not sure what exactly is in the forest but two of the little boys know to keep running into it, while the third just stands there on the dirt path, looking as if he is waiting for something, staring into the distance, away from the forest. At once I know that he is waiting for something or someone to pick him up and take him to some sort of destiny. He knows he is not meant to go into the forest but to wait. He stands backlit by the soft sunshine streaming through the trees behind him, his curly red/brown hair a golden halo around his head. I have a sense that a rider will come and take him. It doesn't worry me; in fact I am impressed by his intuition and courage.
Last night:
Once again, I am at some kind of herb convention held in a hotel setting. It is the final night of the convention and there's a lot of weird energy, people milling about from room to room, things on the floor, halls filled with books people want to get rid of, offered for free.
I am in a crowded hotel room with a bunch of herbalists. My teacher Lesley and I are talking about something, and she says goodbye and leaves as the room gets more and more packed. When she is gone, her husband, my teacher Michael appears, and he is in teaching mode. I give him a hug and we seem to move as if on a gliding track through several rooms together.
All of a sudden the dream resets and he is entering the original room once more. Another teacher, Susan, passes through the room, stepping around people and junk on the floor. It is less crowded this time. Michael sits down on a cushioned chair before a small table. "I didn't sleep well last night," he says to me. "Oh, didn't you? I slept very well," I say. "Then that means you weren't praying to God," he says.
Then he proceeds to do a tarot spread for someone asking for an herbal consult. In this case he is performing the consult and assessment via tarot. As he reveals each card he states the physical problem and writes it down on a yellowed old piece of paper, in his usual narrow handwriting. I notice he is spelling some words strangely and making odd glyphs out of some letters.
I go to my room across the hall and start packing. I feel like I've only been there a few hours rather than a couple of days. Michael knocks on the door and appears at the threshold. The end.
