Only a Dream Away

Bid Ben Bid Bont

Finished Simon Buxton's "The Shamanic Way of the Bee" last night. I cried myself to sleep. Dreamed all night restlessly and intermittently about the Bee Master collecting honey from the blessed hives. Exhausted and weepy today.

Edited to add: One of the things that kept awakening me was a piercing, stabbing, fixed pain on the inner aspect of my right thigh. This pain is not new to me (been happening for a year maybe) but it is very occasional -- months between occurrences-- and always at night. When it woke me last night I wondered if it is what a bee sting feels like. The pain always comes and goes within an hour or so and never leaves soreness -- but it is pretty excruciating when it is happening.

Valerian and Skullcap sprouts

Another herb dream last night!

I can't recall the full details but I am harvesting three different kinds of herb sprouts with someone -- it feels like a family member.

The herbs are skullcap, valerian, and some other herb which I can't remember. The skullcap and valerian sprouts are small, plump and pearlescent, something like mung bean sprouts. The third herb's sprouts are more squat and red. (I wish I could remember what they were!)

I harvest these sprouts indoors from a tray of soil. They do not cling tightly to the earth because their roots have not had time to develop. I drag my fingers through the soil and pick up the little sprouts, letting the dirt fall away. I place the sprouts in a basket. My companion and I (is it my little brother?) are very happy as we do this, knowing we will make good medicine -- there is something special about the quality of medicine that will come from the sprouts, very different from the full grown plant/root.

I have placed all the skullcap sprouts at the bottom of the basket and begin to harvest the valerian ones. I put the first handful on top of the skullcap sprouts, and just as my companion is coming with his first handful of valerian sprouts, I put my hands over the basket saying, "Wait a minute. If we put the skullcap and valerian in the same basket, I'll never be able to tell them apart unless I sit here and smell each sprout individually" (knowing that the valerian will have their characteristic perfum-y warm pungent odor).

Sunflowers and albizzia

Sketchy details from last night's dream:

I am in a place that is supposed to be my parents' house. The inside is smaller but the surrounding land is bigger. I am trying to sleep in a room I don't recognize, inside a tent. The evening starts out warm, but becomes cold, and I unzip out of my tent to close the blinds and windows of the room.

The action shifts and my dad is showing me a plant. Actually he is just showing me a branch with small green leaves, serrated. He's talking about herbalism and for some reason it's annoying me -- there is a sense of 'this is MY thing' and 'you know it's my 'thing' but you won't let me get a word in edgeways' -- pretty consistent with my dad's characteristics in real life. The branch and leaves resemble young elm leaves but I rub the leaves and smell them -- they feel resinous and produce a lemon balm-like odor.

He tells me it's albizzia (mimosa) and again, I'm annoyed, because I know what albizzia leaves look like, and they don't look like this!

Then he's showing me the heads of sunflowers which he's cut off and placed in water. I don't quite understand why he's done this but it seems to be to feed the birds or squirrels, but I don't see how the seeds will develop on these heads after they've been literally decapitated.

The action shifts again and my little brother and I (in real life he is 24, but in my dreams he is always about 9, and he is about that age here) 'run away' from our house. We are laughing and giggling, giddy to be 'free.' But we also know we are on a mission -- to find an albizzia tree. We know where one is but we can only use it if it's blooming. (I assume we will be making medicine from it.) We stop at the train tracks to wait while a train goes by. From where we are standing it is only a few steps before we can see the lot where the tree grows, and after the train goes by, we walk forward, and our line of vision clears, and we see the tree. AND, it's blooming, with a few of its pink feather flowers all over. "It's blooming! It's blooming!" we cry. We are very happy. The dream ends before we make it to the tree.

Note: just before bed I pulled the nine of cups, "Happiness," from my new Thoth Tarot deck. This is the first card I've pulled from this deck and it makes me laugh because when I was in Glastonbury alone some years back I had recurring dreams about Aleister Crowley which weren't entirely unpleasant, but neither were they very pleasant. It was nice to pull such a positive card in my first experience with this deck.

Various snippets of dreams from Thanksgiving week:

1. My friends (whom we did host for Thanksgiving) come over for the holiday to discover that we've adopted something like four small dogs, all of whom have their own floor cushion in the living room.

2. I am sitting on the couch in my living room when I hear a rustling sound to my left. I look down to see a mouse burrowing into a potted bamboo plant. I suspect he has some access through the bottom of the pot into the wall and down through the building.

3. I am in Michael's clinic (which does not look like his clinic... more like a large hotel hallway; but it is softly lit, sparsely decorated and the walls are a soothing gold/pink color), waiting for him to be finished with his day. I do not have an appointment with him, I am just waiting for him. I have no sense of any plans or intention, it is simply waiting. While waiting I see a display of giant incense boxes (like the HEM ones which are hexagonal, only these are several feet tall) in a recessed window/altar area. I sense that I should take some incense and try to decide based on the smell. I choose the one I like and turn the box around to see what scent it is. It is called "Aphrodite."

The action shifts and I am in a similarly lit room with my Mystery School classmates. I'm sitting next to Jeff. Althea has instructed us to pick three tarot cards and reflect on what they have meant for us this year. I am working on my three: Wheel of Fortune, Death and (I think) the Star. While doing so she bends down to talk to Jeff about the Hierophant, which is one of his cards.

Skylight message

The 'script' and 'reading' theme continues!

This morning I was having a dream that I was with my mom looking at a catalogue for one of my favorite clothing places which is going out of business. Carrying this waking awareness into my dream, I flip through the catalogue and remark, "Huh. I thought this place was folding."

Then I felt (literally) a hand on my right shoulder, and I woke up, half expecting someone to be in the room with me -- could it be my mom? Impossible of course, because she does not live with me and does not have keys to my apartment. Oddly I did not feel scared by this sensation.

Thinking that I'm supposed to be awake for something, I lie in bed for awhile just listening. Disjointed thoughts flit through my mind, including that it might be my teacher wanting to wake me up. But the hand 'felt' female. Nothing makes sense. I judge from the dim light coming through the skylight that it must have been just before 6 a.m.

I drift back to sleep.

I dream that I am waking up next to my husband. In the skylight that faces the bed are the words of an e-mail to me from my teacher, Michael (not a real one, just one my mind made up). The sunlight shines through them, and they are in purple ink (I believe). Like an e-mail, they are scrollable, and the whole of the text can be read at will. Most of it is professional, tasks he's giving me to do, requests to check on things, etc. But toward the end there is one section expressing affection and alluding to some kind of pet name -- I can't remember what it was but it has to do with 'princess' or something corny like that. (Such a name does not exist in real life and I hate the pet name 'princess.')

Of course, my husband can read this too, as it is right there in the window, and he points it out, asking what that's all about. I tell him I don't know, cuddle into him, and suggest we go back to sleep. Bizarrely, images of myself playing basketball or some other sport while wearing my high school gym uniform float through my mind.

But I don't sleep. I get up and begin to peel the words off the window. They come off in lines, as on clear tape.

Shopping for vinegar, the sister I don't have, finding my own clothes

ACT I

I am in a huge supermarket with my husband. We are trying to find the ingredients to -- I believe -- BLT sandwiches. For some reason I feel that I really need to get some balsamic vinegar, and so we hunt around for it but nothing seems to be where I 'remembered' it would be.

I sense that he wants to leave. We get to the checkout and he shows me something in his hand that is not exactly the right ingredient -- perhaps indeed it is some kind of vinegar but not the kind I need. I tell him I'll run back and get the right item.

I am met by someone whom I understand to be my sister (the character reminds me a bit of my real-life cousin). Together we try to find the vinegar. I end up back in the deli department and buy some freshly made flatbread and prosciutto, imagining the sandwich I will share with my husband with these ingredients.

No vinegar is to be found. I look for it only to find a strange seasonal aisle of yard accoutrements and another aisle of exotic spices and other ingredients in clear plastic packages, reminding me of the odd (to this mainlander) candy and snack aisles in Hawaii.

ACT II

My 'sister' and I return home and we are ready for bed. Husband nowhere to be found. We are sleeping in my mom's real-life bedroom, on the floor. Sister has a flimsy blanket, so I tell her to lie next to me and share my puffy queen-size comforter.

I peek outside and see that my mom is set up to sleep on the couch in the living room, which doesn't seem right; but then it's better than sleeping on the floor in the bedroom, so I say nothing. I don't actually see my mother, just the couch prepared for her.

ACT III

I wake up the following morning and try to get dressed with the clothes in my mother's closet. I look at a beautiful royal blue blouse but decide it's too nice to wear, especially if it's not mine. I find a hot coral tank top but it doesn't look like it will fit well (and curiously is so not my mom's style). Then I remember I have clothes of my own, and pull from my bag a gauze short-sleeved tunic in the same coral color. I worry that it will not be warm enough, but it is all I have.