Only a Dream Away

Losing my shoes at the Indian dance

The flood of dreams has returned, after a dearth brought about by too much study and stress. The past few nights I have dreamed almost all night long, different scenarios flowing seamlessly into the next, dozens of them in a night, so many I can't remember all but a few aspects the following morning.

The night before last, a few snippets remain: looking at Dulac-style children's book illustrations, woodcuts maybe, and reading some illuminated caption about bees, which had to do with the illustration. The more I tried to focus on what I was reading as the words appeared before me, the more I tried to be lucid so as to remember it, the more the words would slip away. It turns out Dulac did an illustration for Shakespeare's the Tempest called "Ariel and the Bee" and also did woodcuts for Yeats' "A Vision,"(see left) neither of which I knew about before (consciously anyway). Interestingly, just before bed that night I was meditating in a milk and honey bath about Yeats' gyres and the lemniscate of the Mellisae tradition.

All I remember from last night was going to an East Indian party. When I arrived, dozens and dozens of women were outside and had arranged themselves to a do a complicated dance. They were all wearing saris but not the sort that were glamorous or of very high quality; it seemed to be a village folk dance, and they were common women gathering for a festival. I looked down at myself and was dressed similarly. I took off my shoes and put them with the others off to the side. We were in a semi-enclosed stone courtyard. It was daylight and warm. Yes, probably in India. Some of the women looked at me like I didn't belong, and I felt like I didn't quite belong either, but they went on with their dancing. 

I went inside where there was food and some friends of mine (whom I do not recognize) were helping to set up and keep the food coming out. I was in a large 'kitchen' -- nothing indicated that it was a kitchen except for a large refrigerator which wouldn't always close properly. I remember volunteering to take some things out of the freezer to help it seal. The room was sunny, lots of big windows, warm, not air-conditioned, and was carpeted. The main party was going on in some other place but I never went there.

At the end of the evening I went back to retrieve my low-heeled shoes -- which were a curious yellow color, not something I'd ever wear, and I couldn't find them. There was one pair of shoes left that resembled mine but I was entirely sure they were mine. I put them on, and they did fit, so I took them.

The Troublesome Imbolc Ritual(s) plus a cameo by Michael

ACT I

I am in the main classroom at school and my Mystery School friends have gathered for our Imbolc ritual. The altar is set, and the room is wavering somewhere between its mundane self and some other place, sometimes smaller, sometimes larger, sometimes with other furniture (and, curiously, a big stereo system), and sometimes without.

Althea is not there and I am to lead the ritual. We gather around the altar, the room candlelit. Facing South, I look at the altar. Directly before me is a special Imbolc candle -- like one I remember my mother had from childhood, decorated with an ornate Celtic design. It is already about halfway used and is sitting in a holder. To the left of it, lying on the altar, is an identical candle, except brand new, with a long wick. I light the halfway-used candle. Elsewhere all over the altar are several other candles, all of different shapes, sizes, degrees of use and colors, and I know these are all the candles of my fellow Mystery Schoolers which we will light later in the ritual. There is also a jack-o-lantern on the altar. "Who put this here?" I ask. One of my fellow Mystery Schoolers, Chris, says that she put it there. "But why?" I ask. No answer. My friend HT goes to light the new Imbolc candle. "Hang on a second," I say, producing a pair of scissors from out of nowhere. I trim the wick down to a manageable size and hand the candle back to him.

The altar is set back too close to the bookshelves on the North end. "Hey guys, let's move this forward a little so we can stand around the altar and give the quarter officers room to walk around." We pull the whole production South a few feet. "Quarter officers?" I ask, and volunteers speak up.

I ask everyone to ground out and do the Kabbalistic cross. Some people seem distracted. In particular, someone who I know is interested in joining us in real life but is not yet part of our group, a very nice woman named Rebecca, is talking in the background, giggling, lots of movement. I try to let the core group lead by example, and begin.

"Before we call in the elements, I'd like to tell the story of Water," I say. (Which is an odd deviation from standard procedure -- this is the sort of thing we'd usually save until AFTER the room has been blessed.)

"In the beginning, all was darkness, and the breath of God moved across the Water," I intone, referring of course to Genesis, chapter one, verse one.

Rebecca is still chattering away in the back. "I'd like to tell the story of Water," I say to her. She looks up. I continue again. "In the beginning...."

And she gets up and walks to the door.

"Where are you going? We're in the middle of ritual, could you show a little respect?"

"I'm just going to get something to bring to the back room for the pot luck," she says.

I'm really getting steamed now. She closes the door behind her. All is quiet again, so I start once more:

"In the beginning, all was darkness and the breath of God moved across the Water. And then God separated Water from Water and created the Firmament."

At this point Rebecca comes walking back through the room with her treats in hand, singing in a mocking tone: "Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb..." (which is bizarrely appropriate actually, considering that Imbolc celebrates ewes going into milk for imminent lambing).

That's it. I'm out of patience. I catch up to her before she can reach the North door and grab her by her wrists.

"What's wrong with you? Can't you see we're conducting ritual here? This is important, you have to show some respect or else remove yourself from the rite." She's looking at me with a sneering smile. My hands go up to hold her face. "Maybe you don't respect me leading this but you have to respect the rite and what we're celebrating. Maybe you think Althea should be here or maybe you think you should have a greater role. Or is it because you think you deserve more recognition? Well guess what, I think you do. You're beautiful and talented and deserve the best, but you have to show respect first and do the work."

At this point she's crying and can't hold onto her mocking mask any longer. We hug a long hug while our classmates look on in a hush.

ACT II

Once again I am just about to start the same ritual. There is a big stereo by the side of the altar and it's playing music -- pleasant but not appropriate nor conducive for sacred space.

I walk to the stereo and turn it down.

I return to my spot and begin as described in Act 1.

By itself, the knob on the stereo turns clockwise, bringing up the volume. (This actually happened to me in real life in an apartment -- likely haunted -- that I had just after college. I actually had to fight with the thing to stop it from becoming deafening.)

I go over and turn it down. My group look bewildered -- how is that doing that by itself?!

The process repeats at least two more times.

There is no clear resolution to this except that in the next scene I am in the car with my husband and it is daytime, and we are on a 'break,' just out for a bit and then returning to finish the ritual. In the car we are driving past the downtown skyscrapers and I am going over what I want to say when we get back to school.

ACT III

Back at school in the same room as before, but it doesn't seem like it has anything to do with Imbolc. Actually it seems like the tail-end of some herb class-related event. Socializing, lots of people, lots of action.

Again I am standing by the north door, talking to one or two people. Behind me I hear my teacher Michael's voice, which is a surprise (partly because in real life I haven't talked to him in a long time, partly because he lives across the country). I hear him greeting someone, probably Althea. Out of my peripheral vision -- in this dream I never look directly at him -- I can see his black hair, his glasses, I can see him taking off his jacket and hanging it on a chair. I continue on with my conversation but am aware of his voice which is now to my right.

The people in the room shuffle around and finally he and I are standing side by side but facing opposite directions. His right arm grazes my right arm. We are both wearing short-sleeved shirts. I never look at him, nor he at me, we just continue having separate conversations, arms touching. Then our right arms become somewhat snakelike (this is a poor description I think) and twist around each other until we are holding hands. It is the only acknowledgement we give each other, never missing a beat in our separate conversations.

Herb seminar, smoking

I am at my school's annual seminar in May. The mood is comfortable. First I see my roommates, Anne and Pam. After greeting one another, Anne shows us to her office, which is located in a structure in the forest on the mountain where we spend our week. The outside of the structure is what you'd expect from the surroundings -- small, rustic. But inside it is a multi-media smorgasbord, with at least two dozen TV monitors all over. Groups of them show the same image, some display a camera trained on the room, others old newsreel footage. I try to understand why Anne, a practicing herbalist, would have such a set-up but get the impression that she's doing some serious research and it might involve uncovering some conspiracy theories. Strangely I seem to remember seeing footage of Dwight Eisenhower getting into a car.

Then the action changes a bit and Michael appears. He leads me/us down a sunlit path through the trees. It feels like a positive reunion; the energy is easy and affectionate. He leads me into some other structure on the compound. About three or four young men whom I have never seen before are sitting in some kind of conference room. Michael leaves me in the room and goes into an adjoining room, his own office. HIs office has windows around it but the blinds are drawn.

I observe while the men discuss something for awhile. I feel simultaneously out of place but also like I belong. I am standing while they are all seated. I look down at my legs -- I am wearing a long velvet black skirt with a floral cut-out pattern lined in sheer taffeta. The pattern is mostly around the bottom of the skirt but it extends in a wide block up my hips. The cut-out pattern shows nothing but my hips, but since it is sheer it shows that I am not wearing any underwear! (I myself feel surprised to see myself wearing this skirt which is at once conservative and sexy, and also feel surprised to not be wearing panties.) I figure it's all right as long as it doesn't show anything else.

The guys are probably younger than I am -- just out of college maybe. Smart but goofy and immature, wearing t-shirts with bubble-letters on them. I have a wave of uncomfortability. At some point I excuse myself and go into Michael's office. He's eating something -- ice cream? He says something reassuring and I go back out into the conference room.

The guys are smoking. One of them gives me a cigarette and lights it for me. My lucid editor perks up and says "You don't smoke!" I start to become aware that I am dreaming but try to stay in it, taking a long drag on the cigarette and blowing smoke rings into the air above our heads. I think, "This is a crappy cigarette," and look at the filter: Marlboro.

Hawaiian barbecue, Brian May does a headstand

ACT I:

Martin and I are in Hawaii, in the lobby of some posh hotel. It is night. I am checking out a fountain running indoors. In and out of the dream, images, snippets: a man eating barbecue which he bought from a street vendor at the front desk; an elderly Asian couple arrive with their very young grandson to see a movie at the hotel -- apparently there is built-in theatre there. The grandfather has a piece of paper and money for tickets and says they are here to see "Madagascar 2." The lady at the ticket booth shows him the marquee -- their movie is not one that is playing there.

ACT II:

I am watching Brian May being interviewed on TV or perhaps on a movie screen. They are showing snippets of his life, at different times in his career with Queen. It is not footage I recognize, and shows a very different kind of Brian -- wild, a prankster. There is footage of him in his boyhood home, where he has returned after having become famous -- in the clip he is in his 20s. He is sitting on his too-small-looking bed in a humble room with drab floral wallpaper and low pitched ceilings. Then they show a black and white clip of him doing a headstand and turning around on his hands. He is able to keep the acrobatics up for awhile before falling down offscreen.

Seaside Rendezvous

I am in Michael's clinic -- but it looks more like a living room. We are alone. He instructs me to lie down on the couch and begins abdominal massage. He is speaking to me quietly; while I feel comfortable with our alone-ness, it also feels restrained, formal. He leans in very close to my face, almost touching, and says a word (of course I don't remember the word!). I repeat this word slowly.

Then he gets up and says that Janet (a classmate) will work on me. He calls into a room. Janet appears and begins a deeper massage. Not in quite the same dream but on another level I see a tarot card placed on my solar plexus. I cannot remember the card (but I sense it is the Star; I do remember a dark sky and two stars in the upper corner of the card).

Michael reappears and instructs me to follow him. Next thing I know, he is driving me in his car over the most beautiful landscapes -- sunlight, water, trees. Actually it reminds me of Hawaii. I say, "Where are we going?" He answers, "I'm taking you to my seaside home." "You have a seaside home?" I ask.

And then we are there. We enter through the back (I never see the exterior) and I see a large, sprawling interior. I sense we are on the lower level but it is well lit by sunlight streaming in through the ground-level windows that go all around. The carpet is thick and brown. A few things clutter the floor, and it looks as though children live here. One object I remember: a toddler-sized white rocking chair, haphazardly left in the middle of the room.

As we walk forward he leaves my side and I find his wife, Lesley and his daughter (not one I recognize from real life; she is about my age or a little younger). His daughter has short curly hair and barrettes. She is trimming green beans and peapods. I ask her if she'd like help, and she says yes. She doesn't seem particularly happy to see me, but perhaps her nonchalance is because she already knows me. Lesley seems annoyed about something... something she is reading in her lap perhaps.

Children come in from playing outside, then run away again. Michael's daughter says we are all here to celebrate his birthday along with someone else's. "His birthday?" I say. "But that's months away!" She rolls her eyes. Generally the mood from the women seems to be that something about this celebration is putting them out -- not coming at the right time, or that the guest list is more than they can handle. I notice that as I try to pull the fibrous strings out of the peapods, the ends don't snap off cleanly but instead the two halves separate. I eat a few of the raw green beans.

Autumn Equinox Dream Recap, plus the vagabond magician

Toward the end of last week and over the weekend I dreamed several times of my friend Ben -- these concerned cooking, train stations, and lots of laughing. And making fun of TV shows with his friend Nick. I was delighted to find out that Ben's beautiful son was born Friday afternoon.

Saturday night I slept in the forest and dreamed that a woman was singing in my ear -- no words, just a melody. In the dream she was outside my tent, so I do not know what she looked like, or if she had a body at all.

That night I also dreamed that I woke up several times to open up my tent to find that it was raining outside; and that I was not in the forest but in Glastonbury or at least somewhere in the English countryside, as if the whole campground had been transported there. There were fewer trees, however, which strikes me as strange -- we seemed to be on some kind of slate or limestone plain with trees in the distance -- and the people with whom I was camping were different from the people around me in real life. That is, the same tents were there, but different people emerged from them. In the dream it was early morning, the sky was grey and the rain misty and soft. The ground ran with a fine ashy white silt.

The clearest memory of last night's dream is of a vagabond, dressed in tatters, a little crazy, roaming a picturesque little neighborhood square at night, enthusiastically thrusting a tarot card at random people he met, saying, "This is my card! This is your card!" They looked at him like he was crazy and pulled in tight to their loved ones and hurried away. I don't have a clear impression that he came up to me and offered me the card, but that he would, eventually, and I was ready, anxious to see the card. The card, obscured, had the sign of the planet Mercury at the top. (The Magician, Key 1, is ruled by Mercury.) I remember looking at this strange man and thinking, "The Magician is you?"

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.