Only a Dream Away

A troubling character

A slew of dreams last night:

ACT I

I experience a series of snippets of time spent with my friend K. It's as though I'm running fast forward through months of times spent together, all fairly mundane -- sitting next to each other, talking, laughing, smiling, hugging -- but all pleasant. In all of these instances I feel my love and affection for him.

ACT II

K has flown in for a visit and I go to meet him. Only, it isn't him. This man *says* that he is K, and acts as though everything is normal. But he's sharp and rude and calculating. Despite the fact that a) he doesn't look like the K I know at all, and b) he doesn't act like the K I know at all -- I participate in the illusion and just go with it, thinking, somehow, that he is the same person, that I have forgotten what K is really like because he lives so far away. This man looks like your typical obnoxious slick '90s businessman, with the slick haircut, suit and tie and briefcase and impatient look.

Somehow I find myself having sex with this "stranger" and going though the motions, doing the dance, acting like I'm into it. It feels like he's using me. I let it happen, under the notion that this is K, and it is fine, and it is a person I know and trust. But I know deep down that something is not right.

At the end of his stay, I go with this man to the airport to see him off. We are waiting for his plane. I am having a conversation with him and he is being disrespectful, rude, offensive actually. He hardly looks up from his phone to talk to me except to give me a dirty look with some sarcastic comment.

Finally, I have had enough, and I say, "OK, what's going on here? You're not really K, are you?" 

And he says, "What are you talking about? Of course I am!" 

"I know you're not him. Tell me who you are."

"I don't know what you're talking about. Look at me! Why would you think I'm not him?"

"You don't look like him and you don't remember any of the other times we have spent together. I knew it all the time and I can't believe I had sex with you." I begin to walk away.

He rushes after me and says, "OK, OK. I'm not him. Look." He pulls out his wallet, and from his wallet a business card with K's picture on it. The card has some kind of a nature/rainbow theme -- not at all the sort of business card K would have in real life. The card shows K under a different name with an executive position. "That was his old job," the impostor says, stuffing the card and wallet back into his pocket. "Friends do this for me all the time," he continues. "I sent K out here to check you out and see what kind of a girl you are and get you ready for me."

This segment of the dream closes with me feeling ambivalence and betrayal about K, whom I loved and thought I knew, but who is apparently an agent for some lascivious jerk. Also troubling is that I didn't even know K's real name (as shown on his business card).

ACT III

I am in the airport again. I am telling some friends (not sure who these are) about the incident but somehow things have gotten better because the real K is returning. I lie on the floor in the middle of one of the main arteries of the airport and start rolling around and stretching. Out of the corner of my eye I see K -- the real one -- also on the floor, "swimming" toward me. He is wearing a shirt with tiny blue and green triangles on a bright white field.

We reach each other and I look into his smiling face -- yes, it is unmistakably him -- and I feel a great comfort and affection for him. We hug and cuddle. I tell him all about the other man, and I confess to him that I don't know why I still love him so much, considering the fact that he would do such a thing to me, be part of such a deception. He provides no explanation. The dream returns to a scene that could have been part of Act I, where we are sitting in a beautiful outdoor setting, the sun is soft, the air is warm, and we are enjoying each other's company.

(I have to admit, this dream is very disturbing. There is a double illusion going on here and I am knowingly participating in my own betrayal. In the end the most honest man is the jerk. This one is going to take a lot of processing.)

OTHER SNIPPETS:

I am a kid again (I think) and it is night time. I am on a steamboat on a river in deep woods. We are gliding toward what appears to be a giant door somehow spanning the entire width of the river. There are three boats, and I am on one. I can see the reflection of the lights on the top of the boats dimly reflected in the door's wooden surface as we near.

Next, I find myself off the boat and sitting on a bank watching some kind of entertainment by torchlight. It's very strange to have this voyage and gathering in the pitch dark night.

Then I find myself running deep into the forest with two other friends. Under a yew I find my 3rd-grade best friend Regina, who is weepily telling us about a dream she had (about her mother?) and how blessed she is to have such a dream. She is lying on her back under the low branches of this yew, and I can only see her from the shoulders up. The rest of her is in the dark of the deep forest. I have a sense that we will leave her there.

Unrelated to the above: I am in a garden tending a low growing plant with blue buds. An older woman who appears to be the owner of the garden/teacher is standing above me, talking to others. I ask her if I should snip the buds off. She says yes, and demonstrates by pinching them off with her hands, explaining that that is how she keeps the plant going all through the season.

Seeking out the Sting

Another night of non-stop dreams last night, but only a few remain:

ACT I

I am in an upstairs room, maybe a cozy finished attic with pitched ceilings, with my mentor Althea. I say to her, "It's so nice for us to have time like this. We never do anything, just the two of us." She agrees, and I take off my top and lie face down on a blanket. She begins to give me a therapeutic massage. After a little while someone comes in (another mystery schooler -- Linda perhaps) and Althea sends me away to a private room with something in my hands. I can't remember what I was holding, but I am to go into a smaller, curtained room while she deals with the other person.

ACT II

Althea, I, and a handful of herb students are at a book signing. There is something to do with horticulture and herbs at this event but the author is -- get this -- the Queen of England! None of us is dressed appropriately for her arrival, which is announced and we are all to move to the sides of the wide carpet she is to walk as she approaches a table at the front of the room. We are all dressed as though we are going to do bodywork or are on an outing doing herb harvesting in the woods.

Queen Elizabeth II processes down, wearing one of her famous matching suits and hats and handbags. She takes her seat at the table and looks frankly rather annoyed. The lining up and signing begins, lots of hullabaloo, and I stay off to the side and just watch her to see how she behaves. Two teenaged girls come up and make small talk with her; she leans forward with a sparkle in her eye and says something that makes them laugh. I respect her grace and cleverness, and the way she interacts.

At the end of the signing, my classmate Claudia has hauled a large bag of elderberry powder onto the table. It's about the size of a bag of potting soil. It is open and I can see the purple powder inside. Althea says something about wanting a drink, and I get her one, but her drink comes as a strange viscous periwinkle substance... it has the consistency of face cream. And the only way I can serve it to her is to  use the scoop from the elderberry powder bag. I ask her if it's OK if there's elderberry powder in her 'drink,' and she says it's fine.

ACT III

This is the dream that I remember the most vividly emotionally but I don't have many more details than that. Basically, throughout different scenarios, private, not private, indoor, outdoor, clothed, unclothed, I am waiting for a honeybee to come and sting me. In this segment of the dreamtime I am quite literally obsessed with the idea and am waiting for a bee that never comes. I understand it to be an initiation of sorts, and while I want it to happen, I'm also scared about how much it will hurt and what my reaction will be (I have never been stung in real life).

Russia, India: tenderness when things are not quite right

Last night:

I am a man, and I understand that I am in Russia and I am a prisoner of war. I am being led out of a dark room into another room where people are assembled -- men and women, but they are relaxed. I'm scared, and I'm standing in a doorway. I know I'm going to some kind of judgment.

Before I can cross the room to the waiting people, I have to go by several tables on which are arranged baskets of herbs, baskets of bottles, beakers, burners and other lab/medicine-making supplies. I walk forward from the people who are holding me and run my fingers over the herbs, look at the assortment of amber bottles and jars, and other instruments I do not understand. What are they doing here? I feel a tenderness for these plants, and I am drawn to the table almost desperately, like remembering something long forgotten but suddenly and profoundly remembered.

My captors, who had let me walk freely in my sadness toward the tables, take hold of me again and lead me to the group of people who are seated in chairs by some windows. They don't look like a judgment committee at all. Many of them are corpulent women, who look like grade school teachers, just chatting. I am confused. The unseen people who are handling me push me down and make me sit on the floor. 

I feel something small and wet on my partially bare lower leg (I'm wearing tatters). I turn and see what looks like a paintbrush just leaving a bluish viscous daub of something there. I suddenly notice that I am not alone -- there are many other prisoners also on the floor, and they have all been touched with the swab. I ask what is going on and they tell me: "This solution is poison. Slowly, your heart and breathing will stop and you will be dead."

It flickers through my mind that that is probably what they have been preparing with the plants. This seems perverse and grotesque, because my memory of plants is that they are used to heal, not to kill.

I begin to launch toward panic for a few seconds but I know there is nothing I can do. I calm down and consider trying something -- anything -- magic, meditation -- to stop the absorption of the deadly poison into my system, but I give up even on that. 

I don't know what to do with my last few moments. I get up and walk into another room. They do not stop me. It is a small apothecary. I look at the bottles and jars and begin to feel a tremendous sadness over the doom I am helpless to prevent.

I begin to walk out of the apothecary when a small, thin woman with short dark hair and sharp features appears in the doorway. I don't know if she seems short because I am a tall man or of she is really short. Somehow I know this is my real-life teacher Althea. We look at each other for a moment and I begin to cry. We embrace tightly and both of us are wracked with sobs.

----------

Here is my dream from June 18, the night of some uncommonly strong storms in my area. It is about a man whom I have never met in person:

There is no vision, no kinetic sense or physicality to the first section of this dream. It is just a 'knowing.'

I know that am with my friend M, and we are listening to ragas, reading and writing Sanskrit. This part of the dream seems to go on not for just hours, but for years; probably lifetimes. There is a cyclic sense to it. Just unending learning and activity, very safe, sheltered even. I can hear the music, I have a sense of the mystery and the meditation of it, there is a strange sense of very relaxed yet focused and continuous study. There is also a youthful sense to it, many childhoods and young adulthoods, and a feeling of "this is just what you do," no desire for anything else or any other experience. Like we didn't know there was anything else to life.

There is a color: It is a light gold/pink. There is a sense of sunlight. There is a sense of deeply dyed Gujarati mirrored fabrics. But no forms whatsoever.

Most pronounced is an aroma: Sandalwood and saffron incense. Very heady and very strong throughout the whole dream.

Just the sound, the 'knowing,' the color and the scent, and the years rolling by -- that's all there was to this section, and it is the first time I've ever had a dream like that.

But then all of a sudden, I feel that I have a form -- I am curled in a fetal position, sleeping. I awaken and when I open my eyes, there is M, in the same position, next to me, facing me. His eyes are closed. We seemed to be in some kind of womb-like enclosure. The gold/pink light was still there but had shifted to a pinker hue, darker.

And when I awoke in the dream, I had a sense that something had gone 'wrong' -- that our interpretation of the scripture and music had bifurcated. To my mind, M had begun interpreting our time and our texts as something personally romantic (I'm not sure how else to put it here), and it seemed to detract from the Work I thought we were doing. I told him this was not right, that this was not what I wanted. His eyes stayed closed, though he responded that he understood and that he could hear me.

I wondered why he did not open his eyes.

Then the aroma of the sandalwood and saffron changed -- it became sickly sweet, almost overwhelmingly so. And I looked at M and somehow knew he was sick, or getting sick, and I immediately felt horrible for admonishing him. I was thinking how bad I felt, and what to say next, when --

A peal of thunder and flash of lightning woke me up for real. I jumped out of bed and ran around closing all the windows in the house as the rain blew in, all the while feeling quite distressed about the dream.

Turtle-dile or Turtle-gator

Been a while since I've updated; to tell the truth I've only had maybe one or two serious dreams since the last time I posted, and went through a very unusual dry spell of dreaming. It was probably related to stress and overwork.

Last night:

I am in class, probably shiatsu class, and my friend Tom is sitting next to me. I've brought something special to class, which I am excited to show off. It is a strange animal: a tortoise shell holding inside of it an alligator (or crocodile). I think it looked more like an alligator.

When I pull it out of my bag, only the shell is showing; the alligator is hiding its head, legs and tail inside the shell, just like a turtle would. (It strikes me now as I type what bizarre creatures turtles and tortoises are.) The shell is thick, strong, bumpy. It seems impenetrable. In fact I get on top of the shell and sit on it as though to test its strength. It is completely sturdy.

Then Tom starts poking inside the neck hole to try to get the alligator to show its head. It just peeks out a little.

The scene shifts and I am watching the classroom in the middle of the night, as a disembodied viewer. No one is there, of course. Suddenly the room is flooded almost to the top with water. I see a figure in the water -- he looks like something out of a sci-fi TV show, literally like some kind of alien/human hybrid. He has yellow eyes. I know he does not belong there -- that is, he is not familiar, he is a stranger, but he has been let in with my knowledge.

My perspective shifts and I am viewing the room as this character, with the water level a few feet above my head. Breathing doesn't seem to be an issue. As this character I see something swim toward me out of the gloom. It is the alligator, with no shell this time! I am threatened by it, and it is swimming fast right toward my head. 

I put out my hand and some kind of golden electrical force shoots out of it, not just stunning the alligator but throwing it back. The force is so powerful, the animal hits the back wall, ricochets, hits the front wall, and shuttles back and forth like this through the water a few times, until finally it is presumably dead from all the hits. 

There is an 'outside voice' or consciousness, the part of me that belongs at the school, is part of the family there, that knows the alien character has been mistaken in killing the alligator. This part of my consciousness mourns the loss of the animal, but understands that the alien character was allowed into the school and was only acting in self-defense.

Meeting bupleurum at Michael's house

A bunch of herb school classmates from Chicago and I are at a place I understand to be my teacher Michael's house. (I have never been in his home in real life.) It is a large and sprawling place. He is nowhere to be seen.

The house has many hallways, narrow ones, with hardwood-sided walls and floors. It reminds me of a Japanese house with sliding screen doors. I have a sense that just beyond any wall or door there is water.

I am standing at the threshold of a wide panel of glass sliding doors that look out into the 'backyard,' which looks more like a huge meadow with pathways and tall grass. It is raining softly and the clouds hang low. It is warm out and the air is still. I begin to step outside onto a gravel pathway to be out in it when someone behind me asks where I am going. "Outside," I say.

I come up to a plant on the path and "know" that it is bupleurum. (I have never seen bupleurum in real life either.) It is dry, yellow, feathery. It does in fact resemble the real bupleurum, as an image search reveals. The variety in my dream seemed to have a finer, more feathery quality, but perhaps it is because it was dry. I wondered why I didn't see my herb ally, white peony, instead.

I stand up from squatting before the plant and see that others have come out onto the paths.

Heading back to the house, Michael appears. He doesn't say anything and neither do I, but he smiles warmly and takes me by the arm and we begin to walk briskly toward the house. I pass my teacher Althea and his wife Lesley, who seem to be selling earthenware on the path (?). They smile as we hurry past but they are very engaged in whatever it is they are doing.

Inside the house, Michael is leading me swiftly through the maze of hallways. "Where are we going?" I ask, mostly unconcerned and actually getting giddy at the speed at which we are moving and the unpredictable twists and turns in the narrow passageways.

At a rare wide 'T' in the hallway layout we appear to be coming close to our destination when we hear a voice coming from around a sunlit corner. Michael hurries me toward a terminus in the hall. I look behind me to see my classmate Mary Anne coming around the corner and calling my name. Michael pulls me inside a door and as I look up I see it is the men's room! He slides into a stall, and I slide into a stall a few feet from his, lock the door and stand on the toilet so my feet can't be seen. Someone comes into the washroom and leaves.

We leave shortly after that and a man outside the men's room looks at me funny. "I accidentally went into the men's room instead of the women's," I say to him. I look back and see that the women's room is directly across the hall from the men's. An easy enough mistake. It doesn't really explain my teacher, who once again has my arm and is leading me somewhere, so I say, "I really  had to go, so I just followed him in there and didn't realize there was a separate room for women." There, that makes sense!

As we begin to walk down the hall away from the restrooms I see a little black cat with a tiny fleck of white fur at its throat sitting along the wall under a chair. I bend down and begin to summon the cat. I wake up knowing that this is a form of my totem animal (as mentioned in the previous post).

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.

An Unrealistic Drill

Another classroom scene. This time it's high school, and again I am a student.

My friend Chris (a high school teacher in real life) is teaching the class. She is in front of one of the entrances to what we used to call, in grade school, the 'cloak room.'

As if in a scene from a horror film, a slat appears in the wall of the cloak room behind her and an ugly white man appears. I scream as he reaches out and grabs her by the waist, pulling her into the wall. Everyone else is just sitting there.

"Grab her hands!" I yell, rushing up to the front of the room where Chris is disappearing into the wall. An old classmate from grade school, just in front of me, catches Chris's hands. I pull on my classmate's waist and we get Chris back into the room.

Then Chris informs us that this was just a drill to see what we would do in a '9-1-1 situation,' and that now we must fill out evaluation forms on how the drill was conducted.

This makes me furious and I start shouting and cursing that our goodwill (and not to mention adrenaline) have been exploited! I resent the fact that I have been so frightened for no good reason; in what realistic situation will some demonic man emerge from a hidden opening in a wall and snatch one of us away? Stupid.

At the end of the dream it is after dark and we are still at school. Other students are handing in their evaluation forms, which for some reason are all wrapped in plastic. I had earlier decided not to fill one out because I thought it was ridiculous, but at this point in the dream I begin to tear open the plastic of a fresh form so that I can voice my complaints to the higher-ups, whoever they might be.

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.

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.

Back in high school, not seeing my teacher's face, fire, a baby

I am putting on a high-school uniform in my home (one I do not recognize). It's getting late, I have to leave, and it's cold out; I wish for tights and magically they appear on my legs.

In the next instant, I am walking into my high school cafeteria (not any place I've seen before, but it resembles the student center at my university). Friends of mine, including my girlfriend Christina (whom I met at herb school just two years ago), are at a table, eating something before class begins. The energy is easy, we're all girls, laughing, gossiping.

The bell rings for class. I hang around until the last minute. I begin to run for homeroom/class. I have to cross the gymnasium to get to the main school building. As I jog through, I spy my present-day herb teacher, Michael, off to the side, with his back to me. He is walking slowly in the same direction but is beginning to turn to the left, behind some kind of temporary curtained structure, like one where you might hide the sound equipment for a show. I do not call out to him but pick up speed and run through the exit.

In the next scene, I am not in any kind of class -- or at least, it doesn't seem like a 'class,' but it is still in high school. Some kind of student gathering? We are in a small, crowded room -- maybe 15 of us or so. It has elements of ritual. We are seated on the floor, singing. Cushions under some of us. Muted light, candles maybe. Reclining, propped on my elbows, I crane my neck and discover that  behind my head is some kind of vase that holds many feathers and incense sticks. All the incense sticks are lit. The feathers are large, brown-and-white-striped. Some of them poke out through holes in the bottom of the vase and their quills are lit, giving off incense as well.

I have the feeling I am supposed to be minding this strange vase with its smoking contents. One of the incense sticks set some object nearby aflame already, and I had to put it out (I do not remember what the object was, only that it was draped with fabric or ribbon -- and I think I just used my hands to extinguish the flames).

I face forward and see Michael again -- he has just come into the room, into the center. He is wearing his mustard-colored shirt. Again, his back is to me -- he is turned at the waist while seated on a chair, reaching behind him for something -- I sense that it is a musical instrument. Others are playing musical instruments in the room now.

I turn back to my incense/feathers and prevent another small fire from breaking out. All of a sudden this time there is a baby sitting next to the vase, dressed in a pale green onesie. He is surrounded by a circle of tealights. I'm mildly surprised that he's there, but I am not alarmed, in fact to see him there is pleasant. He's chubby, less than a year old, giggling, and adorable. I stand up and pick him up to cuddle him. I don't know whose he is.