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.
