Only a Dream Away

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.

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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.

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.

Walking through van Gogh's Wheatfields, Water...

This is from Tuesday (Oct. 14) night:

Someone is showing me an illustration of Jesus leading two children across a threatening looking landscape. (Much like the traditional 'guardian angel leading children across a bridge' type of Catholic prayer card art.) Suddenly I am in the artwork (it feels odd to admit, I think I am in Jesus' body at this point in the dream, holding the children's hands), and it has morphed into van Gogh's "Wheatfields with Crows Overhead." It is as if his painting has come to life; I am literally dragging my feet through his rough and wild brushstrokes. It's windy and raining and dark. I keep my eyes on my bare feet, tucking my head down from the wind. The woody stalks get caught between my toes and tangle around my ankles.

I am trudging through the gold and the brown, and all of a sudden the wheat transforms into water. Am I walking on water? I can't see how deep it is, and my feet don't feel a solid bottom. But then the water suddenly calms and begins to take on a blue-green hue. It is daytime, warm, sunny, windless, and abruptly I see a circular flat plane of concrete in front of me. It has a scrolled edge. Relieved, I lunge for it, and then realize as I look up that I am standing in a shallow reflecting pool fed by a fountain.

The pool is rectangular, tiled all around with a simple square mosaic design, and I see that the concrete slab is ornamental; perhaps where one would have placed a statue (but the slab is bare). There are mothers and children all around, but the grounds are large with a fine yellowish gravel walkways and it is remarkably silent (considering the number of children). It looks like I am in the courtyard of an old Spanish mission in California, but I sense that it has been transformed into a grade school. I get out of the pool, feeling a little self-conscious, but no one seems to notice. I can see an arch that leads into another area of the compound. Plants and trees grow harmoniously alongside the architecture.

Many of the children and their mothers are gathered around one end of the pool, where the edge is covered in larger tiles. I come closer and see several of these ornamental tiles, maybe five inches wide by eight inches tall. They shine in the sun, a little beveled. They have a religious theme but not religious images. They might have been made by children, but seem too polished for that. Simple designs, often of plants, with religious script; perhaps memorials.