i really dislike waking in tears.

dreams can be so real, such complete versions of a heart life that it seems like there can be no sincere return home... as if an essential part of myself has tangled with the underworld, the id, the bog, the sloth brain and after that things just aren't quite right.

i woke once, having dreamed of my beautiful newborn daughter, her head covered in thick black hair. she had blue eyes. she was warm in my arms, i could feel her body move against me... her name was olivia. my love for her was fierce and deep and as real as i am now, as real as anything i could know. waking up, my arms still held the shape of her as if she were still cradled at my chest. the ache, the longing, the grief i knew in that moment was near unbearable.

i dreamed once of a friend many months after her death. somehow having returned from the dead, she was in the hospital, disoriented and tired, but quite alive. when i hugged her i could smell her perfume, feel her bird bones and her warm skin... she laughed into my neck as we held each other for a bit. it was so nice. but what a cruel dream.

lately i have been dreaming and am quite aware i am dreaming; i've been telling my dream self to remember this or bring that back or pointing out one thing or other.

a few nights ago i had a dream about a man who was my husband many lives ago; he was awful and abusive. as i watched him do things i'm not going to write here it was as if i stood outside my dream self, observing. i said to my self, you know who this man is. i looked at him while he tried to claim what was best in me and shouted at him, 'i know who you are! i know you!'

this morning i dreamed i was walking through the snowy night into the morning with a friend, talking some things out... she was getting ahead of me. i had fallen behind because i was bent double, sobbing into the glaring sun on the snow. i woke up this morning clutching my pillow.

it's strange to wake up like this. as the dream dissolves and i start the return to 'consciousness' i can feel it coming up from my stomach, up my throat... sometimes i know what's happening and the sob is caught in the cave of my mouth and my eyes burn with the effort to stop it from hurting so much.

Part One: 10 Months After The Glance

I thought it was a week ago but it turns out it's been three weeks since I posted My Home Is My Art: Meditations On The Second House. I tend to do this thing where I post some archaic blurb about something or other or post some random photo and not say anything about why I put it there.... But after a day like today I realize that I have so much going on, which I suck at giving myself credit for (example: a friend says, hi how are you ? what's new? i say, oh fine. not much.), that I don't even know where to start!

On the full moon in February (28th) I decided to unload a massive family secret into the trusting arms of two very good friends (thanks again btw!) and ever since that night I have had crazy vivid, lucid dreams, some pretty high highs and low lows. It sort of feels like the massive garage sale I had a few years ago when I sold two-thirds of the contents of my apartment in a move I hoped, to quote Brother Ali, "... push a whole heap o' hell outta my house." Afterward I sat in my echoing living room eating ice cream with friends and felt the panic rise in me: what the fuck did I just do? I let go of some serious crap that's what I did! The February full moon was no different. I just unloaded a different kind of heap.

And my mind is gung-ho over it! (Is it okay to say 'gung-ho'?)

Anyway. After I spilled this secret I had two dreams - both of which were about hostage situations. In both dreams a man/boy/fellow hostage held his hands out to me and in his palms materialize weapons.

In the first dream it was a teenage boy who held a switchblade - he used it to turn the lock to the closet we were stuck in. After turning the lock he looks me straight in the face and says, "You've held this in your mind the entire time." In dream time I knew he was referring to the knife. The second dream, which involved many more people and children, an older male faced me in a dark hallway. Things were quite intense at this point, we were all feeling desperate and had glimpsed a chance at liberation... He and I were arguing in whispers trying to decide what to do next as it was clear the time to act was now. He looks me straight in the face, holds both hands out, palms upward. As I look at his hands I see two small guns appear. They are finely crafted, about the size and weight of apples, one is clear and reveals its mechanical guts; the other is white, like a milkstone or an ivory or maybe even plastic. I am amazed to see them there. He seems to have been expecting them. He says to me, "You've had these the entire time."

Neither dream culminates in violence. In fact after each man says nearly the same thing, I wake up.

I think this is rad.

Prior to this fabulous full moon I'd had what I'll refer to as Round Two at my current place of employment; serious crappy crap was going down in the work place. Again. This crappy crap had me thinking like this: crap at work sucks> how much crap is too much crap> if i quit this crap how much crap is at new work> what comes after too much crap if new job has crappy crap too?

Last May I set a course for "What Do I Want To Do With The Rest Of My Life?" and here's the update:

I realize now that it was never that I didn't know what to do, it's that I want to do it ALL. This is what I was noodling on when I posted that half post on the 17th: I can leave my apartment and move in with a friend, lick my wounds and make some cash. And find myself in the same place a year later?

Turns out I don't need to leave my apartment. This apartment represents the first house and the second house. All this esoteric mumbo-jumbo (which I dig btw) is all about freeing my mind. If I am to take responsibility for my own happiness - I mean REALLY take responsibility for it - what purpose is served in running away? Though it would be fun to stay with said friend does it mean that I'll have less of a need to provide for myself? I read that passage from Soulcraft three years ago and have been chewing on it all this time and now I feel that I finally understand it.

I ain't movin'. It was never about moving... it was about maturity. YO LA TENGO!!

I have spun into a thousand directions in this post but who cares? If you have questions, ask 'em. I'm done keeping this blog 'clean' and 'artistic' and 'interesting.' Fuck it. This is it.

Back In The Saddle or Making Out With Santa Claus or Eating Crackers In Bed or Watching Baby Go Boom!

What the hell do you think it means that I dreamed I was mackin' on Santa?? That it's a good thing that I'm a naughty girl and I'm totally gonna get what I want for Christmas? Whatever you do, don't cross your legs 'cuz Santa's got a present for you? (I think if you listen closely you can tell that am giggling like a mad person right now!)

Perhaps you're wondering what the f**k has been happening since I said I'd be "offline for a few weeks?" Me too. You'd think that since I've been walking around in my life I'd be able to tell you a little bit about it but, ney ney Moosebreaths.

For now, I just want to let you know, the few of you who might still be passing through, that I wish you many happy feelings on your bodies! that I am loathe to see my garden dying back, that I have rearranged my living room (again!) 'cuz this time I think I might really have it;) and that I am very much looking forward to having a big ol' party soon!

ps

The photo in the blog title is one that I took on this day; the subject here is lovingly labeled Hell Box. In the printing and letterpress world we set type by hand... very tiny these pieces of type. Sometimes the type is dropped or misplaced. If you are apprenticing in a print shop one of the first tasks set to you is often to sort something like the contents of a Hell Box back into their correct cases; a 'case' is an entire set of type in one font and one size. It's really best never to drop or misplace type. Ha ha ha haa haaa hhaa!

Recurring Dreams: Wealth, Opportunity, Deep Joy

I am a deep dreamer... I have many kinds of dreams but the recurring ones have been on my mind lately, so I made a list. Some of them are replicas of the same dream over and over, some of them, like the ones below, are the same dream with different elements. I wonder how it can be that I have almost eighteen recurring dreams...

I call these the opportunity dreams.

In this dream I am walking along, sometimes in beautiful weather, sometimes in cloudy weather, and as I walk I look down because something has glinted in the light. To my surprise it's a quarter. Not only that but I notice in the grass a few inches away is a nickel, a spray of dimes and pennies. So I start to pick them up, who wouldn't? Happily, the more coins I gather, the more I find. Some of the coins are clearly old and worth more than their use as currency. Digging, I can smell the grass and feel the dirt. I do this until I have dug a wide hole in the boulevard... It is now that I notice that the coins are layered in the dirt and grassroots like pebbles, an endless supply of them as deep as I want to dig.

The other version of this dream has come in the form of clothing. In this version of the dream I have to find clothing for a job interview, a job that I am badly in need of. I am walking to a nearby second-hand shop: there are no other customers inside, there are lots of great clothes in great shape that cost little to nothing. The shopkeeper tells me I may choose what I like, take as much as I like, which I do until I have piles of clothing, more than I will ever need, each item exactly what I have been looking for. I am so happy I could pee.

I have had these two dreams multiple times over the years. They have never changed. Until recently I have woken from these dreams with a mild sense of disappointment; they seemed so real to me, how could I wake with such empty hands? Then I sigh and relish the joy I felt at having found what I needed. I feel relief from the stress of living poorly in my waking life.

In February of this year I dreamed a true variation, an exploration of this dream... A. and I are on the shores of Lake Superior at our favorite beach, digging for agates. This is a wonderful, relaxing and primary activity that comprises the bulk of our time here. Generally, A. is the one who digs throughout the entire day in search of the prize beauties, large banded agates or eye agates... She is tenacious and perfectly within her element while I have given in to napping after a few bouts of digging. I love the sound of the waves, the wind all over me, the sky...

In this dream I am sort of pushing the beach rocks around, half intent, half wandering in a meditation on the waves when I lay hands on a beautiful, deep red, walnut size eye agate that just takes my breath away (much like the one pictured above). Ha! I shout with glee! Then I see another one shining in the sun. Waves come up and wet the entire area... everything is awash in late afternoon sun and lake water. It's a stunning sight in the dream as well as in waking life to see the stones glistening like this. As with the coin dream, I have dug a large hole and have sighted multiple fistfuls of these amazing agates. Now I am laughing outright, staring at the slowly setting sun. I am aware that I am dreaming, I can feel myself laughing in my bed. I wake up completely fresh and ridiculously happy. Profoundly happy. I am in no way disappointed.

I can clearly see this for what it is: A vision of my own happiness, unending joy in the natural world and a message to myself that I am free to live my life without worry. There is enough.




smugmug.com (david englund, eye agate and large banded agate photos)
wmnh.com (small agate photo with black background)



































rockhounds.com (landscape agates)

Now that you are capable of Dreaming...

A Dream, Blessings and Freedom

I dreamed last night an amazing dream I hope I never forget.

I was an angel living as a human on Earth. I was a photographer and collector of fine prints. One day, as I stood in my shop switching a photo from one frame to another, the artist who'd made the photo approached me and said that if this print was to have value and be distinguishable from all the others like it, it needed a message. She took the photo and began to write upon it.

As I waited for her to finish, I could hear a fellow angel in the room being called back. I turned to see her just as she vanished in mid-step. I recall feeling a little surprised; I'm surprised every time I see an angel do that. When I am called, I disappear gradually over the course of a few steps. I wonder, how do the others leave?

The woman next to me was showing me the words she had written but now I was unable to concentrate. I could feel her, sense her body, but the language was incomprehensible. The letters looked like children's writing. I stepped to my right, into the call, and in a few steps I was gone.

The next image in the dream is of the black-blue night sky, full of billowing dark blue-grey clouds, stars and city sparkle. The faint red glow of the city cast itself onto the bottoms of the clouds. I was in the clouds. My sense of my body was as a vast, living thing, like something vaguely more substantial than mist or the pressure of a strong wind. I was substantial only because I could feel myself held close in the body of the clouds. I felt like I was lying on cotton balls, arms and legs akimbo, in the night sky. The sky above me was clear. The place in the clouds where "I" was seemed to be a faint red/maroon tint in a crevice like space. But this is an inadequate description at best. I lay there, feeling so happy I (my dreaming self) could feel it back in my bed in my apartment. I was so happy I could feel tears of joy flash briefly through the field of clouds I was occupying. I was so incredibly light and filled with joy. Filled isn't quite right, "filled" implies that it was contained in some way. This was vast and mindblowingly wonderful; giddy doesn't begin to describe this.

For a moment I wondered if I would fall through the clouds.

Then I heard and felt such profound laughter... the kind of laughter you give yourself up to, disappear into. So consuming and healing was this laughter... What could I do but join in?

In the sweet silence that eventually followed, I could hear someone telling me that I should not worry. Didn't I know everything would be alright?