Attack!

Mountain Lion! I hear a growling and look up to see a mountain lion crouched on a slanted beam above me. I am alone in the room. The growling escalates. I know if I run, the mountain lion will attack. Keeping the beam between me and the mountain lion, I back toward the bed and clutching a pencil in my teeth to keep it at bay, I cover myself with a quilt. The lion leaps down from the beam and onto me. I grab it by the jaw and several teeth go through my hand. I can feel the long sharp claws in my skin. I want to scream for help, but Sara and Erin are in the house, and if I call them in, they would be in danger. Not knowing what else to do, I holler help, but hardly any sound comes out. I yell help over and over, but I know no one can hear me. Finally, I muster all my energy and yell help at the top of my lungs. I wake myself up, yelling out loud in real life. My heart is beating like mad. I am terrified. I listen to see if I've wakened Graham, but hear nothing. But I can't get my breath and my heart is beating and I am genuinely afraid. It's before 6 AM, but I never go back to sleep. Hours later, I still feel breathless and afraid. At one point, I finally start slipping back to sleep. I have a hypnogogic or early dream that everything is collapsing in different directions and immediately wake back up, upset and frightened. I try again to sleep but cannot.

---

A nightmare is defined as a disturbing, frightening dream that is so upsetting as to wake you from sleep. This was clearly a nightmare., although woke myself, I did it screaming for help. Because I still feel breathless and tight-chested, I am guessing I may have had an apnea event (severe? by my continuing tightness of chest and sense of fear?), although the dream was not about smothering or drowning. It is interesting that I grabbed the mountain lion by the jaw. This is the same thing I did in an earlier dream (last week) about the dire wolf. It doesn't seem to smart to grab a predator with a mount full of sharp teeth by the jaw with a hand over the teeth (unless wearing very strong gloves! perhaps over the top of the snout or under the lower jaw? I worry that being attacked twice in about a week by a large, deadly predator may not be Shamanism but a warning of some danger. :-( Health issues? Impending danger of some kind? Risk on motorcycle or dangerous driving? Heart attack, stroke, apnea death? The fact that I have a sense of tension in my chest is bothersome and scary. Is it just fear from the dream or is something wrong? Is it a warning I should do some of that doctoring I've been postponing (gyn, mammogram? etc). If it is another spirit guide, is it my old mountain lion upset with me because I'm ignoring it? Could that be the same with the dire wolf? Rather than two new spirit guides, could the old ones be trying to get my attention? Or could it be both of these things? Both danger and Shamanism? I am convinced that dreams can and often are multilayered and multi-messaged.

---

Could this dream really happen? Yes, it could, but it seems pretty unlikely. We were at some sort of camp with large, loglike beams. Sara and Erin were there too. There was nothing in the dream that couldn't happen, although in real life, it seems unlikely that I would clutch a pencil in my teeth to keep a mountain lion at bay. There are three questions one is supposed to ask of every dream, but I can't think what they are. One is, could this dream really happen, in case it's a prophetic dream. To prepare yourself to watch for it and make ready. I can't remember the other two. I want to go look for my books and notes on dreaming, but I don't know where anything is.

---

OK, mountain lion, who are you? Are you a daymare, a threat in real life, or a spirit guide? Or both? Please answer.

I am strength and power. I am threat. I can consume you. It will not be fun.

But you weren't, you didn't. I called for help many times, and you could have killed me duringt hat time, and you did not.

I am/was playing with you. Cat and mouse. I want/ed to you suffer.

Really? Who is saying this? You or me? If you really do want me to suffer, what is it that I am being punished for? Why do you want me to suffer?

Well, I could name a lot of reasons. Look at you, just look. I could do that if that's what you want to hear. Want me to name all the reasons why you ought to suffer?

I want to understand. I want to know why you came to me. Are you related to the dire wolf? Are you warning me? Are you my spirit guide Mt. Lion? Are you a prophecy? Are you prophetic about a real mountain lion or death in some other form? Or what? All of the above? Some of the above? None of the above? Are you related to the tension in my chest? Or are you really hear to punish me for some wrong I did or some character flaw? Or what? That's a lot of possibilities. You're not being very helpful. And you don't like it one bit! Nope, I don't. I'm getting annoyed with you for not answering me better. This could be a matetr of life and death. You're gonna die. Yup, I know that, but I'm NOT in a rush, to say the least. Are you killing me soon? IS there something I need to do or change now? Lots of things. Yes, I know this, but are YOU trying to tell ME something SPECIFIC?

---

Do I have a daymare that is anywhere near as terrifying as this? Not one I can think of. I'm worried about unsafe driving and scary driving, about sleep apnea (and dying from it--that's pretty scary!) I'm worried about death and suffering sometimes, but most of my other worries and concerns aren't TERRIFYING to me.

---

from Dr. Dream:

So What do I do with My Nightmare?

First, get to the root of the issue in the Dream workshop

In the day world:

• Identify the Day-mare that is the trigger for the nightmare
• Invent alternatives that might help resolve the day-mare.
• What can you change in the day world that will resolve the day-mare?
• Confront the daymare and change something

  In the dream world:

• Invent alternative ways to engage the nightmare.
• Call for friends to come and help you.
• Confront the nightmare.
• Take a different tack. Do it differently.
• 
  

Being chased by a monster is a classic nightmare. It is universal. Every country and culture reports the nightmare of "being chased by a monster." It is probably linked to a very primitive survival tactic. Makes good sense. The idea in dream work is to switch ground on the nightmare.

• Ask the monster if it likes ice cream or it is frightened of you.
• Ask if it has a mask on.
• Is or is standing in for something else.
• Ask the monster if it has bunions. I've pulled a lot of thorns out of Lion's paws...

  The idea is to try the nightmare a different way. The idea is to open a new relationship where you don't do the old thing anymore.

---

So Lion, are you male or female, do you have a name? Are you a Lioness with cubs, like my earlier Lion?

You don't remember my name, do you?

Nope. Sorry! :-( WAHN! I'm feeling stupid. Do you like ice cream?

No, I like pronghorn antelopes, deer, and people.

do you have a thorn in your foot? No.

Are you standing in for someone else? Are you wearing a mask?

Sometimes. And you know who. I am you, I am God. I am a spirit messenger, and a messenger from your unconscious mind.

What good are you if you won't tell me why you came?

You need to pay attention. You always forget.

I do forget. I have ADHD, I am distractable.

You use that as an excuse.

It's true, I am infinitely distractable. And I don't always know what's important.

I'm important.

I don't know who or what you are or why you came or WHY or HOW you're important, and I don't seem to be getting anywhere. And I have other things to do.

Then why are you still here?

Because you frightened me and I am worried. If you are really trying to tell me something, I want to know what it is. But I guess I am giving up for now. I don't even see how I could write a poem about you. If you want me to write a poem about me, I need something to go with. I can't write Tyger Tyger burning bright. You're not a Tiger and someone else already said that, though, that seems like a suitable kind of thing, a sort of celebration of fear. And I can't write rage rage rage against the coming of the night, cause someone already said that, too, and that seems like something appropriate, too--fear of death. I thought you were going to KILL ME, and do it painfully and horribly, on top of that. Fear, and death and attack. Attack? Heart attack? I am being attacked? How am I being attacked? How do I attack myself? I notice that you are inside the "house" or building, and not out in the forest or cliffs, though in that mini journey we took together (that I did not write down), you took me to a cliff. High up. I had a good view of mountains, and rolling hills, kind of purple. And we were cleaved. Are you wearing my face or BB's or both? Or neither? The face of death itself? I'm confused. I also notice that you were growling, but half hidden on the back of the beam, I could hardly see you. What is it in my life that is threatening me that I can barely see? Some warning I am ignorning? (chest tension, heart attack?) What? What am I to do? Speak to me.

---

Attack!

A warning growl alerts me. Mountain Lion, hidden on an overhanging beam.
The throaty growl intensifies. If I run, she will leap. Keeping the beam between us,
I back away, pencil clutched in my teeth to hold it at bay. I slide under a quilt for cover.
Puny protection when she jumps down and long claws gash my flesh through the fabric.
I am afraid to call for help. If my daughters come, the lion might hurt them.
I grab her jaw. Teeth pierce my hand, like nails. In spite of the pain, I hold on.
And cry out. I try to scream, say help. Help. Help! Still worrying about the girls.
I try to scream, but my voice whispers. Weak, nearly inaudible. No sounds of rescue,
only silence. I try again, and again fail. I suck in air, gather my strength, shout,
HELP aloud and loud, and wake myself in another bed in another room in another world.
My heart crashes, and panting, I listen. Have I wakened my son yelling? No sound.
Catching my breath, flexing my injured hand, I lie still while dream fragments
fall away around me. But another shell of tenacious dream encloses me.
I push out again, and yet again, but am surrounded. In here with me,
a lion still sits on my chest sheathing and unsheathing its claws.


Mary Stebbins Taitt 080409

Lost Rose, Found Star

We peel the plastic lid from the cold, forgotten coffee can.
It was delivered earlier from Ann, my aunt, in the heat
of a summer afternoon.  Inside, we find ice-cube thank yous,
mostly melted shards floating in a sea of lemonade.  I pull
out the largest to study it:  a disk-shape.  A pink rose
dribbles between a dripping green Thank and an oozing green you. 
Flavors, tasted from the tip of a finger, lemon, lime and strawberry,
run, mingle and melt into each other.  Although she sent one
for each of us, three rapidly shrinking disks and slivers
are all that remain.  If we'd only opened them sooner;
if it could only be undone.  But it cannot.  Inside the frame
of the disk melting between my fingers:  crystals of ice,
joined at the center, a many-pointed star.  Shining.  Blazing
radiates all of the sun's light and maybe more.  My Aunt's love! 
Such surprising brilliance!  Such luminance and beauty! 
I want to capture and keep it in a picture, but is melts,
crumbles and is gone before I can get my camera.  I'm sad
until I realize we have her love.  She may have melted
between our fingers and disappeared, but her love is with us. 
And that star?  Snared in my memory, and still intact.


Mary Stebbins Taitt
for Ann Ciaranello
080405a

Star Crystal Thank You and Missing BB

Melting Star Crystal Thank You The Thank you from Aunty Ann to "the Kids and us" arrives in a large coffee can but is left unopened a while--when we open it, we discover that the thank yous are painted on disk shaped ice cubes a little smaller in diameter and thicker than a hockey puck. The paint is running but we can still read the thank you (in green) and maybe with pink flowers. They may have been edible. Only three are left unmelted and they are mostly melted, there were obviously more, the can was full of them). I feel guilty for not opening them sooner. But the part that thrills me the most is that as the ice cubes melted, they formed a gorgeous delicate star inside. This awakens me (internally, inside the dream, not lucidly, but excites and thrills me and fills me with wonder and joy. But then I want to photograph it, obstacles arise and I am unable to. This upsets me.

When I wake up, I wonder if I could paint it, and realize, 1)I don't have the skill, probably, and 2)photographs are a better way to record something really unusual, because (at least in the old days) they are less likely to be faked. A poem might work if one could earn the epiphany, but it's sort of a surprise, a gift. Although the dreamer may not have earned it (I may not have), the poet still must, at least in the preparation. They cannot be photographed but shine inside the heart.

---

At the party without BB I am at a party without BB who is busy somewhere else. I am feeling lonely and missing him badly. I miss his company, his companionship, his wit and his touch. The party is busy, lots of people and stuff going on. But I feel out of place without him. Then some guys start hitting on me. I am very sad and upset struggling with this, and I miss BB sexually and for his protectiveness, as well.

I spent the last two evenings away from Keith and felt it at the poetry reading and at the DIA, where he often (usually?) accompanies me.

---

I had a lot of dreams last night, but the rest seem to have slipped away and each of these two dreams have more parts.

False Accusations and the Dire Wolf

False Accusations and the Dire Wolf

I am at a  camp with many people around me engaged in some activity when "Yolanda,"  a very large black woman with wide waxy features, is sitting on the ground hollering that I hit her.  I am 20-25 feet away with another group of people engaged in some activity, but I go running over to Yolanda, whom people are helping up, and say, "I did not hit you, I was nowhere near you, I was way over there and I have witnesses."  She takes me by the hand and leads me to a window where trophies are displayed.  Among some that I have made is one that us clearly manufactured and she says, "You spelled the name wrong.  It is a black trophy that says "Micaelson's."  Clearly, it is not one of the ones I made and the name is spelled correctly in this instance (this Micaelson's has no "h").  I try to explain to Yolanda that it wasn't a trophy I made and that the name is actually spelled correctly.  I ask her for a hug, but she's not sure she wants to give me one.  (She's a friend of mine). 

While she is vacillating, I notice out of the corner of my eye some movement and turn to look and see an extremely large dark (black?) wolf charging down the road, moving like a freight train, powerful and threatening.  I step between Yolanda and the oncoming wolf, tackle the wolf as it arrives, throw it down, grab it by the jaw, put my knee on it's chest, and subdue it.  I am feeling very powerful.  I tell Yolanda that I am a Shaman and I can do this.  The Wolf is gnawing my fingers some and I have a moment of doubt where I become nearly lucid and am wondering if I can really do this and am I doing it right, but I succeed and the wolf shrinks from a HUGE wolf to a very small fox.  I point down the road past the building with the trophies and say, "Go," loudly, and in my firmest voice.  The little fox gets up and starts  slinking away with its tail between it's legs and I say, "Go," again.  It goes slowly a little farther and I have a sudden realization.  "It wants to be my spirit guide,"  I say to Yolanda, who still standing there watching.  "Okay, come on," I say and the little fox turns, gallops back and leaps onto my shoulders, curling around my neck (like a fur cape or like the daemons in the Phillip Pullman books (e.g.:  The Golden Compass, Amber Spyglass, etc). 

My two other Wolf spirit guides are jealous and one begins attacking the fox.  "No, play nice," I say, forcing the attacking wolf's head down repeatedly.  The other two seem to accept a suspicious truce with the newcomer.

---

When I wake up, my first thought is that if this new wolf-fox is a spirit guide, perhaps I should not have "vanquished" it and diminished it, for it would be more powerful if it were larger (perhaps).  I am not sure I did the right thing.  It seems as if needs to be in possession of its full spirit. 

It is not clear to me now who it was attacking.  I thought, in the dream, that it was attacking "us," Yolanda and me.  Not her, not me, but us.  I thought I was protecting her with my Shaman powers.  I was protecting her in spite of the fact that she had twice falsely accused me because she was my friend (and because she was a person.)

The wolf was also the third attack.

This reminds me of the whole thing with Rita where I feel as if I am being falsely accused and falsely demonized for something I did not do.

The three wolves also remind me of three children ("play nice"), though none of my other children are attacking Graham.  But if the two wolves are my brothers, the one attacking could be Rita standing in for Tom, rightly or wrongly. Dunno.

Perhaps the dream is telling me that when someone falsely accuses me, I should not attack with full artillery and diminish or vanquish the attacker, though in the dream I was being very reasonable in spite of Yolanda's unreasonableness and totally false accusations.  OR perhaps the dream is saying exactly the opposite, that I tend to hang back and try to smooth things over and I should show my inner strength and fortitude.  (Now I am thinking of a specific incident where I was falsely accused of turning a glass upside down on the counter and making a wet spot when I did not do that.  And several other incidents I won't revisit.  Things like that utterly INFURIATE ME!)  Because I appeared to have been attacked twice by Yolanda and once by the wolf and I handled the attacks differently.  With Yolanda, I was more than reasonable, but I vanquished the wolf.

There also remains the possibility that the wolf in this case was bad or evil.  But since I was a Shaman and since it wanted to be a spirit guide, I think not.  (But I am not sure.)  I still feel that if the Wolf/Fox is a spirit guide, it may need to be released to be as powerful as it needs to be.  (Maybe I need to be released to be as powerful as I need to be and at the same time, given my freedom to be powerful, rein myself in a little.)

---

Black Wolf/Red Fox, who are you?

I am Loqi, Lord Loqi, Wolf King of the Southern Red Tribes, and I am Little Loqi, Fox Master of Cunning and Trickery.  And I am Large Loqi, the Dire Wolf.  We are here to help fill your complement of power.  You have a high Northern (Arctic) Wolf, a mid northern Grey wolf, and me.  We are of one clan, yet my coming deepens your strength and power.  Embrace me.

Should I free you to be large again?

NO.  You needn't.  You have done what a Shaman must do, shown your power, but you have not vanquished me.  I am more powerful than you can know.  I am god.  I can be big in the blink of an eye.  I can be Maha Kali.  It is kind of you to be concerned, even if your concern is actually for yourself, but you needn't worry.  I am power, even as Little Loqi.  And I am with you.

Is this just wishful thinking of some kind?

Of course it is.  Yes--and no.  It is as you make it.  As you accept it.  As you honor it and make it yours.  We are yours.  You are ours.  We exist on the imaginal plane, you know that, but it doesn't make us less real or less powerful, remember that in the face of doubt.

What about Yolanda?

Speak to Yolanda.

---

Yolanda, who are you?

I am your self doubts and your obstacles.  But you know the saying, "make your stumbling blocks into stepping stones."  I can be your ally too.

Really?  I can use all the help I can get, how can you help me?

Notice how I look like wax?  I am a candle-torch to light the way.  I can show you how to overcome your self doubts and use your stumbling blocks as stepping stones.

Really, how?

Just ask--the LISTEN!  Call me, say YO, Yolanda?  And I will come.

YO-Yolanda, what about the false accusation thing?  Why am I being falsely accused and what should I do about it and how can I reweave the fabric of the family?

Tough questions.  Very tough.  Not all the accusations are false.

HUH?

Well, you do favor your own children.  "Even the tax collectors love their children."

Well, yeah, I'm human.  Like everyone else.  Often all too human.

Remember that.  So are your accusers.

But how can I fix things?  I want to fix things!

Keep your nose clean.  Be unceasingly honorable.

What does that mean?  What can I DO?  And how can I do it, being as imperfect as I am and being sick and tired and not sleeping well.

Call on Loqi and your other spirit guides, call on me, call on Jesus and Buddha, do you best.  Use you power, but use it wisely.

These are all nice things to say but not very specific.  Kind of wise generalizations.  Can you tell me something specific?

Seek balance.  Keep on keeping on.

More pap, generalizations.  Nice but is it helpful?  WAHN!  I need HELP!

---

I did not hit Yolanda, but I did hit the wolf--two approaches to attack.  One to verbal attack and one to physical attack.  To verbal attack, I tried a verbal response--to physical attack, a physical response.  Neither result was exactly what I wanted--with Yolanda, I wanted to restore peace.  The wolf was more successful, I guess--first I wanted to protect Yolanda and myself from attack, then to vanquish it, then to accept it, and I succeeded at each of these, but the final result was uncertain.

Yolanda doesn't want to give me a hug after explain how it is she who is wrong and not me--even though I am right and she is wrong and I just want to be friends.  I never want to hug anyone who tells me (how) I am wrong, either.

In this dream, I am right in both cases with Yolanda and I am powerful with the wolf, but being right and being powerful does not necessarily get me the results I want or need--that is, doesn't give me the best outcome.  I have a flaw in a sense.  I am so attached to being right (when I believe I truly am) that I will give up being happy for being right, which is not necessarily the best choice.

---

Could this really happen--this dream as dreamed?  Perhaps, but it is very unlikely.  Both Yolanda and the Wolf were very large.  It is more likely to be symbolic.

The dream still feels very powerful.

And it still feels somewhat unresolved.

Slogan(s):  Things are not always what they seem.  The right solution for the right problem, the right answer to the right question.  Use power with discretion.  Find balance.  Turn stumbling bocks into stepping stones.

Question:  What does the Wolf-Shaman portion of the dream have to do with the false accusation part of the dream, other than the fact that they are both attacks of sorts.  How does the one shed light on the other?  I can't exactly attack the false accuser, tackle them, hold them by the jaw and subdue them!!!

What would Jesus do?  Well, Jesus overturned the tables of the money-changers!  But how does one know where to use power and where to use diplomacy?  I am not Jesus, not Buddha, not Maha Kali, not wise, and often stupid and foolish.

If my subconscious mind knows any answers to this dilemma, it, in the form of Yolanda and Loqi, is not spitting out any real substantive (specific) answers.  I guess I need to dream on it/cogitate about it/journey about it some more.

Maybe the huge black wolf is symbolic of the giant rift forming in the family over the problems related to Mom's will etc.

My two spirit guide wolves who show up at the end, where were they when the dire wolf was attacking?  I guess I had to prove my power unaided?

Title:  False Accusations and the Dire Wolf

---

Once again, I have two parts which, when I think about a poem to honor the dream, don't necessarily seem to go together. I'm not sure what Yolanda and Loqi have to do with each  other, other than the link of attack.

Perhaps the poem can be written in a "sonnet" form with two stanzas that seem unrelated but somehow shed light on each (just as the structure of the dream.)

---

False Accusations and the Dire Wolf

Yolanda unexpectedly tumbles.  Her skirts fly.  She lands akimbo
on the ground, disarrayed.  Hollers "she hit me;" points at me. 
Shakes her finger.  I'm yards away.  And innocent. 
Indignant at the false accusation, I dash over to defend
myself as bystanders help her up.  She leads me to a window display
of trophies, pointing to one that says "Micaelson's."  "You spelled it wrong,"
she says, her voice rising with anger.  "I didn't make that one," I explain.
I point to the trophies I made, hand-carved from wood, unvarnished.
The one she's pointing at is black, fancy, plastic and metal, manufactured. 
"And anyway, Camp Micaelson's has no "h" even if I had
made it."  I ask her to hug me, to heal this rift between us. 
She wavers, withholding.

Down the road toward us, a wolf charges, huge, black, bent on attack.
Without hesitation, I step between the wolf and Yolanda.  As it springs,
I tackle it, knocking it down, grabbing it by the jaw, putting a knee
on its chest.  It gnaws my hand; we struggle.  Breathlessly, I tell Yolanda
I am a Shaman and can subdue the wolf, but I am not so sure.  The wolf
fights with power and strength.  I wonder if I am I courageous
and tenacious or simply puny.  I feel puny, but battle on and on
until the wolf shrinks to a small fox.  "Go," I say pointing down the road. 
It slinks away, tail between it's legs, then pauses, looking back.

"It wants to be my spirit guide," I tell Yolanda, "Come on," I call.
The small fox runs back.  My other two wolves attack it.  "Down," I say,
"play nice." The fox leaps to my shoulders, curls like a shawl
around my shoulders.  Wolves on either side, fox on my shoulder,
I smile at Yolanda and say nothing more.


Mary Stebbins Taitt
080321-1416-1c

---

Now that I have written this as a poem, it seems like simple wishful thinking, that I could be powerful and make things right.  Have powerful allies.

But, that's OK, I guess. 

I still wish things would work themselves out the way I think the should be--the family in unity and close, but, I guess I don't necessarily get my wish. 

Yolanda makes a couple of really weird, off the wall, totally inappropriate accusations, which, is what I feel the Rita is doing to me.  I'm sure she feels differently, or she wouldn't do it.  But I don't understand where she's coming from or if she in fact is truly behaving honorably.

Question:  what is my part in this?  If I can't change them, can I change ME?  Perhaps, perhaps not.  How MIGHT I change me to make things better?  And would it be an APPROPRIATE, honorable, honest change?

The Dire WOLF is me when I feel that I've been falsely accused, LOL!  (OK, not really funny.)   I tend to have two modes, either attack back or placate.  Is there a good middle ground?  One that shows power, courage and honor?  WHAT IS IT?

---

It occurs to me, after printing and rereading what I wrote above, that the trophies might also have some meaning.  Trophies are wins.  Victories.  Victories could be good or bad.  Trophy has a pejorative meaning when referring to people who kill and collect animal heads or women who collect rich men or men who collect pretty women.  But a well-earned trophy can be a good thing.

Am I trying to win the wrong kind of trophy somehow?  (Perhaps by being right instead of good?)  [Subconsciously if not consciously?]

I guess it depends on how you define "winning."  In my mind, a real win would be for the family to be close again.  My fear is that will never happen now.  The real trophy would be a happy loving family.  If the dream is even about the rift--I am acting as if it is because it feels that way.

There is also the issue of Micaelson.  I Google it and it's a real name.  There is an Ingrid Micaelson who is a singer, And a whole slew of others.  Dunno if there's a camp Micaelson.  Didn't check that.  I do.  There are none listed.  Interestingly, however, there is a Camp Michaelson:  "Jordan had a great time at "camp michaelson" - and she is ready to enroll in another session."  SO maybe someone DID spell it wrong (?)--why was I so sure Micaelson was correct in this case?  [I surely was sure!]  But I didn't make that trophy anyway.  Or maybe my dream camp isn't lsited in google yet, LOL!

Maybe I do to the Wolf in the dream what some part of me wants to do to Yolanda.  But I feel that we are friends and I want that friendship to survive, rekindle.  Maybe the dream is a simple expression of the ambivalence that accompanies all relationships and their struggles and issues.

In the dream, Yolanda was a friend and coworker, but I don't work at a camp and have no friends or coworkers who look or act like Yolanda in the dream.  The closest person to how she looks is a poet named Evie, but Yolanda really didn't look like Evie, she was bigger, had a flatter face (as if perhaps she was half Asian?) and was waxy looking.

The Obstacle Course to doing my pract...

The Obstacle Course to doing my practicing

We drive and drive down many roads, trying to get to E's school.  Finally, we arrive, after being lost for a long time.  E shows and guides me about.  She takes me to a room where there is a piano so I can do my practicing, but the route through the buildings is a series of obstacle courses.  We have to walk through classrooms of busy kids (running around with lively activities) and climb over and under desks and tables that have been pushed into the pathway and get tripped up by rolling balls.  It's one thing after another.  When we finally get to the practice room where there is a piano I can use, a rehearsal  is going on in the room.  I want to do my practicing anyway, but E steers me back out of the room and down the hall again.  She is not going to allow me to possibly disrupt the rehearsal.  On the way back down the hall, a woman and a small boy stand in the room with the balls where other kids are playing and having fun.  They want to play and are very sad because they are not allowed to (the boy is too young).  (He feels as I feel--sad not to be allowed to play [in my case, the piano]!!!)  I have a recital this evening (or sometime soon, and need to work through some knotty phrases.  How will I accomplish this if I cannot practice!  I feel tense.

---

This dream is interesting to me, because I do not play the piano.  I have often wished I did, wanted to.  But I don't.

Either I still want to, or I am worried about Graham's practicing or I am worried about my own "practicing" of some other skill and feeling thwarted in that (or all of the above.)

Could this happen as dreamed?  It could, but seems very unlikely.  It was quite realistic.  But I think it is more likely to represent my concerns over my painting or poetry practice, my longing to be able to make music, my concerns over Graham's practicing.

"I am sad not to be allowed to play the piano."  Who disallows me?  I do.  I don't want to start learning ANOTHER new skill when I am already feeling overwhelmed by everything I am wanting to do and accomplish (my novels, my poetry manuscripts, photography, art, illustration, children's picture books, cleaning the house, sorting stuff, etc etc.  Would I have time to practice?  Would I make a fool of myself?  Be bad at it?  Progress unbearably slowly?  Would it interfere with my writing?

What obstacles prevent me from:

1. practicing?
2. playing music?
3. playing and having fun?
4. excelling at my endeavors
   

In most cases, the obstacles are self-generated, though there are also external obstacles--my health, limits to the amount of available time and energy, other commitments.

It is interesting that in this dream, my child plays the roll of guide and "parent."  [This is sort of scary and reminds me of the issue of aging and having to be a mother of sorts to my mother before she died.]  Not sure how to include that in the poem below, though.  It's an extra layer of complication, which seems to require its own separate exploration.  OR DOES IT RELATE to the problem at hand somehow?  Is E or a "parental figure/guide" or child somehow preventing me from practicing, playing, making music, accomplishing my goals?  Or is it E's goals I am worried about?  WOW!  Very complex.  Or is E a teacher here?  My child and my guide/teacher?  Confusing.  Or is she representing the inner parental self?  Or--all of the above?

---

The Obstacle Course

I clamber over a desk shoved into the hallway,
crawl under another piled too high with books
and equipment to climb over, a over third
and under a fourth.  My daughter steers me. 
We trip on rolling balls, dodge running children. 
Down one hall and another, though endless
buildings we walk and walk and walk.  The school
is huge, the practice room and piano at the far end
of campus.  I am eager to work through knotty phrases
and tight places for my recital tonight.  But when we finally
find the practice room, a rehearsal is going on.  I want
to practice, to run my fingers over the keys, to pound
and linger, to pump the pedals, but I cannot. 
I clutch my hands together, moaning in frustration
as my daughter pushes me away.  Back
in the room with the balls, a small boy
stands watching, weeping because he cannot play.


Mary Stebbins Taitt
080318-1058-1

Potatoes and onions

Potatoes and onions

We are in a large grocery warehouse area taking pictures of potatoes and onions when we are given a big paper sack and asked to transfer some of the onions into the sack.  We begin doing that.  At the bottom, we discover some that are growing in a slimy mess.  (AS usual, there wa smuch more to the dream, but this is all I can clearly remember.)

We are painting stained glass windows.  (I want to make glass prints.  Try it).

The cactus Hat

The cactus Hat


We are in a hallway of a dormitory or other similar building and a cheerful man is running around going into people's room showing them his cactus pants.  They are small pants for three-year old maybe in white, red and blue with circular spots.  They don't look like cacti.

Or, he says, you can wear them as a hat.  He puts it on his head and it transforms to a hat.  It's an interesting colorful hat and I admire it teasingly and half-seriously to him.

There was more to this dream, but this is all I remember at the moment

hair plugs

hair plugs

an Asian woman has three hair plugs in the top of her forehead.  She's annoyed because they didn't finish the job.  They look terrible.  Three round plugs in her forehead.  It was the style.

Thinner! (milk?)

Thinner! (Milk?)

I dream that I am visibly thinner.  Not thin, but clearly thinner than I am now.  I am deeply pleased with this.  At one point in the dream, I seem to be seeing myself from the back.

I dream I am drinking a large glass of milk and suddenly become aware of this and worried about it, since I am allergic to milk.  I am also telling myself it doesn't taste good, but I am not entirely convinced of this.  I seem unsure if it is good or not.

Waking up: Chapter 6: What the Rose Said and What the Fish Said

Chapter 6:  What the Rose Said and What the Fish Said

    "Hey!  We're inside the book!  I was thinking we'd go someplace. Look, we're black and white, like a drawing," Tammy said, staring at Matt.
    "And flat," Matt added, rubbing his flat hands down his totally flat body and laughing.
    "Let's look around.  This asteroid isn't very big.   If the Rose is still here, it shouldn't take long to find it."
    "There it is!"
    They ran over and knelt down beside the Rose.  She was not inside her glass jar, which was laying on its side next to her.  There were no caterpillars on her.  She seemed to be smiling.  "Hello, Rose," Tammy said,  "You're still here."
    "Of course I am still here.  And very well, I thank you."
    "I'm so glad.  Did the Little Prince come back?"
    "He came back many times.  He was here this morning in fact.  Picked off the caterpillars for me.  Gave me a little drink.  Told me his latest adventures.  And was off again."
    "When will he be back?"
    "I never know.  I just wait.  Love is the most important thing.  More important than anything.  Love and patience.  I have a nice view here.  I can see the asteroid with the man counting his money and the asteroid where the King sits {Get the details here}.  Sometimes, far off, I see the earth where the Little Prince once went.  And all the stars.  And the pretty planets.  It's a very nice view.  But the view I like best is the Little Prince coming back to me.  Love is everything.  It is all there is.  Friendship is love you know," she added, looking at the two of them coyly.  "Friendship a special kind of love.  Love is not just hugs and kisses.  Love is being kind to someone, looking out for them, picking off their caterpillars, putting them under a jar to protect them.  Helping them when they need help.  But you already know what, right?"
    "Um, . . .  ah . . ., yeah, sort of, of course," Tammy said, looking out of the corner of her eye at Matt.  He was turning the sole of his sneaker sideways and dragging it on the ground to make a little mark.  "Of course friendship is a kind of love."  Tammy added, more confidently.
    "And love," repeated the Rose, "is the most important thing."
    "Love," said Tammy, repeating it so that she would be sure to remember, "is the most important thing."
    "Bonjour," said a little voice.  The Little Prince had arrived.  He was a small child, smaller than Tammy expected he would be.  She had been wondering if he would have grown up.  He was sort of like Peter Pan, she guessed.  He looked just like he did in the book.  But, that wasn't surprising, since they were in the book.
    "Bonjour, Petite Prince," Tammy said.  "Do you understand English?"
    "Oh yes.  I'm in translation.  Anyway, I could always speak English. It's a natural talent."
    "We came to see if you were still alive."
    "Here I am.  I live inside this book.  I am always alive inside the book."
    "Yes, but did you make it back to the Rose in the end?"
    "The end has not arrived.  But I know, outside this book, my father Antoine died when his plane went down.  That was on Earth.  Here, he still visits sometimes, and says hello."
    "Are you alive?  Are you alive now?"
    "Are you a real boy?" another voice asked.  Everyone looked up.  It was Pinocchio.  He was not flat, and not black and white, but full color.  Something swept over them, like a hand passing over, and everyone went from black and white to color.  The little Prince and the Rose were still rather flat and looked like the color illustration of the book instead of like the inside pages.  But gradually, they became rounder and fuller.  "Are you a real boy?" Pinocchio repeated.
    "Oh, no," Tammy said, "this is my fault.  I keep worrying about what is real and what isn't.  I think that the 'waking word' is real and the 'dream world' is not.  People are real and books are not.  But books are so real that I was worried about what happened to you after you got bitten by the snake," she said to The Little Prince.  "Is all this in my head?  Just in my head?"
    "It's in my head too," Matt said.
    "And mine," said the Rose.  "What is real is not the important thing.  Love is the important thing."
    "If you want to know what's important," said the Little Prince, gravely, read the rest of my book.  Read about the roses on earth, and the fox and the children looking out the train window.  Read everything."
    "What's important," said Pinocchio, "is the truth.  Take it from me, you have to tell the truth."
    "That's exactly what I was worried about," said Tammy, "isn't what's real the same what's true?  Aieee--I'm confused."
    "What is Truth?"  Matt asked.  he reached into the air and plucked out a dictionary.  "Let me see here, t, t-r, here it is, 'truth, the actual state of matter, conforming with fact or reality, verified, an idea or fundamental reality apart from perceived experience."
    "See truth's tied to matter and reality."
    "What about that second part, 'an idea apart from perceived experience?"  Matt asked.
    "This is perceived experience.  Dreams and books are perceived experiences."
    "Everything we experience is perceived.  But, that doesn't make it not real.  Or not truthful.  One of the definitions hadn't gotten to is honesty, integrity.  I think that realness and truth have to do with honesty and integrity."
    "This is boring," said the Rose.  I already explained it all.  Love is the important thing.  If you have love, you have honesty and integrity and you are truthful and real.  Period.  Get on with it."
    "I think she's right," said the Little Prince.
    "Me, too, said Pinocchio.
    "Me three," said Matt.
    "I guess so," said Tammy.
    "We gotta go," said Matt, "Thank you all for your help.  Goodbye."
    "Bye, bye, bye, bye."
    The Farnsworth Chapel loomed over them.  "I've got to dash, Tammy, each of us has work to do together, and work to do apart, if we're to solve this puzzle, and it is time for some solo work.  Your dreams will lead you where you need to go."  Before Tammy could protest, he was gone.

    Tammy didn't want to stand at the edge of the graveyard too long.  Without Matt, it seemed really spooky and scary.  It seemed as if there was something she should be doing, but first, she wanted to locate her copy of The Little Prince.  She was pretty sure it was at her Grandmother's house, on a shelf in the old playroom where she still stayed when she went to visit.  If it was there, she'd get it over the weekend if she could.  She wanted to reread it.
    Her grandmother's house was dark, which wasn't surprising since it was now the wee hours of night.  She walked right through the wall into the playroom as if it were a bead curtain.  That was easy, she thought. 
    Right beside the wall where the came through was the dresser with the dark aquariums on top and her emergency clothes inside.  The book case with all the books Grandma kept there for her was beside the window.  Moonlight and street lamplight streamed through the window making two overlapping squares, one a weird pinkish color and one more whitish, and the place where they overlapped seemed painfully bright.  Tammy knelt on the floor in front of the bookcase and began looking for The Little Prince on the shelf of taller thinner books.  Kid books.  It was right where she thought it would be, next to Piggy Wiglet  on one side and Goodnight Moon on the other.  But The Little Prince was a different kind of book.  It wasn't really a little kid book. 
    She put her finger on the book and drew it down the spine.  She could feel the little creases in the paper cover from all the times she'd read the book.  "This is a dream," she said, out loud.  I'm awake, inside a dream.  And I can feel things, not just see them.
    Something seemed strange.  The hairs on the back of her neck prickled.  She turned around and saw fish, swimming in the air above the aquarium.  Suddenly she remembered she had had this dream before, many times.  The fish came out at night, swam above the aquarium and off into the world.  They had to be back, she knew, before dawn.  If not, they would fall from the air that was no longer thick like water, and die on the floor.  Sometimes, Tammy had found their shrivelled bodies, all dried out, and stuck to the floor.  The  ones who hadn't made it back by down.  Grandma said that they jumped out of the aquarium, but Tammy had found them in other rooms.  And Grandma always smiled funny when she said that.  A couple times, Tammy found fish on the floor early in the morning and they were still alive.  She carefully picked them up with a wet cloth and returned them to the tank.  Usually, they recovered.  Sometimes, not.
    Tammy wondered where they went at night, and what they did.  She went over to the tank and watched the incoming fish.  Then she remembered she had to get back too.  It was starting to get light out, and she had to get ready for school.  She'd try to talk to the fish another day.  Suddenly, it seemed there was a lot to do.  She had to find out what the Baba Yaga had warned them about, and what she was supposed to do.  So far, nothing seemed to be that helpful.  Talking to a rose and the Little Prince and Pinocchio just didn't seem like the way to solve a world crisis.  But then again, who was she to imagine she could do anything to save the world anyway.
    She stared at the fish as they came in from all directions.  Some came through the wall, some down the hall.  The hovered above the water briefly and then dove in.  One of them, a large female guppy swerved from her path and hovered in front of Tammy.  "You are needed," She spoke, not aloud, but into Tammy's mind.  "You are necessary and important.  We all are."
    The sun peeked up over the edge of the earth in a crack between two houses and shone through the window.  The guppy wavered and started loosing altitude.  Tammy quickly put a hand under the fish and eased it toward the tank.  "Thanks," the fish said as it slid gratefully into the water.
    "Oboy," Tammy said, as she intended herself home.  "Now I am talking to fish.  Next I'll be stuck in a looney bin."
    "What did you say, honey?" her mother asked, as she walked by her open bedroom door.
    "Nothing, Mom, I was just dreaming."
    "I thought your said something about talking fish and going to a looney bin."
    "You've got a pretty vivid imagination, sweetheart," Dad said, walking down the hall the other way.  He leaned down and kissed his wife on the mouth.  "Have a good day," he called, as he quietly let himself out the garage door.
    "Want an omelet, Tam?"
    "Sure, Mom."  Tammy sat up in bed rubbing her eyes.  She felt as if she'd been awake all night, but was amazingly rested anyway.  Weird.
    "Want a ride to school?  I'm going over to take Grandma to the doctor.  I took the morning off from work."
    "That'd be great, Mom.  Say, Mom, could you please pick of the Little Prince book for me.  It's the third book over and the third shelf int he bookcase in Grandma's playroom.  Is Grandma okay?"
    "Little prince, third book on the third shelf--boy you sure have a good memory.  She's fine.  Just a test that requires her to have a driver.  Eyedrops is all.
    "Phew!  I was worried for a sec."
    "Nothing to worry about," Mom reassured her.
    Except some world crisis, Tammy thought, and a soul-eating witchy woman in a house with a chicken leg.
    "Did you say something?" Mom said, poking her head back in the door.
    "Not a word."
    "Hmmm.  Thought I heard something about world crisis and witchy women."
    Weird.  Tammy would have sworn she had been utterly silent.
    "What's that rock on your dresser.  It looks strange.  Kind of metallic, like an asteroid."
    Tammy picked it up.  It was small, angular, and amazingly heavy.  "Something I need to take to Mr. Sorenson,"  Tammy said.

Waking Up, Spies in the Land of Dreams; Chapter 5: The Underground Sun and a Trip to the Moon

Chapter 5:  The Underground Sun and a Trip to the Moon

    Tammy was wandering in the dark, wandering for hours.  She knew she was supposed to be somewhere, and it was important, urgent maybe.  She had to remember what it was.  She had to think.  There was something in her hands, and she looked down.  She was clutching a paper rose in her hand.  Her hands looked so--real--so there, so alive.  A paper rose.  Matt, midnight.  She looked at her watch.  11:55.  She was wide awake.  She looked around.  She was in some dark alley.  But she had to get toFarnsworth Chapel in five minutes.  She ran to the end of the alley.  There was a long hill with a trail leading up, and trees on either side of the trail.  It was the path up toFarnsworth Chapel.  She headed up it.  The trees seemed fluid and their shadows long and dim and eerie.  She ran up the hill.  The light was oddly green,a greenish yellow, like the light before a really bad thunderstorm.
    At the top of the hill, she could see the chapel.  Behind it was a weird black sky.  It looked like the beginning of a very scary movie.  Or the cover of a very scary book.  She slowed down and walked toward the gate.  No one was there.  No Matt.  She slowed down and looked at her watch.  Eleven fifty-nine and fifty-nine second.  Poof, there was Matt at the stroke of midnight.  A shiver ran down Tammy's spine. 
    Matt waved.  He smiled.  "Hi Tammy!"  Suddenly, it was much brighter.  Almost like daylight.  The light was still greenish, but only faintly so.
    "Why's the light so green?" Tammy asked Matt.  "Hi," she added, as an afterthought.  He looked completely normal.  Not scary at all.
    "I call it the 'Underground Sun.'"  Matt said.
    "But Farnsworth Chapel isn't underground, it's on the top of a hill."
    "It's a reference to the underworld.  Hades and Persephone.  It's an analogy for dreams."
    "My dreams don't usually look this way, they just look normal--either dark for chasing dreams, or bright (blue maybe), for falling dreams."
    "That's why I say there is more than one dream world.  They're all layered together and you can move freely between them.  This is the Hades Underground, this world."
    Tammy looked down at her hands.  It gave her another shiver.  The paper rose was gone.  "Hey, my rose is gone!  It helped me find you, and now it's gone."
    "When you get home, you'll find it where you left it, and it will be useful next time, too."
    "I hate the way you say, 'quote unquote real world.' Can we just call it 'Solland' [SOHL-land] and Greenland?  I know not all dreams are green, but we can agree that that term will apply to the land of dreams, with Mearddth being one of the worlds of the Universe of Greenland.  Solland is just one of the worlds of the other world, but since we are unlikely to leave Earth in our quote unquote real life, Solland is all the land we will normally need to refer to and we can essentially use it to refer to the quote unquote real world from now on.  Just to make it easier."
    "Okay, I guess, but it is sort of confusing, because Solland sounds like SOUL-LAND and SOUL-Land is closer to Dreamland.  And Greenland sounds like a county in Solland."
    "You got a better idea?"
    Matt said he didn't and Tammy said they weren't likely to be referring to Greenland in their personal conversation, so in spite of the difficulties, they settled on Solland for their their linear waking or "real" world and Greenland for the dream Universe. 
    "We night not be able to leave earth from Solland any time soon," Matt said.  But we can go from anywhere in Greenland to Sol's universe and look around."  Tammy was dubious, so Matt said he'd show her.  "Let's go to the Moon, first," he said.  "Intention," he repeated.  "Hold hands so we won't get separated."
    "WOW!  Look, there's the earth,"  Tammy said, pointing.  The sky was black.  "There's no air, how are we breathing?"     
    "Our Sol bodies are home in bed breathing Solland air.  Our dream bodies don't need air."
    "Oh yeah."  They wandered around.  It was as bright as day, though there was still a green tinge to the light. The ground just looked like dirt.  Tammy leaned over and touched it.  It felt like a mixture of gritty sand and dirt.  There were rocks too.  She picked one up and looked at it.  It was angular and slightly bronze colored.  She slipped it in her pocket. 
    There were craters of all sizes overlapping each other.  And hills.  They walked up the nearest hill.  They could see the curve of the moon falling away on all sides. The sky was black and full of stars, the blue earth a ball on the sky like a large blue moon. 
    "A waxing gibbous earth," Tammy said, dreamily, imitating Laina.  "A good sign."  Mr. Sorenson had recently talked about phases of the moon and how they were lit by the sun.  Laina, a girl who called herself a white witch, had dreamily instructed them on the Wiccan meanings of the moon.  Tammy thought she remembered her saying that waxing moons were good luck, for growth and healing, whereas waning moons were good for losing weight and getting rid of bad habits.  But not as 'propitious,' Laina had said, for starting new relationships or new ventures.  Oddly, Mr. Sorenson had smiled tolerantly, and let her ramble.  At the time, Tammy had thought that it was strange for a science teacher to let someone be so unscientific in class.  Hmmmm . . .  Tammy didn't believe in astrology or any of that other weird nonscientific stuff in Solland, but here in Greenland, it might have some function.  Maybe.
    "What does 'propitious' mean," Tammy asked Matt.  "Does it mean 'lucky?'"
    "Dunno," said Matt.  We need a dictionary."  One appeared in his hands and he opened it to p and handed it to Tammy.
    She read aloud, "One, presenting favorable conditions; favorable propitious weather: two, indicative of favor, auspicious: propitious omens; three favorably inclined; disposed to bestow favors or forgive:  propitious gods."  She turned to a.  "Auspicious, promising success, favored by fortune.  I think that waxing gibbous earth is propitious for an auspicious adventure saving the world.  We'll be successful."  She laughed.  "Too bad we don't know what the problem is or what we have to do."
    "We'll find out," Matt said.  "Soon."

    "Just think," he said, with a wave of his hand out toward the entire universe, "all this is underground."
    "And all this light," Tammy said, sweeping her arm over the brilliantly lit surface of the moon, "is inside the darkness of our sleep.  Such luminance to be inside the darkness."  Then, in a totally different tone of voice, like a little girl, she said, "do you think we could go to the Little Prince's asteroid?  I want to see if he made it safely home to his Rose."
    "The Little Prince's Asteroid?"
    "It's probably in a different layer, a different dreamworld.  But if we could come here, couldn't we go there too?  I know if probably has nothing to do with our mission, but just a quick side trip?  Five minutes?  Would that be okay?"
    "Uh, are you talking about that book by what's his name, St. something or other--didn't he have an airplane and get lost at sea?"
    "Antoine St. Exupery!  'On ne voit bein qu'avec le couer.  L'essentials est invisble pour les yeux.'" {check this for spelling etc.}  It's the best book!  Did you read it?  My parents read it to me when I was younger, and then we read it in French, with Mde Gouet." (Use another name?)
    "I'm a year behind you in French, remember, because I didn't take AP French in 6th grade.  I was afraid it would too hard.  My parents wanted me to take it, but I thought they were just ebing mean and stupid.  I took Life Skills instead.  Let me see.  Say that French phrase again.  Let me see if I can figure it out."
    "'On ne voit bein qu'avec le couer.  L'essentials est invisble pour les yeux.'"  {Check this!}
    "One sees well only with the . . .  the heart?  The essentials are invisible for the eyes?"
    "Yup, that's it.  Hey--if we can produce a dictionary and read it, can we produce 'Le Petite Prince?'  Or "The Little Prince," maybe would be better.  Quicker and easier for us since our language skills aren't that great."
    "Language skills are better in dreams, but try for the Little Prince.  Intend for it to be in your hands."
    And there it was, The Little Prince, in Tammy's hands.  "I don't get how you can look up a word in a dream that you don't know the meaning of and find out what it is.  If you don't know it, how does the sleeping brain find the information if it doesn't have it?"
    "Maybe you really do know it.  Or maybe you're tapping into the collective unconscious.  Or maybe you are able to actually do dream detective work, somehow.  Or all of the above.  Or something else.  I don't really know."
    "I thought you knew everything.  Lol!  OK," she said, flipping open the book, "I want to show you the Little Prince's Asteroid.  And then, I want you to read this book, especially the part about the fox, and about looking out the train windows, and . . . well just read it all.  I mean later, at home.  Do read it, please?  And let me know if you like it.  Here, look, here he is on his asteroid, and here's his rose."
    "Okay, let's go there, now."

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 6:  What the Rose Said

Waking Up, Spies in the Land of Dreams

Chapter 4:  Danger

    "Yeah, about that.  Let's talk about the danger first.  There is danger in the dream worlds and danger in the quote unquote real world.  They're related."
    "What do you mean, 'the quote unquote real world?'  The real world world is real and dreams are just the imagination, right?  The sleeping and confused imagination?  Fun, interesting, scary. Confusing.  Perhaps enlightening, but not real.  Right?"
    "Right.  And wrong."
    "Okay, I'm confused.  And we haven't even gotten to the part about danger and the Baba Yaga's message."
    "Well, when you are dreaming, your physical body stays home in bed, right?"
    "Or where you've left it when you go to sleep."
    "Assuming you left your body in a safe place, and no place is 100% safe, but that's a separate issue, assuming you body is safe, the first danger is to your mind, emotions and soul and their relationship to the body.  The Baba Yaga is essentially a figment of your imagination--or ours.  She is, in a sense, a creation of the the collective unconscious or the minds of all of men.  But, while she may not be real in the phenomenal, consensual or the quote unquote real world, she is very real to the subconscious mind or dreaming mind.  And while she cannot eat your physical body,she can eat your dream body, and by doing so, she could sever the connection between your mind and your body."
    "Good grief, Matt, you sound like a teacher, the annoying kind that uses too many big words."
    "I'm not sure of another way to say it.  If I am not careful how I say it, you might misunderstand me."
    "You're saying that the Baba Yaga could make me crazy."
    "Yes, or even kill you, in the quote unquote real world."
    "Will you quit calling it "the quote unquote real world.  You would be really dead."
    "If I call it the 'real world,' that implies dreams aren't real.  But of course they are real.  They exist in their own way and they affect us.  Now, to continue about danger, I just need to warn you that the dream world is connected to the quote unquote real world, as I am sure you know.  Suppose we were dream spies and decided to spy and Miss Wingsley?  Suppose we went into her dreams, the way I entered your dream, to look around and see why she always acts like she has a corncob up her butt.  Maybe there is one, in her dreams, and we want to yank it out of her dream butt so she won't be so . . . "
    "What the flip, Matt, you're being really rude," Tammy said, looking around to see if anyone was listening.  "What if Ms. Window has this place bugged?  Maybe she's a friend of Miss Wingsley and will tell her and then we'll be up the creek without a paddle."
    "That was what I was sort of getting around to, in a way, but I guess I was being a little crude.  Miss Wingley bugs me, sorry.  OK, for the sake of illustration only, let's just say that Miss Wingsley was a spy for, mmm, the Al Qaeda."
    "Yeah, that's almost about to happen . . . "
    "I said for the sake of illustration, I'm trying to communicate somethign to you here."
    "Okay, okay, continue."
    "All right, now suppose that we had reason to be suspicious of her, because she was such a . . . a . . . a grouch.  And we decided to spy on her dreams to see if she's got Al Qaeda connections.  And suppose we discovered she did, but we were spotted spying on her in her dreams by the Al Qaeda henchmen.  What do you suppose they would do to use in quote unquote real life--in the phenomenal world--if they could find us?"
    "Kill us for real."
    "You bet!"
    "But I am just a teenage kid.  I'm not a threat to Al-Qaeda or anyone else."
    "Not yet, you're not.  Were you listening to what Baba Yaga said?"
    "Yeah, I heard her.  I didn't understand her, but I heard what she said.  And I have a pretty good memory, I think.  She said, and I quote, 'Since there are two of you, and since each of you has passed a test of sorts, I will give you two answers.  Three, really.  What you need to know is that your Maya world is at a turning point and if it is not turned back, there will be no turning back and all will be lost.  What you need to do is continue as you are, for the path before you is the answer to saving the world.  And finally, If you don't leave immediately, I will eat you anyway.  And next time, I may eat you without warning.'"
    "Wow!  You really do have a good memory!  Criminey!"
    "I was confused by what she said.  She said Maya world.  I thought Maya meant illusion and I looked it up, and it does, in Sanskrit.  But she seemed to be talking about the real world."
    "Many people believe that what we call the quote unquote real world is simply illusion, or another dream.  And since she lives in the dream world, it's not surprising she considers what we call the real world to be illusion."
    "You seem like you're talking in circles, but OK, she means that the real everyday world is in trouble of some kind.  It's at a turning point, and if we keep going this way, whatever that means, we'll discover a way to save the world.  Which way are we going and who's we?"
    "Where were we going when we met her?"
    "Into the dream world.  We were exploring."
    "The imaginal or dream world, right, so whatever we were doing then we need to do more of.  It will lead us to an answer.  She was talking to us, you and me.  We have to save the world.  It is our task."
    "We, you and me, save the world?  Yeah right.  We're nobody.  We're two wimpy bookish teenage kids in some  backwater town in the middle of nowhere, and we are going to save the world when all the grownups and think tanks and presidents and college professors have failed.  I probably couldn't fight my way out of a bowl of spaghetti, and you want me to fight Al Qaeda?"
    "Yup.  More than Al Qaeda, though, that's just the tip of the iceberg."
    "You're completely crazy."
    "So can we count you in?"
    "We, who's we?"
    "Me and Ms Window and Mr. Beakley and Mr. Sorenson and Mr. Allen . . . "
    "Mr Allen too?  I suppose Social Studies and History would be relevant here.  Yup, I can see that.  But not Miss Wingsley?"
    "I think she's gone over to the dark side."
    "You're getting carried away, Matt."
    "So will you?"
    "Do I have a choice?"
    "You always have a choice."
    "As long as I can back down later, sure.  Why not.  Now I gotta go.  If I'm not there at 6, I'll get grounded."
    "Walk you home?"
    "No, it'd be better if you didn't, seriously.  My folks might not understand."
    "OK, I'll just walk you half-way.  But we've got a date?"
    "A date?"
    "For more lessons tonight.  Meet me at the stroke of midnight at the Farnsworth Chapel."
    "My curfew is at 10:30."
    "In your dreambody, silly."
    "In your dreams!"
    "Yeah, that's it!  Really."
    "How do I do that?  I'm gonna be late."
    "Intention.  You have to intend to.  Before you sleep.  Out this under your pillow, it will help you remember," Matt handed her a paper rose.  It was the kind handed out by some organization looking for donations.  "Take it with you into your dreams, look for it.  Bye.  See you at Midnight."

A Handful of Money

A Handful of Money

I am at some sort of conference on scientific topics with workshops, movies etc.  We discover in a back room that was not announced where I or anyone else heard it some food which is very poorly organized and mostly stuff I can't eat.  There are baked beans and bean salads etc, but I find a box with some sandwich meat and bread that wasn't put out on the plates because there hadn't been room (meanwhile, what was put out is gone) and am able to make myself a sandwich (but with a white bread roll).  I am with Keith, and have already participated in a number of activities and programs.  There is a program tonight, and it comes free with something else, but not with the program I paid for.  Keith and I are in another small building now, trying to make some other arrangements when I see a display tray of tickets and cards and metal buttons for the various events and no one is there guarding it.  Several other people help themselves to tickets.  I pick up a card that is good for several events, but that feels wrong to me, and I put it back.  I am about to approach one of the workers at another table and explain that I was supposed to get a free program with another program I attended when I realize I have already had my free program last night.  So I got to Keith and tell him I want to attend tonight's program and he gives me some money.  I am headed over to buy the ticket legally (morally) when I wake up. 

I can still feel the money in my hand when I wake up and have to rub my fingers together to double check that there is not actually any money in my hands.  I am very relieved when I wake up that I did not steal the tickets card.  I don't want to be dishonest, but then it occurs to me that there are still other ways that I am.  This makes me feel heavy and sad.

Chapter 3: Persephone's, in Waking Up, Spies in the Land of Dreams

Chapter 3:  Persephone's

    "Are you allowed to go out for coffee or tea or something?" Matt asked.  "We need to talk.
    "As long as my grades are good, yeah.  Otherwise I'm grounded.  That's why it's really important to do well in Math and not get on Miss Weinhart's bad side.  But I have to be home for dinner at six, and that doesn't give us much time."
    "Persephone's is right around the corner--ever been there?"  Tammy shook her head.  "I know most kids prefer lattes at Starbucks, but I think you'll like Persephone's."
    Persephone's was down a dark, narrow twisting stairway under the Rite-Aid.  They had to step over a homeless guy who was stretched out in the bushes next to the stairwell with his huge feet in black boots in the center of the path.  He was clutching a brown paper bag with a bottle in it.  The paper was tight around the bottle, so Tammy could see the shape of it.  His eyes were closed and his eyelids were flickering furiously.  There was a small sign on the concrete at the top, under the Rite-Aid sign, partially obscured by some yews with bright red berries, and a larger sign over the door downstairs that was not visible from the street level. No wonder Tammy had never noticed the place!  Both signs showed a beautiful woman with long flowing wavy hair holding a pomegranate.  Tammy recognized it right away, because they'd had pomegranates at Christmas every year since she was a small child.  Her grandmother had taught her to eat them.
    Inside, Persephone's was the antithesis of Starbucks.  It was dimly lit with small, flickering orangish lights on the walls that looked like torches.  The walls looked as if they were made with blocks of marble.  There were fireplaces around the perimeter of the room and one in the center with small fires flickering merrily.  Old, well-worn couches and chairs sprawled aimlessly around the room.  Flimsy wooden folding chairs were drawn around tables where various games were set up.  And there was art.  Large oil portraits filled the walls, as well as other kinds of paintings and sculptures.  Something seemed very familiar about the art.  Tammy wanted to examine them all, but Matt guided her to a small table in a dark corner.  It had what appeared to be a game board, but it was a game Tammy didn't recognize.
    The had barely taken their seat when a woman emerged from behind a curtain.  Tammy gasped.  It was Ms. Window, her art teacher.  No wonder the art looked familiar!  Tammy had seen some similar but smaller pieces and some pencil sketches of the subjects of the large works in the classroom.
    "Two pomegranate grenadines and six seeds each," said Matt.
    "Ah," sighed Ms. Window, with a farawy look in her eyes, "Dreamers.  Congratulations."
    After she had wandered off and disappeared again behind the curtain, Tammy asked what she had meant and how she had known.
    "The grenadine of course.  Pomegranates are the fruit of the underworld, or the subsconscious, or the dreamworld.  Sephee is another dream guide."
    "Her name is Persephone.  This is her place.  Who runs it during school?"
    "No one.  It's only open after school, Saturdays, Sunday afternoons, and evenings.  Whenever she has a class or doctor's appointment or something, she puts a sign up.  People can still come in, she never locks the door, but they have to get their food and drinks out of the vending machines behind that curtain," Matt said, pointing to another curtain in a dark corner far across the room.
    "And no one robs the place?"
    "Why would they?  Besides, one of the bicycle beat cops, Ares, is her brother. He keeps a close eye on it, as do all his other friends.  And Mort, the homeless guy at the top of the stairs.  He sleeps on that couch at night,"  Matt said, pointing again.
    "Ares?  Persephone?  Those are mythological names.  Are they their real names?"
    "Dunno for sure, but Their mother's name is Demeter.  She's from Greece."
    "Wait a minute, Greece, Rome . . . "  Ms. Window came back out with a small red tray.  It had two tall red glasses and two tiny red plates.  On each plate were six red seeds.  She set the glasses and plates in front of Matt and Tammy, and then withdrew a little package from her pocket and set it between them.   She bowed slightly and withdrew.
    "The fortune cookie," Matt said.  "You open it."
    Tammy unwrapped the package.   It was too flat to be a  Chinese fortune cookie.  But it was a cookie, and oatmeal raisin cookie.  Tammy looked puzzled.
    "Break it in half," Matt said.
    Inside was a small piece of folded aluminum foil and inside that, a tiny note.  Tammy held it close to her face and read, "'Listen to the Baba Yaga. The world needs your help.'  Well, I didn't understand what the Baba Yaga said, so how can I listen?  And how did Ms. Window know?"
    "That's one of several things we need to talk about," Matt said.  "As far as Ms. Window, she's a seer.  A seer is a SEE-er.  She sees things.  She's also a dream spy.  I think we need to be as well."
    "A dream spy?  That sounds interesting, scary and dangerous."
    "All of the above and more.  Danger is another thing we have to talk about.  The danger is real.  You need to know that."
    "You'd better explain."
    "Ok, I will."  He took a sip of his grenadine and Tammy did the same.  It tasted great, sweet and fruity.  He gathered his six seeds and chewed them gently, closing his eyes and savoring them.  Tammy followed suit.  At least she knew how to eat pomegranates.  Only normally, she ate a quarter of the pomegranate at a time, or even half. 
    "Why six seeds?  Why not more?"
    "It's a ritual and a message.  Six, so we can go in and out, and return safely.  Later we can eat more, if you'd like.  If we ask for more, it will come on a yellow plate to counteract the red.  Red for the underworld, yellow for the above world."
    "So, danger, and the Baba Yaga?"

--
I am certain of nothing but the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination- John Keats
Mary

080128 free bird, weighing

080128 free bird, weighing

1)Rocky the cockateil is flying free and I am so happy.  He is free in the new house I purchased, which is full of boxes.  (It is a house like the green one I wanted to buy, maybe the same one, maybe not.)  I love the fact that Rocky can fly free and be him or her self.

2)Keith and I are on a trip.  We stop at a roadside pull over where there are very fancy bathrooms on wheels.  Before we start out to do what we are doing next, Keith says he wants to use the restroom and get weighed.  I hadn't thought of that, but I decide to do it too, and I go in, use the bathroom, undress, and weigh myself.  For some reason, I leave the bathroom naked with with all my clothes and belongings inside and someone else goes in and I can't leave to rejoin Keith until I get dressed.  I've forgotten what I weighed and want to reweigh myself first.  It starts turning into an upsetting ordeal because a woman with children is in where my clothes are and I can't get them because it is taking them so long.

And then I woke up, Chapter 2: Detention

Chapter 2:  Detention

    "Matt, check this one out," Tammy hissed across the table. 
    Matt was standing up with his head twisted funny counting quietly to himself.  "Wait a minute," he said, "I'm right in the middle of something, here, try this and then I'll see what you found."  Tammy stood up and camer around the table.  Matt didn't look at her.  "Stare at this picture and count slowly to 60 and then stare at the white page next to it."  The picture was of a green, orange and black flag.  She started counting and staring, staring and counting.  "Oh, WOW!"  Matt breathed, "that's cool!"
    "I knew that's what would happen," Tammy said, after she finished her couldn't, I could tell becaese the colors were exactly opposite.  Of course it would be red white and blue, what else would it be?  But it it very cool.  I can still see it on the wall and on the table."
    "Do you know why it happens?"
    "Your eyeballs get tired of looking at orange, green and black?"
    "That's pretty much it--you use up all the chemicals needed to see those colors so when you stop looking, you see the opposite.  It's pretty cool."
    "It sure is, now check this one out."  Matt came over and looked into Tammy's book. 
    "Oh, cool, it's one of those magic eye things."
    "Yeah, but check it out, dude, it's not just any magic eye.  This is really fun!"
    "I thought you said detention was not your ideas of fun!  Sometimes I'm kinda slow at this."
    "I usually get them right away.  Hey, I didn't know Mr. Sorensen and Mr. Beakley would give us such a fun project--and extra credit in both science and English.  I didn't know what to expect.  I've never been to detention before.  Keep trying, this is the best one I've ever seen."
    "Never been to detention?  That's because you're such a goody-goody."
    "Am not!"
    "Are, too!  Oh!  I got it.  It's a mandala, a mandala within a mandala.  I think it's a portal.  Maybe we can use it to travel."
    "How?"
    Matt looked at his watch.  Okay, we've got half an hour.  First we need to prop the book up.  OK, ready, hold my hand."
    "Here, in the library?  We'll get in trouble."
    "Just do it."  He snatched her hand.  "OK, now we both unfocus and stare at it until it's in focus.  Find the mandala and stare at the center.  It's a portal, works sort of like a black hole, only gentler.  I'm not sure where we're going to come out, so we should remember to look and see where the portal is on the other end.  It may not even go Mearddth, and some of the other worlds having shifting topography.  Even Mearddth does, sometimes.  Oh, he said, here we are.  It's a flower on this end, and it looks like all the other flowers.  The others may be portals too, but may not take us back to the library."
    "Here, tie this ribbon around it carefully," Tammy said, pulling it out of her hair.  Sheep and goats grazed on the far side of the field.  "I hope none of them eats our portal," Tammy said, nervously, pointing.  "Maybe we should just go back.  We're going to get lost, or get in trouble."
    "Nah," Matt said, "Portals are just other entries into the dreamworld.  Our bodies are back in the library staring at the book and if we don't show up, Sorensen or Beakley will just shake us gently and we'll wake up.  We may be a little disoriented, but it'll be fine."
    The funnel-shaped flower with the deep purple center stood about ten feet from a tall pine.  Beyond the pine, the ground sloped away to a meadow, and in the meadow was a small cabin.  It looked deserted.  "Let's go down there," Matt said, taking off at a run through the field.  He lifted from the ground and began to fly, faster and faster, until he hovered right above the cabin.  Laughing, Tammy followed him, leaping into the air and flying.  It was such a rush of excitement to fly like that.  She wanted to just fly and fly, over the hills and the distant peaks.  Vaguely, she remembered that they had to go back.  Besides, Matt seemed intent on something else.  "Come here," he said, settling to the ground in front of the cabin.  I want to show you something."  With that, he stepped right through the cabin wall and disappeared.  A moment later, he reappeared, coming through the wall in another place, as if it were made out of standing water, only he wasn't wet.
    Tammy walked up to the cabin wall and knocked on it hard.  It was solid as a newly peeled log.  Rock hard.  She knocked again.  "Yes?" a voice said, a high girlish voice that sounded like an old woman pretending to be a girl.  "Who is it?"
    "Uh, it's me, Tammy  Wilson,  and Matt Martin is here, too.  Who are you?  Where are you?"
    "I'm in here of course.  Come on in, but don't let the cat out."  Matt walked back through the wall.  Tammy went and opened the front door and stuck her foot in front of a cat that was trying to escape.  The cat bit her foot and then leaped over it.  Tammy grabbed it by the scruff of the neck.  It hissed and spit and suddenly got huge.  Tammy managed to slam the door with the cat inside.  The cat almost filled the entire room.  And it was not happy.  Its eyes were a malevolent red and its teeth were needle sharp and it was looking hungrily at Tammy.
    It looked like it was now too big to get out the door.  Tammy put her hand on the knob and carefully turned it. She zipped out and slammed the door.  But the car shrunk to the size of a mouse and slipped under the bottom.  Tammy snatched it and opened the door and went back in.  An old lady sat in a rocker by the fire.  She deposited the cat, now normal-sized, in her lap and sat down in another rocker by the fire.  The cat leaped over, curled up in her lap and started purring.  Tammy tentatively petted it.  The purring grew to the size of a lion's roar. 
    "I'm not sure I like this world," Tammy said.  "It's too scary and unpredictable."
    Matt was rocking in the chair beside her.  HE got up, and opened the curtain of the window beside the old woman.  "Feel anything?" he asked.  The whole house was shaking as if there were an earthquake or something. 
    She looked out the window.  Trees were bouncing past.  "The house is moving," she observed, feeling stupid as she spoke for stating the obvious.
    "Chicken leg," Matt said, "that's my guess.  I think we've just had the honor and privilege of stumbling into the lair of the Baba Yaga.  Madam," he continued, turned to address the old woman.  May I ask your name?"
    ""You may ask, but I may not answer.  You may beg, but I may not spare you.  First I will ask you a riddle.  If you answer correctly, I will spare your lives this time.  If not, I will eat you for dinner."  She rubbed her hands together.
    "What is your riddle, Madam?" asked Matt, calmly.
    "What walks on four legs and then on two legs and then on three?"
    "Oh, that's an easy one, Madam.  That's man, who crawls as a baby, walks on two legs and a man, and uses a cane as and old man.  Now I get to ask you a question.  What is the one thing that it is most important for us to know or do next?"
    "Since there are two of you, and since each of you has passed a test of sorts, I will give you two answers.  Three, really.  What you need to know is that your world is at a turning point and if it is not turned back, there will be no turning back and all will be lost.  What you need to do is continue as you are, for the path before you is the answer to saving the world.  And finally, If you don't leave immediately, I will eat you anyway.  And next time, I may eat you without warning."
    Matt got up and calmly walked through the wall beside his chair.  Tammy got up, set the cat on the Baba Yaga's lap and calmly walked into the wall and fell to the floor.  She got up, and tried again and fell to the floor again. 
    "It's like swimming," the Baba Yaga said, kindly.  You know you can dive into the water and it will open to let you through.  It is only your preconception that keeps you inside."  She picked up a very large fork, dropped the cat to the floor and walked toward Tammy cackling madly.
    "Water," Tammy thought.  "It's just like water."  She squeezed through, but it didn't feel like water.  It was more like disintegrating and reintegrating, like grinding through sand with all her molecules.  Not that she knew what that felt like, really, but that's what she imagined.
    The cat squeezed through after her, its claws unsheathed and it's mouth open.  Saliva dripped from its tongue.  And the house hopped after her on one huge yellow scaly chicken leg. 
    "Fly," screamed Matt, "fly!"
    Tammy flew.  Matt flew beside her.  The cat flew too, but after a little ways, it turned and flew back to the house and walked through the walls.
    "We're not where we started, how will we find our way back?"
    "There's the tree with the ribbon, way over there."
    "We didn't tie the ribbon on the tree.  We tied it on the flower."
    "I know, but the mid is a very strange place.  Let's go check it out."
    In an instant, they were there.  "How'd we get here so fast?" Tammy asked.
    "Intention."  In Mearddth, you don't really haev to walk or fly, you just arrive where you want to be.  See, here's the flower, come on, let's go."  In an isntant, he was gone. 
    "Intention," Tammy repeated herself.  And there she was, sitting on the seat staring at the magic eye mandala portal picture.  The clock said the same time as when they'd left.
    "Did you intend that, too?" Tammy asked, pointing at the clock.  "Of course.  We need the extra credits in Science and English to help bring up the zero Miss Wingsley is going to give us in Math today.  So quick, we've got a half hour, do you want to type or dictate?"
    "Let's take turns, 15 minutes each.  But one thing, first.  Can you die in a dream?"
    "Well, yeah, actually you can," Matt said, somewhat sheepishly.  "I'll tell you about it later."