DREAM that I was looking up at the second level of a carpark building in front of me, and I could see many fire trucks parked along the half wall. A dozen or more of them, brand new and still shrink-wrapped. They were not evenly spaced. I said to someone beside me, “Wow, the city must be doing well!”
In another dream I was hanging out with a designer or art director, and we went into his office which was entirely transparent though tinted. He was working on a black-and-white illustration on his desk which was a long piece of angled nearly black acrylic or something like that. On the right side there was a slight concavity, as if someone had been leaning into it for a long time and the acrylic had sagged. I was reclining on the left side like Jiminy Cricket, watching him work. I can’t remember what the drawing was now, just that it was a conglomeration – a mosaic – of many smaller units or symbols grouped into the one drawing. There was a space in the centre that hinted at some space left, otherwise it was full. The drawing was very graphic and done in black ink, in a style that was simple but had thick and thin. I don’t recall the details now but I have the sense that when we were outside his office before, he had taken 2 things and put them on the page. Now it has grown.
Then a young mother with her child came and just opened the door and walked in without knocking, probably because she could see he was inside. He pushed her back out and said, “You can at least knock!”, and locked the door, or maybe I thought he should lock the door…
DREAMWORK:
When I told Michael my dream he said, “You must have a big fire to put out!” That feels true to me, but somehow I know that the fire is to come, and I am, or life is, mobilizing for it, though it is more of a civilian effort, because they were not parked with military precision and order. I, my true Self, am the city, and I am rich in my resources and support for this kind of emergency.
I’ve noticed that a number of my dreams lately involved the second floor or upstairs, and reminding me of the dream of having to go 3 floor underground in the elevator before going 10 floors up. At the time of that dream I had the sense that I was 2 levels below ground, soon to come up another level. Perhaps today’s dream is showing me the future, of the time when I will be on the ground level and seeing the imminent ‘fire’ to come, but today it is reassuring me that I will be prepared for it. I do not have any idea what the fire might be at the moment.
In the dream there was my creative self, the art director, trying to put together the bigger picture from smaller pieces, rendering it as one whole picture, in a graphic, symbolic, black-and-white way. It reminds me of contemporary jazz, very rational and measured, expressive but not of emotions. Like a conversation between friends about politics, or science, or philosophy, a kind of mental discharge. I think I understand its appeal, that it grew out of a need to have a non-verbal and universal outlet to express what we have accumulated in our heads from day to day, all the information, analysis, our own and others, and opinions and conclusions that we draw that comfort our ego, that pat us on the back (of the head) and say, “I know.” It is a kind of extroversion and probably appeal more to introverts than extroverts. It empties the mind out, to the extent that it does, and allows what’s underneath to make a little contact with the self. Just a gentle brush by, nothing too clingy, like lyrics or feelings. Safety within the comfort zone.
I can relate to that in a part of myself, but there was always the feeling of something missing in that world of rigorously climate-controlled, ordered cleanliness that borders on sterility to me. Gratifying like a mental masturbation brought to climax. But then the feminine is kept out, even as I am conscious of her now, standing outside the door of my transparent self, with the child that I have yet to own, the child of manifestation.
My world, my self, is missing animation, the animation of life – organic, colourful, tactile, gooey, messy, clingy, fabulously free and unlimited and out of control. That’s what’s missing in the middle of my picture, the 2 little empty spots. Let go of the shore and push off into the flow. Cut all ties with order and control and expectations and beliefs, in spite of fear. Embrace the fear, that’s part of the mess, part of the colours and textures that life is made of. Open the door and let mother and child in, and take them into my self, allow them to take me in. Relationships are also part of the mess that Life is made of, and responsibility is but another colour. I can choose another colour if I like, see responsibility as an exchange of energy, give and take in perpetual motion, acknowledge and feel the gratitude rise from a deeper, broader place in myself that sees the wholeness of the relationship that negates any fear.
This fear that I’ve had for so long, of being trapped, of which the fear of responsibility is just one facet, has come about because I’d lost the trust in the flow of life. Somehow I have come to believe that once I am stuck, I might not get out again. This belief has shaped my entire life. But so has grace. Now I throw open the doors wide, to let grace come flooding in, with all of its signs of life, all of its flotsam and jetsam, smells and tastes, sounds and sights, joy and sorrow. I welcome it all, I receive it all, and I surrender it all again. I trust.
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Saturday, December 18, 2010
DREAMBITS:
1) We were being shot at by men across the way. There were 3 beds (that was as fas as I could ‘see’) – bare mattress and boxed spring – spaced apart that we were using as a sort of station and shield, although we and the beds were backed up against a wall so it was really no protection. I was by the middle bed. I could see one guy – the enemy, directly across shooting at me with a handgun, and none of us had anything on this side to fight with. I kept expecting to be hit but it never happened. I remember thinking about the trajectory of the bullet and how far it should reach. There was a guy in front of me at one point; he wasn’t hit either.
2) I was in the kitchen, a fairly spacious one, using the mixer. Something slipped and the mixture went everywhere, far and wide. I looked at the mess sprayed around the room – looked like a shake with blueberries in it – and laughed so hard I had to sit down on the floor. Michael came and saw, but he only stared at me like I had lost it.
3) I was paying for a purchase of $200 in a department store like Zellers with my Amex card, the checkout was in the middle of the store. The cashier told me that it comes with a gift. The gift was something called Generations. It was a machine like a white plastic tube that a child gets into, then it inflates with hot steam, and the child just sits in it with only his face out. It was being demonstrated beside the checkout so we went and looked at it. I said to her, do you think I would fit in there? She said yes.
DREAMWORK:
1) Very seldom do I have dreams where I am attacked, though there wasn’t really a sense of violence in this one. I am still living dualism, still taking sides, still judging. And the other side is attacking me, or so it seemed, except we were never hit. The attack was, is, an illusion. There is no actual threat, nor did I sense any malice. Everything appeared to be offset on a white background, as if the whole scene happened in a white studio space. Kind of surreal and stark.
So what were the beds? Beds are the ultimate comfort and safety and haven of rest to me, like a nest. But they were as bare-boned as can be, just naked mattress and boxed spring, not the thing of real comfort, not the real thing. Yet I cling to it still, the side I’ve chosen to be on, presumably the good, the righteous, the light, the beautiful. And I feel powerless against the other side, even as I am choosing to be in the middle, to walk the Middle Way. It is still them or us. Them vs. Us.
How can I stop seeing the world in absolutes, in halves? I don’t want to see enemies everywhere I go. I don’t want to separate sheep by the colour of their coats. I want to raise my arms in surrender, walk across the divide, and open my arms to embrace those on the other side, because they are parts of me, my community, my world.
It is NOT wrong if someone chooses to pursue money and power, and I am not better than they are because I choose not to. We are all at different legs of the journey, different points of the spiral, but we are all on the same journey of life. I am not on a different journey because I am focusing on spirituality than someone who is focused on raising a family or climbing a career ladder. There are many tracks on the journey of life, and all are intertwined and woven with one another. Many walks, same path.
2) I’ve a feeling this one is about losing control, letting fly, and how enjoyable and cathartic it can be. Felt good. I actually guffawed in the dream, which I’ve never done in waking life. Michael, the Captain Stern part of me, is still there too, but he didn’t say anything or come into the room.
3) I don’t know what I ‘bought’ but it came with a bonus gift, a man-made device that seems to be for the incubation of the young, to help them ‘cook’ or mature into the next generation. It looked like a white coccoon but the child stays conscious and sitting up, instead of lying down and going to sleep. The face is exposed so you could see that he is awake the whole time. He remains conscious to the world he is in, unlike a fetus. I have the sudden feeling as I am writing now that the device helps the child to grow and mature his boundary, because children are so vulnerable. The child in me needs this alchemical ‘cooking’ to develop a healthy and functioning boundary, a balanced and joyous sense of self as an individual within a collective.
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