Musings.3: Barbara

Who can tell what an experience it can be to try something so simple as walking in a circle?

The appearance of a labyrinth in "Melissa's" dream and its deepening importance reminded me of a story I read a couple of years ago about a labyrinth installed at a local church. After an internet search and a phone call I decided to take some time to see this design for myself, perhaps take some pictures. The only expectation I had was to take pictures. I had no idea what I would think or feel as I walked the labyrinth, if anything.

Standing barefoot at the entrance to the labyrinth I had the sensation, seriously, that I was looking at a representation of a womb and umbilical cord - perhaps walking the labyrinth is a representation of connection with the 'universal womb'? I also noted the thought that the design reminded me of a human brain, its corded texture repeatedly folding back on itself.

Then it seemed that my brain relaxed because I felt that I wanted to dance there in that silent hall and weave my way along the path. It was simply a feeling of buoyancy. Buoyancy. It is the only word that fits. I realize as I write this that I was so focused on the path, on savoring that buoyancy, that I wasn't even looking at the rose in the center. I was more interested in flowing into the next step!

When I arrived at the center I was happy to touch each 'petal' of the rose in turn and then retrace my steps back to the beginning. At some point in the return trip I stopped in my tracks at the thought of all the steps and breaths and moments caught up in that circle. Soon the image took hold in my mind of the path as representative of the ripples a heart can make in this world.

It is a creative path into and among the heart-mysteries there for us in that universal womb. It is a creative path back out into the world. It is a path ready and waiting whenever we may choose. I have every intention of returning to walk the labyrinth, but I have no idea what mystery or mysteries will open in my heart when I do. That is just the way I like it!

After my experience today I am especially curious to discover what sort of experience or experiences my character "Melissa" will have with the labyrinth. So far the design has provided entrance to the warehouse and, building on my discussion of it as a web of sorts in Musings.2:Barbara, it has provided the motivation to break away from the restraining mind games in her life. She's been pinned to the wall, so to speak, for a very long time.

"And I have known the eyes already, known them all -
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?"

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
T. S. Eliot

Wings: "Melissa"

Last night I was translated. I was transported into the strongest most dizzying dream yet and the first thing I thought when I woke to hear a crow call at my bedroom window was "Maybe this is how Bottom the Weaver felt after his midsummer night's dream?"

Seriously. As my dream began I found myself inside that warehouse again. There was a searing pain in my shoulders, I could not feel my hands, and I was completely baffled why I felt that way because I was upright. I seemed to be standing so the pain made no sense. (Then again dreams are hardly ever logical on the face of it.) When I tried to move, to shift, I realized that my wrists were bound behind me, against the warehouse wall. I could not understand what held me to the wall as I felt no shackles, no chains, no straps. No restraints.

A hideous evil cackling exploded and echoed throughout the warehouse. When I recoiled from the sound pain ripped again between my shoulders and I heard a thumping or a scraping noise behind me. I willed my hands to work and dug frantically at the wall to grab whatever was behind me. All I could feel were feathers. I took a breath against the pain and twisted to my right, to my left. I saw what held me to the wall. I saw, but I couldn't quite believe it.

Wings. I had wings. They were my restraints. Barely had I realized this when the cackling reached a fever pitch. I picked out two voices, shouting near a greenish glow several yards away, and I tried to identify what I was seeing.

I saw wings silhouetted against the glow. The glow was from a screen of some sort. A rope or a tail twitched on the floor beneath the screen. It sounds crazy but the only way to describe it is to say that the pair of demon-cats had turned "the bitter glass" on its side and "programmed" the labyrinth design from the wall to be the field for a video game they found wildly entertaining.

As near as I could see, their sport was to taunt and torture and obstruct the progress of some character as it made its way to the center of the labyrinth. When my mind shut out the various taunts I began to hear the game character's voice - MY voice! Here I was hanging pinned to the wall, seemingly helpless to stop their taunts, a life-size version of their game.

You know, I am not quite sure how I did it or when I decided to do it, but I did it. With a heave and a howl I ripped myself away from those wings. I felt more outrage than pain - so much more outrage - and I just kept whispering with every painful gulp of air, "People aren't made to be broken. People aren't made to be broken."

The demon-cats were silent at first, stunned, but when I picked a scrap of paper from the floor and plucked a feather from the abandoned wings they stood and began to close in on me. I dipped that feather in my blood and scratched the words I'd been whispering onto that paper. Those demon-cats swiped at me, but I was faster. They howled and hissed and scratched when I dropped my little message onto the mirror and said, "Game over."

Their howls were canceled by the breathtaking sound of rushing wings as the crow landed between us and stood to face them. Somehow I knew I was to climb onto the crow's back. I did and he lifted us out of there into the moonlit sky. We flew forever it seemed. I didn't care at all. The flight was magnificent; the crow's power was formidable. I cannot describe how it felt, after the scene in the warehouse, to be flown through the moonlight. Even as we spiraled up and up and up around the tallest tree in the world toward the crow's nest I felt only wonder. (Imagine that. At my age I felt wonder!)

He watched over me. He tended me once I'd climbed from his back to stand in the nest. I was astonished to see the nest lined with white roses -- white roses from the warehouse! I cannot even think how many times he must have flown back and forth with the roses he needed to do this. Why line his nest so? Why bring me to his nest? Even with those sorry wings I abandoned I was no bird! Who is this crow to me?

The top of the tallest tree in the world swayed in the wind and the crow's nest became my cradle. From under the shelter of his wings I watched the stars swirl above us, higher still. I heard his heart. I fell asleep. He moved his wings and combed his beak through my hair to wake me. He had brought me back to the warehouse. The demon-cats were gone and I smelled the roses at the window. The crow hopped away then back again with a playing card in his beak. He flew to perch on my shoulder. I took the card and he gurgled in my ear before he flew off out the door.

The card doesn't look like any I've ever seen but I love it. My crow - I've begun to consider him mine! - is perched near a woman who is maybe the Faery Queen -- Yes! She is the Faery Queen who fell in love with Bottom! She took him to her bower; the crow took me to his! It is a twisted up version of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream"! But why? Is my crow meant to be the King of the Faeries? The way he cared for me I don't think he's playing a prank, even though in Native American lore crows are pranksters. I will have to study this.

Maybe if I run through the pieces of the puzzle I have so far I'll find a clue of some sort. I see "the bitter glass the demons hold" maintains the reference to Yeats' "The Two Trees." I think the crow refers to "Macbeth." Maybe the symbolism of the crow's nest in the world's tallest tree is meant to connect to the symbolism of the two trees of Yeats' poem and that of the trees at the end of "Macbeth"? But why the dream play? Why? How does that play connect to any of this? I've seen the play and the movie, I even have a-- Yes! I have a copy of it to check! It was my grandpa's. My dad gave it to me. It's about a hundred years old this copy, maybe older.

Now this is interesting. This is very interesting. It doesn't explain anything - yet - but it is interesting. In the cast of characters of Shakespeare's dream play there is a Duke Theseus. Since the image of myself as a sort of Medusa appeared in the last dream I've been brushing up on Greek mythology. If I remember correctly Theseus, with the help of Ariadne, made his way into the labyrinth to kill the Minotaur. The labyrinth again. The 'fingerprint of a god.' The key to the warehouse. Labyrinth .... warehouse... they must connect somehow.

Wait. I just remembered something else associated with the labyrinth. Daedalus designed the labyrinth and showed Ariadne how Theseus could escape. After that escape the King (Minos) imprisoned Daedalus and his son Icarus in the labyrinth. The only way for them to escape was to make wings for themselves and fly away. Warehouse ... labyrinth ... wings?How am I to understand all of this? What does it have to do with me?

I'm glad I like puzzles. Need to work on my drawing though.

Musings.2: Barbara

"Open up your eyes and let the child learn."
Rusted Root, "Cruel Sun"


"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
Lao Tzu


When I reached into my basket for a blank index card I came away with a card I bought long ago for someone or other's graduation. (I am obviously delinquent...) With little more than a glance my brain translated the spiral design on the front of the card as a labyrinth and I thought, "Cool. I just wrote a post featuring one of those!"

On the heels of that thought I realized the card was an astonishing echo of a thought I noted while writing of Melissa's initial interpretation of the labyrinth design as a "fingerprint of a god": walking a labyrinth means our feet make 'fingerprints'! Having said that I will just take another few steps along this creative journey. I am really excited to see that the labyrinth motif has surfaced in the development of Melissa's character because it is just such a dynamic symbol for the creative process, be it of an individual life, a project, a career, a community -- whatever.

In the early days, years ago, I would pounce on every idea and try to force it to completion. You know that old cliche, 'When life gives you lemons make lemonade'? Well, that is basically what I was doing. I juiced every idea that came to me be it a carrot, a tomato, an apple or an orange. Once, after some tears, that still small voice inside whispered, "This is just not the moment for this piece." Until then I had no idea that I was being given the ingredients for a recipe I did not yet know and it would be nice if I just held onto them long enough to make the feast and enjoy the fruits of my labor.

When I encountered the symbol of the labyrinth I saw quite clearly that on this creative journey the goal is always within sight of the path. Sometimes the path shoots me right to the center and I move part of the way around it closely; sometimes I find myself in the distance circling the perimeter. Wherever I am on the path I just look over my shoulder and glimpse my goal. Another thing I notice, which takes my breath away, is that if I picture the outstanding moments as dots along this journey and connect them sequentially the image is akin to a web, a net.

Is this the net that appears when I leap?

One thing I know is that incredible things happen whenever I stand on that net. As I considered what to include in the second set of Melissa's dreams my mind continually wandered the lot outside the warehouse. I remembered, too, standing in a lot here in 'real life' taking pictures of abandoned buildings. With my camera and my pen in hand I slowly realized that I felt a certain kind of peace in those abandoned places both imaginary and real. There isn't any way to 'spin' an old abandoned bottle or broken can amid "the sweepings of a street" as anything but abandoned. That honesty, that lack of pretense gives me such hope. That's all I can say.

[Rusted Root, "When I Woke" was the soundtrack for this post :) ]

This is a picture of a building I found with a vine growing out of its wall and thought of the rose growing up the wall of the warehouse.

Brokenness: "Melissa"

That was my attempt to draw the image I saw in a dream early this morning. The face in the mirror was an awful, bitter version of me somehow set in stone. I admit I have my bad days, but that visage goes beyond even the worst of them, I think.

When the dream began I stood outside the warehouse I saw in the other dreams. I'd been approaching it and wondering why there was a huge fingerprint painted on the stone wall. I remember thinking it could be a fingerprint from one of those Greek gods, but who? (Now I prefer to think a goddess left her mark there.) When I stood in front of the design I saw it was a labyrinth - pretty cool, but why paint it on a warehouse? I couldn't see any clues so I wandered around the building.

I found a door which did not help because it was locked. I wasn't sure I should try to go in at all, let alone force my way. Then I remembered the horse and my promise so of course I had to try. When I looked closer I realized the keyhole was not a real keyhole. It was a thumbnail version of the labyrinth design on the wall. I felt a bit silly thinking this - like my thumbprint is anything special! - but I decided to just try to use it as the key to open the door. I was surprised and yet I wasn't when I heard the lock release.

All I saw when I walked into the warehouse was the mirror with the granite-faced image. The looking glass was supported by two demon cats who looked like gray demon versions of the cat from those other dreams. I stood there for a bit wondering what that image of my face was meant to convey to me when the demon cats began growling and hissing, swiping at something above the mirror.

I heard a throaty call and looked up to see the crow perched quite comfortably on top of the mirror, a slip of paper clamped in his beak. He bobbed his head at me and danced from foot to foot. He made me smile so I held up my hand to see if he'd give me the paper. He did. Someone had written "People aren't made to be broken" on a scrap of soiled stationery. "Okay," I said, and he flew off toward the door and perched on the handle of an oar propped against the wall.

Once I picked up the oar he flew out the door and circled back to make sure I followed. I had no idea what a crow could want me to do with a single oar -- whack something out of the sky? What? I was thoroughly confused. He led me to the river, the one with the glass bridge, and flew round and round above my head crying, crying, crying. So, feeling really silly again, I started to stir the river and chant, "Double, double toil and trouble" from "Macbeth"!

That is all I remember.

Those provocative fragments stuck with me as I showered, but when I stood at the sink waiting for the steam to clear I heard two songs and the pieces of the puzzle began to make sense. My mp3 player was set to 'shuffle' - that is the only way I could have heard in succession Loreena McKennitt singing William Butler Yeats' poem "The Two Trees" and the group Audioslave singing "Revelations."

Yeats wrote of the bitter glass, the dim glass "the demons, with their subtle guile, Lift up before us when they pass," the glass which turns all things "to barrenness" if we gaze in it too long. I still feel the chill that crept over me to think some buried part of me had found a voice and was warning me. I was oddly comforted to hear the portion of Audioslave's "Revelations" about being broken because it reminded me of the message the crow gave me: "People aren't meant to be broken." I have the feeling now the crow wanted me to see, too, that people aren't meant to believe what the "bitter glass" tells them, those clawing, hungry, bitter things. How did the crow hear my buried voice? Who is he? Why does he care?

Now I sit here and stir my tea while I sift through the images again. I remember, too, that carousel horse -- Oh whoa! Yeats opens and closes the poem from that dream, "The Circus Animals' Desertion," with images of brokenness! He opens describing himself, "at last being but a broken man"; at the close of the poem he writes that his masterful images began out of, in part, "a broken can." (I like the topsy-turvy nature of opening the poem with "at last" and closing it with "began.")

Oh no. I remember now, too, seeing some of the circus animals "broken" when I was a little girl. I never handled that well at all. I had forgotten that. It would make my dad so angry when I would yell at them to stop!

So now I am remembering. And now it seems that my dreams are putting me together with a Nobel prize-winning "broken" Irish poet, and circus animals, and a crow who gives me messages. This crow also seems to think that stirring up a river and quoting "Macbeth" are the right clues for me.

But why? And how does the labyrinth-thumbprint-key part fit into all of this? How does this help the horse?

Musing: Barbara

Right here, right now I want to acknowledge that Maddie Mulvaney's blog persistingstars.blogspot.com helped me feel comfortable with the seed of an idea and pursue it to completion. Visiting her blog and eventually posting comments inspired me and made me feel easier about blogging. SOOO ... I shout out a "thank you" to Maddie! (You should visit her blog, really. The photos are so cool.)

When I clicked that "publish" button for the first post. I was rather excited because I had found a way to give one of my characters, Melissa, a voice. She popped up in a plot-line I developed several years ago and now I am learning more about her. While I know the bare bones of Melissa's story the dream journal idea for the posts means that her story unfolds bit by bit.

I love a good mystery and I think Melissa's is going to be compelling.

The inspiration to write Melissa's material as entries in a dream journal came from the William Butler Yeats poem "The Circus Animals' Desertion." Being Irish he knew dreams hold "Heart-mysteries." He knew what many other cultures, including Native American, knew about dreams. (The Australian aborigines believe the world was sung into existence by their ancestors during the Dreamtime.)

When I resolved to write that post I "sought a theme" and soon I had the image of a rose growing in a wasteland against all odds. I imagined the last portion of "The Circus Animals' Desertion" because even among "the sweepings of a street" I felt hope.

I did wonder what image to use to portray Melissa's choice to walk toward the unknown. I remembered something from a college course, PSYC 001: a baby being coaxed to cross a glass floor, suspended over a multi-level area, to get to its mother. A very difficult task and I thought a glass bridge might be a rough equivalent for Melissa.
Just a day or two after I published the first post I stumbled across this abandoned building while I was taking photos in town. It gave me the same feeling as the warehouse in Melissa's dream.

Well, we'll see what dreams may come!