Musings.5: Barbara

When I look at Melissa's last dream I see that some most interesting things have emerged. First, it is notable that a man appeared in the dream, whereas the only other human figure to appear among the flora and fauna in her previous dreams was a little girl.

What I notice, however, is that very soon after Melissa ripped herself away from those formulations pinning her to the wall of the warehouse, and very soon after her Crow has given her solace, these figures appear.

Nor are they static figures. The little girl, singing, rode the carousel horse down the street. Melissa watched the man sweep up the broken "pieces of yesterday's life," her yesterdays. We do not yet have any clues about these people. Who are they? Why do they show up after she took to heart the Crow's message "People aren't made to be broken" and severed herself from the wings that weren't wings at all?
why
Who is the man whose back is bloodied and why does he seem so bereft? What is he signaling to Melissa and to us with his wrenching gesture, a heart traced on the wall between those abandoned wings, a heart drawn with her blood as the medium?

It is especially interesting to realize that Melissa's dream included some lyrics, what the Australian aborigines call 'songlines.' These aborigines believe that the 'world' was created in the 'Dreamtime' when their ancestors, the dreamers, sang it into existence. Their ancestors walked among the chaos and, singing, gave the world form. Later generations of aborigines know that in the world they walk the songlines of the Ancestors' dreaming.

Now Melissa is dreaming songlines. She has chosen to sever herself from alife of brokenness and the song begins - the opening lines, opening cords of a new life still unformed. It is tempting to think we have no clues about what is in store for Melissa, but we do. We have the other dreams. We have the song.

"All Along the Watchtower" was recorded and released by Bob Dylan in 1967 and within a year Jimi Hendrix had recorded his singular cover of it. Like Melissa, until her dream I had always considered the "watchtower" of the title to be a fortification. Now it seems to take on a double meaning. I don't have the sense that Melissa is meant to abandon the notion of watchtower as fortification in favor of watchtower as clock-tower. These two perceptions are likely to merge I think, but how?

How will the concept of Time figure into this new, embryonic life forming for Melissa?

Footsteps Dressed in Red: "Melissa"

y Crow visited me in my dreams again last night. This time we had music during our flight, "All Along the Watchtower." He flew me to the top of a clock tower - oh wow! Wow! Clock-tower, watchtower, clock, watch - when I heard the song in the dream I looked for a medieval sort of watchtower for knights and arrows and boiling oil and such, but it wasn't that at all. It was a tower that tells time! Cool. Interesting.

So, my Crow and I perched on a ledge just beneath the face of the clock where we could look down on the surrounding neighborhood. I saw what seemed to be footprints on the street perpendicular to the watchtower. This was strange because they looked wet and for as far as I could see they remained wet.

The Crow hopped onto my shoulder, gurgled at my ear, and combed his beak through my hair. I turned towards him, then back again and saw the petite black cat (le petit chat noir) following that trail of footsteps, staying in the shadows of the buildings. I think I said something like, 'Okay, I guess I'm following the footsteps, too,' because the next thing I knew I was on the street studying the footprints, horrified to discover they were footsteps of blood!

I followed. The sun was blazing atop one of the buildings, bleaching out the sky. I couldn't imagine how it must feel to be bleeding so and walking those streets. To my surprise - to my great surprise - the trail led to the door of the warehouse in all my other dreams! Some voice of caution whispered in my mind so I climbed up that spiral ladder covered in white roses to survey the scene inside that building.

It sounds somewhat gothic to say my heart was pounding furiously but that was definitely my response when I saw a man inside sweeping the floor even as he left more bloody footprints. He was very tall, likely over six-foot-three, lean but muscular, with hair black as my Crow's plumage. I couldn't see his face, but he seemed ... he seemed bereft. Before I could form a thought or question about the reason such a man would feel bereft as he swept the floor of a warehouse he moved around something - the blue carousel horse! - and I saw his back. I choked on a scream. His white shirt was soaked with blood!

Beyond the realization that his must have been the blood that stained his footprints I could not form a single coherent thought about this sight. Now, to look back on it, I remember feeling that the world seemed to have stopped - my heart, my breath, everything stopped. The man, however, did not stop. He swept some more then leaned the broom against the wall and raised his head.

My god - he looked straight up at those wings, the wings I'd left pinned to the wall! He stood there so long before he bent down and took a feather from the pile of sweepings. I thought for a moment he meant to write something with the feather, but he used his finger. He touched the part of a wing that had been attached to me and traced a partial heart on the wall between those two wings.

I didn't know what to do or think, so I simply sat there on the roof of the warehouse. In the end, just before I woke, my Crow flew into the warehouse and returned to me with a third playing card. This one looks like it is meant to be the King of the Faery, Oberon.

How could Oberon possibly connect to that scene in the warehouse, not to mention my Crow and a watchtower? Why am I being given these cards? It cannot be that they are simply beautiful. They are beautiful, but, well, dreams are hardly simple!

Why is this man bleeding? Has he ripped himself from some wings and left them on a wall somewhere? Who is he? Why is he sweeping - Why is he sweeping up the debris of my yesterdays? Why did he trace a heart between those abandoned wings?

And now I realize something else - this man had a key to the warehouse!

Musings.4: Barbara

Melissa, as I wrote some weeks ago, is a character who popped up in the midst of a plot I was sketching several years ago. While I did not question why she had appeared, I did wonder how she came to be there. She just appeared out of nowhere, from another brief story and my questions about her led to this blog.

Most of this material about Melissa is a revelation to me and I find it very interesting indeed that this character is beginning to ask, basically, "Who am I?" She has been trusting and following her Crow although she does not know what he symbolizes and she is beginning to realize he may see something about her she would never have guessed.

If the Crow is suggesting that she consider herself one of a trio of "sisters," wise women, women who possess 'big medicine,' I think she is right to wonder how he came to this conclusion. I wonder about it as much as she does! Then, too, Melissa may be wondering why the Crow is calling her to see herself this way. Her dreams have been rather insistent which could indicate some persistent issues. If that is the case, why does the Crow care?

Melissa is compelled to trust and follow the Crow so she may not hesitate much, if at all, in seeing herself as the Crow sees her. She was pinned to the wall, wriggling under the eyes that fixed her with formulated phrases (see Musings.3:Barbara) for a very long time, maybe all her life. The Crow flies into her dreams and brings her beauty, brings her truth.

She may also be asking herself "Who am I that this Crow should care to notice me, not to mention seek to bring beauty into my life?"

I Blame You: "Melissa"

ince I began, well, studying these dreams I've wanted the drawings to be a part of it all, but I have been happy with only a few. All the others were just reminders that I never learned to draw. I wasn't taught and I had no interest in even trying - until now! Browsing through books, trying to find a suitable model for my crow, I remembered The Book of Kells. I mean, if 'Macbeth' is figuring in this somehow why not let Celtic art inspire my drawings? It just feels right. So, I will stick to black and white for the sake of convenience even if this means it is not technically an illuminated manuscript. I like it. It feels right.

So, anyway ...

Last night's dream was rather short all in all. I was at the warehouse once again, outside, looking at the roses when I heard a child singing very happily - not something I expected to hear around this place! When I walked around the building and looked up the street I saw that wonderful blue carousel horse riding the wind while a little girl stood on its back perfectly at ease! The sun shone behind her, dancing off her wheat-colored hair, caressing those waves.

The child wore a top and skirt in ultramarine blue (my favorite) with white nautical stripes. Her shoes were little red sneakers. Her arms were raised at her sides to shoulder level and I saw the crow, my crow, perched on her hand, silhouetted against the sun. (Who is this crow that a Faery Queen and a singing child can hold him?)

The crow saw me and flew to me. Something in his beak caught the sunlight and a beam of light danced toward me as he flew. Very sweetly he perched on my shoulder and dropped the object into my upraised hand. I gasped, "It is beautiful," and he gurgled in my ear and did a little two-step, ruffling my hair.

I have heard that crows like 'bright, shiny objects,' but this was a unique piece of work - a horse cut out of a discarded pie plate! Seriously, I think this unknown little girl must have found an aluminum pie plate in the trash somewhere and decided to cut a horse out of it. How or why she did it I would love to know. She must be fascinating. This tells me something about my crow and I find him more and more endearing.

When I thanked him for the gift I told him, too, "I blame you for all the beauty in my life. First the card, now this -" He bobbed so joyfully I could almost think him a bird of paradise.

I don't seem any closer to understanding all these elements, however certain I am that they mean something. The beautiful carousel horse is back and brings me a new element - two new elements: the girl and the metal horse.

My crow is always present in these dreams and somehow I trust him and I trust where he leads me in this labyrinth of symbols. I have been reading 'Macbeth' hoping to figure out how it relates to all of this. "Double, double, toil and trouble" must be a part of it since he urged me to stir up the river, but I'm not sure why. Does he consider me a 'witch,' one of the three Weird Sisters? I am only one woman if that is the case. Who are the others?

I don't think of the witches in 'Macbeth' as witches, either - not cackling, curse-throwing hags. I think maybe they are just women who were especially attuned to Nature, and human nature, wise in those ways. Maybe they were noted for their wisdom or their 'big medicine' in the manner of Native American seers or shamans?

If my crow really considers me to be a woman like that, who are the others? What gave him the idea I belong with them?