Tea Party: "Melissa"

h, I wish I knew how I could have lived so long in ignorance of my dreams! Every one has been glorious and leaves me feeling transported for DAYS afterward and I think nothing could possibly top it, but then that is exactly what happens! It is as if the ... the ... the Dreaming Universe is determined to outdo itself.

Last night I was so happy to receive my Crow in my dream. He stood before me and danced a bit and invited me to fly with him, as he always does, but I detected something ... something ... in his manner which piqued my curiosity. "We must fly. We must fly to the western paradise where you shall have tea." We flew and I savored his strength and his beauty. I always forget everything else when he is near and last night was no exception. Our flight path was steep. We soared up above the clouds and I think we flew to a height higher even than his rose-strewn nest!

We flew toward a mountain. The sunlight above the clouds bathed the mountainside in iridescence and I looked at my hands and arms to see if they, too, had such a glow. My Crow cawed, adjusted his wings, and landed on a ledge near a stunning and ancient magnolia tree in bloom. From somewhere beyond the magnolia I heard calls of "kek-kek-kek" and "kalooo kaleeooo" as if in answer to my Crow, who shook out his plumage, hopped onto my shoulder and preened a bit more as I walked in the direction of the bird calls.

Nothing my Crow could have done would have prepared me for the breathtaking sight of the two glorious women who stepped forward to greet me as I neared a table set for tea. They ... They were so rare in appearance that I felt I must have lost blood or oxygen or something because I wasn't certain my eyes were working properly. Both women had dark hair; one of them appeared distinctly Asian in her features and dress. A whooping crane stood next to her, watching me solemnly.

The second woman - oh, dear, how do I describe her? I could not believe my eyes and I feared she could hear my mind screaming, "Manners, Melissa! Manners!" because I could neither move nor speak. All I wanted to do was watch her. She was the Faery Queen - the Faery Queen on the card my Crow gave me! She was like the sunshine bathing the mountain and like champagne and ... my brain is locking up again as I write this!

Both women were wonderfully gracious, especially in the face of my thunderstruck appearance. They bid me welcome - their voices were just as beautiful as all else about them - and directed my attention to the table set for tea. I noticed two things then: the table was set with six place settings, and the Faery Queen stopped to feed a falcon on a perch. "Xi Wang Mu," the Fairy Queen nodded toward the other woman, "insists I spoil him, but he is a love and we work so well together. A morsel now and then is a treat from my heart."

"Our hostesses have arrived," Xi Wang Mu spoke as the sound of wings reached us and foliage rustled around us. Three women borne on the backs of three swans landed and walked to us, their faces wreathed in welcoming smiles. I think they were dressed as Amazons. Their golden hair shimmered in the sunlight and their creamy skin glowed.

How can I ever describe the experience of a tea party with goddesses? I hosted tea parties as a little girl with my tea set spread on a tree stump before my stuffed bears and ponies. This was beyond anything I could ever have imagined. Is this somehow connected to the Chardonnay I bought? Is it possible? The label did say, "Discover the goddess", but nothing prepared me for this!

The Valkyries brought mead - with gratitude expressed to the Faery Queen for her industrious bees - and meats and insisted upon serving me - me! Xi Wang Mu, whom the Valkyries addressed as "Queen Mother," brought peaches, like miniatures suns, from her own beloved garden. To my surprise the Faery Queen brought cakes made with Guinness and cakes made with oats, and honey. She winked and smiled sweetly before she told me she knew Guinness to be a particular favorite of mine.

The scent of the magnolias and the buzzing of bees were a perfect complement to the company and the light. We each plucked a bloom from the tree and tucked it between our breasts. They read poetry, some of it about wings. I knew one of the poems, T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." I remember untying my tongue enough to ask them, seated around me, "Do I dare to eat a peach?"

Oh, how shall I presume to speak my dream of tea with the goddesses? "I have had a dream past the wit of man to say what dream it was". Here I am, now, with human voices outside on the street below, "And the afternoon ... sleeps so peacefully!" I cling to this dream even when "after tea and cakes and ices" the Crow bade me climb on his back and I looked up to see those goddesses, their arms "braceleted and white and bare," blowing kisses.

Musings.6: Barbara

Ahh. I welcome this sweet respite in blogland, a pleasant distraction from the chaos of setting up a new household, the approaching holiday, and the sudden, unsettling need for my husband to undergo surgery for a detached retina. Yeah. See what I mean?

'Melissa' and her dreams are ever in my thoughts and I've finally cleared a space in time so I could return to writing about this character and my response to her dream stories as they have evolved.

As I wrote months ago when I launched this blog I discover things about the character 'Melissa' or the creative process as I write these posts. The process begins with a rough sketch of events in my mind. The sketch fleshes out and takes on life as I write. Something about every post surprises me, and this last time it was the surprise of seeing the creative process merge dreams, art, and life.

I was startled when the reference to the Five Rivers Winery surfaced in the last post because, well, that was my experience coming through in 'Melissa's' life. While my dream was not as colorful and detailed as 'Melissa's' I, too, dreamed of standing in a river holding a single oar. Who can forget a dream like that, so enigmatic, so intriguing? Months or perhaps even a year or more after the dream I bought a bottle of the winery's merlot to share with a friend (also named Barb) because I liked the bit on the label encouraging me to "Discover the goddess" at their web site.

My jaw dropped when I saw a graphic depicting a woman standing in a river holding a single oar. I had no idea such a story existed, but there she was and I had dreamed of her. It is thrilling to see something come through from the ephemeral, mental realm into the physical although we are trained from childhood that if there is no hard evidence, nothing in hand, what's in our head and in our heart is fleeting, insubstantial.

Some people like 'Melissa', like myself, like Robert Moss practice attending to dreams. We draw pictures, write poems, take photos, write books. We dream, and we practice and very often we experience physical manifestations of our dreams.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche wrote in September, 2005 (www.shambhalasun.com) that 'Practice means "bringing it into experience."' We have been taught that to practice means 'do it over and over and over again until you get it right.' Now we see another meaning. What this practice of acknowledging, noting and contemplating her dreams has done for 'Melissa' is to bring something she has encountered in her mind through to manifest in her day to day life.

For her, and for me, that bottle of chardonnay is 'no more yielding than a dream.' Will Shakespeare composed that line very cleverly. When Puck speaks those lines at the close of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" we nod and agree that the whole thing seemed insubstantial. It has no basis in reality for us.

'Melissa' is showing us that we need to think again. Crops yield harvests. Investments (usually) yield returns, but "no more yielding than a dream." Nothing eclipses the yield of a dream put into practice.

So far 'Melissa' has a bottle of wine, her drawings, and her journal. What more will her dreams yield?

Chanteuse: "Melissa"

ou know, I think I am rather surprised at myself. I had another warehouse dream last night and it only adds to the puzzle of all these dreams for me, but I am not getting crazy about this.

Control has been an issue for me in the past so it is really hard to believe sometimes that I am just letting these dreams be what they are. They intrigue me, but they also comfort me and so I am willing to let them show up when they will and show me what they will.

In last night's dream I was back in the warehouse. This time the little girl I'd seen standing on the back of the blue carousel horse as it galloped down the street in another dream was there, as was the carousel horse, and the King of the Faery from the last playing card my Crow gave me. My Crow was there, too, perched on the arm of His Majesty's throne.

This King is extraordinary and I wonder if there has been a human monarch who is his equivalent? Power and intellect radiate from him and I saw as I watched him watch the little girl play with jack-in-the-boxes that he could see more in an instant, more quickly and more clearly, than anyone I have ever met, even my father.

I guess the word I would use to describe this monarch is 'formidable'. When I hold that thought in my mind and consider how tenderly he watched and, later, held the little girl, I feel honored such a person wishes to show up in my dreams. Maybe that is why I feel comforted and easy about these dreams?

Anyway, as I mentioned, he sat watching and smiling as the little girl played with a row of jack-in-the-boxes arranged on the floor before his throne. She managed to play a new tune with them by playing them in some sequence only she knew, sorta like a hip-hop dj these days. When she finished her song she stuffed the jacks back in their boxes, stood up, held her hands in the yogic prayer position and bowed to him, murmuring 'Namaste'.

To my surprise the monarch, with a twinkle in his eye and a small smile, returned the salute before he patted his lap and motioned for her to sit with him. "Your Aunt Chantal has been waiting to sing for us. What should we ask her to sing, ma petite enfant - hmm? Quel chanson?"

"'The Rose', Granpere, s'il vous plait. I love when Aunt Chantal sings that one."

Suddenly my Crow flew the short distance from the royal throne to me with a slip of paper the king had given him. As he has done before my Crow perched on my shoulder, gurgled in my ear and combed his beak through my hair - all as I read the message: "In the wasteland it is the soul afraid of trying that never learns to leap."

Before I could process those words a woman, stunningly beautiful, stepped from the shadows holding a bouquet of white roses. Her beauty and her voice were breathtaking. It was a while before I could put two thoughts together, or even remember my name, but once I could I realized she looked just like the Faery Queen - minus the wings. I had to draw that card over again because she deserves a better job than the one I did back in the beginning!

When I realized who this chanteuse, 'Aunt Chantal', resembled I thought to look at the King of the Faery. I almost cry now as I remember that everything about that formidable monarch evinced love, a world of love. I knew then that his queen was his world.

I still cannot find the words to describe my shock at the king's next gesture. When 'The Rose' was finished he descended the dais, took a rose from the bouquet, and crossed the floor to present it to me! I was stunned. I fumbled rather clumsily to salute him as the little girl had. He smiled, returned the salute, and held up his left hand for my Crow to return to that perch.

In a daze I noted that the king left a trail of red footsteps marking his path as he returned to his throne.

Now, in the light of day I sit in the embrace of that dream wondering what message its depths hold for me. I went out today expressly to buy some white roses. Something nudged me while I was out to see if I could find a bottle of wine I might want to taste. Nothing could have prepared me for the shock of seeing one of my dreams on the label of a chardonnay! The chardonnay from Five Rivers Winery sports a graphic of a woman standing in a river - I presume it's a river! - holding an oar over her head. The label says, in part, "Discover the goddess at www.fiveriverswinery.com

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?

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!

Roses at the Window: "Melissa"

This is a new experience for me. Until a couple of months ago dreams were just weird little wisps of what - whispers, whirling images? They evaporate with dawn and leave me to my business. This morning, though, I woke from a recurring dream of a warehouse and as I lay in that half-sleep between night and morning I heard a whisper: "Heart-mysteries there." That phrase has been in my mind all day. I am intrigued. I can't let it rest. I have no idea what to do to solve this 'mystery,' but I guess I could start by getting it all on paper. I consider myself primarily a writer so I am surprised that I want to see some of the images from the dream so badly that I am trying to draw them myself.

In the beginning of the dream I was standing at one end of a bridge of thick, ripply glass over a black, black river. The sky around me was black, too, yet at the other side of the bridge a huge moon hung full and pearly. Some way ahead of me on the bridge a black cat stood and studied me. Suddenly, up started a crow and with a last glance at me, as if to ask "Are you with me?" the cat turned and followed the crow. So, yes, I followed the cat.


As I crossed the bridge I watched the crow circle above a derelict building - not the sort of place I'd choose to visit when I'm awake. The building was shaped like an 'L' and something shimmered in the bend where the wings met. Whatever shimmered appeared to stretch up the wall and onto the roof. Both the crow and the cat were attracted to it. Gravel crunched under my soles as I picked my way across the wasteland of refuse and sweepings, old bottles and broken cans, old iron. I remember now! I remember thinking the place smelled absolutely foul but just as I did the crow squawked "foul is fair and fair is foul" ... "Macbeth"? Why "Macbeth"?

When I reached the cat and the crow I was surprised to discover that the shimmering object was a stunning, lush bush of white roses. Somehow the rose had taken root in the midst of all that refuse and dereliction and climbed tenaciously up a spiral ladder onto the roof of the shorter building. Before I thought about it - or all the thorns! - I had climbed the ladder to stand on the roof. Because this leg of the 'L' was shorter than the main building by one story I was able to peer into a room through a broken window. A tangle of the white roses spilled over the sill at one corner.

At first I could not understand what I was seeing. Moonlight and shadows chased across the floor and over the walls. When my eyes adjusted I saw piles of old rags and even old bones scattered everywhere. I looked more closely, trying to identify a large, colorful object with several protuberances discarded on the floor next to a crate. The moon chased the shadows away long enough for me to see that the object was a carousel horse painted in glorious shades of blue.

The moon held the horse in its silver light. When I shifted my point of view I think I saw other forms in the shadows, maybe other animals? The scene was compelling yet I wondered why I had been brought to this warehouse. I shifted again and came face to face with an industrious bumblebee lifting off from one of the fully blown roses. Absurd as it sounds I greeted the bee, "Hi, honey," and it seemed to dance a greeting back to me. The crow and the cat sat just above me on the roof watching every movement.

I looked at them. I watched the bee. I studied the carousel horse. After some time I understood the path the roses pursued. They were growing through the broken window as if that horse were their goal! "Excuse me," I said to the bee, broke off a spray of roses, and tossed them down toward the horse. "I don't know what I am supposed to do for you, but I will find out and I will be back."
Now what? I am back where I began. Well, not exactly. I finally figured out that bit about "Heart-mysteries there" and it may explain some of the images. The landscape of part of the dream sounds like the landscape of Yeats' "The Circus Animals' Desertion" -- but why did I dream this? Why have I dreamed of it a number of times?