Musings.9: Barbara

rabbit appeared in my yard nearly three years ago, a beautiful rabbit and a breathtaking moment when the art I was pursuing showed itself in my everyday life. Before I moved to Georgia I lived in Williamsburg, VA in a neighborhood very close to the National Historic site of Jamestown and the Jamestown Settlement. A number of streets and neighborhoods in the area bore the name of the alliance of Native Americans, Powhatan, prominent in the area when Jamestown was settled. So, although I had moved away, in the months prior to the 400th anniversary of the settlement (2007) I read a copy of Paula Gunn Allen's biography "Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur, Diplomat."

"Pocahontas" was basically a childhood nickname for a girl named Matoaka by her people and Lady Rebecca Rolfe by the English. The nickname, as Gunn Allen writes, "relates to a kind of vivacity, mischievousness, and quick intelligence ... at least as understood by the English." The name may also have related to the rabbit, which native peoples "recognized as a trickster," and pointed to qualities of creativity, shrewdness, and a "wild sense of humor."

One evening in the time frame when I was reading "Pocahontas" my husband called me out into the yard to see a rabbit. All that sprang to mind as I followed him out the door was the sort of brown rabbit our Boxer once loved to chase, so I was puzzled as to why my husband was so eager for me to see this rabbit. Oh, it was a beauty! It sat in the corner of the yard, nibbling something and looking so beautiful that I was afraid for it! Its coat was a silky, shiny black and white which made it stand out there among the trees and bracken. We had seen foxes only a few weeks earlier and I was instantly afraid this gorgeous rabbit with the amazingly floppy black ears would become food for the fox. It would not let me approach, of course, to pick it up and try to find its owner so I was reduced to walking up and down the street, knocking on doors. No one answered. Sigh. (I can say, however, that the rabbit remained safe for I saw it several times later foraging in its owner's flower beds.)

That beautiful rabbit stayed in my mind, always associated with Pocahontas and the trickster, so I went out and found the materials to stitch together a facsimile for myself, which you see here. Later for grins and giggles I gave the rabbit, whose name is Mina, a whimsical top hat. The top hat is the model for Uncle Joe's and the leprechauns' hat in Melissa's last two dreams. Now I see that the hat and the rabbit afford me the context to talk about a culture which centered itself around Dream-Vision.

Matoaka/Pocahontas was born into the Mattaponi/Pamunkey tribe which was part of the Powhatan Alliance who "were the People of the Dream-Vision, which is what the Native word Powhatan means." These people embraced "a tradition immersed in Dream-Vision protocols, lore, practices, and understandings that shaped and directed the course of ... life." Their world view was shaped by "the assumption that this wold we live in is by its nature a Dream-Vision ... the manito are the greater dreamers, the humans the lesser, the manito aki the location of the Dream-Vision as it takes shape and gains sufficient 'thrust' to move into our more physically dense reality."

Such a view was NOT alien to the English of the time who commonly referred to "this realm as 'Faerie' or 'the Underworld,' or sometimes Logres." Roughly 350 years after Jamestown was settled physicist David Bohm described "the consciousness form we usually engage in as 'explicate' and the other one as 'implicate.'" Whether the Powhatan term manito aki, the English terms faerie, Underworld, Logres, or physicist Bohm's terms explicate and implicate are used, the concept "implied in each of these terms is that there is a world within and beyond the one most modern people recognize."

"The state of awareness when one is in or communicating with this realm was long identified as Dream-Vision, or powa, in the Algonquin world. It is allied to the Native Australian concept of Dream Time, a way of organizing reality, including via sensory data, that brings phenomena into awareness that are absent from perceptual fields in another brain state."

"Dream-Visions are maps for navigating one's life path. Composed of messages coded in the language of the manito aki, the spirit world, Dream-Visions came accompanied by a guidebook, the Oral Tradition; and by travel guides: one's guardian spirit, or powagan."
"As the pathway to the spirit world, such dreams cross the boundaries of ordinary time and offer answers to the myriad problems that face the nation, clan, or individual." Adherence to such a world view suggests that people like this, whatever their culture or geography or era "were almost always in an 'altered' state of consciousness," with access to "the manito - the powers, beings, forces, reality, if you will, of a world that is not quite this one, but is bigger, beyond, beneath, before, behind, and above this one." I posit that Dream-Vision people understand that dreams offer clues, guidance concerning implicate forms which are journeying toward the explicit world.

In the time since I read "Pocahontas" I have read other works - "Black Elk Speaks," "The Bone Rattle," "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" - and I usually found myself trying to see the arrival of the Eurpoeans upon this soil from the eyes of the natives. So many sources mention the shock of seeing these huge ships and white, white people, but really, how did they see it? One morning I believe I was given an answer.

I dreamt I was with a native woman. We stood in front of what appeared to be a sea wall. One of those mammoth, multi-storied cruise ships was berthed on the other side of the wall. It was so big that no matter how far back I leaned I could not see the top. Between us and the wall there were bushes, about waist high, decorated with tiny white people. As I wrote out the dream I realized that, apparently, the natives initially associated the fair European skin with the white of the cotton bolls that appeared on plants in the area! I've driven past fields of cotton just across the river from Jamestown Settlement, so the association is even more vivid for me.

I like it. I like knowing the implicate order can pull images out of its hat to connect my vision with that of a people living nearly a half-millennia ago in a place I once inhabited.

[[A bibliography for this post includes:
Gunn Allen, Paula."Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur, Diplomat". New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004.

Peat, F. David. "Blackfoot Physics: A Journey Into the Native American Universe". Grand Rapids: Phanes Press, 2002.

Bohm, David. "Wholeness and the Implicate Order". London: Routledge Classics, 1980.

All quoted material is from "Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur, Diplomat" by Paula Gunn Allen.]]

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?

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?"

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?