Twelve Dancing Princesses: 'Melissa'

dreamt I fell asleep over the story I was writing at the desk in the office of St. Clair Shores. (It is not a good sign when my own writing puts me to sleep!) Some snatches of music, drifting in from somewhere on the property, and a solitary giggle woke me. While I sat, blinking, I heard the giggle again, then again, and left the desk and my soporific story to investigate.

Out of the inn and across the lawn I stumbled to stand on the rock strewn shore, shivering and wondering what I was seeing. At first I saw only swaying lights - I counted a dozen - but I soon realized that the lights were mounted on small boats. I cannot say if the boats departed from the same place or not, nor can I say whether they had departed from the island I could so clearly see. All I know is that a dozen boats came over the water to settle on St. Clair Shores.

One by one each of the twelve princesses stepped from her boat to stand before me as if for inspection. I noted that while each princess was dressed in her own individual style all of the boats were swan boats. I was rather awed by the princesses and I probably stared too pointedly for too long, but they were kind and patient, thankfully.

When I found my voice I was horrified to hear myself, well, shriek in a horrid and unpleasant manner. I thought of just running away and when I turned to go I heard a swishing noise behind me. The river rocks felt different under my feet and when I looked down I discovered I had the legs and feet of a bird! I confess, I panicked. After some frenzied dancing and jerking, which amused the princesses enough to make them giggle, I figured out I had become a peacock! The swishing sound had been the wind through those magnificent tail feathers.

For whatever reason, once I had discerned my 'fowl' identity I marched off in the direction of the music, calling loudly as I did, the princesses in a line behind me. I watched them dance and dance, and when it was time I led them, each carrying her tattered shoes, back to their swan boats.

I do not know how everything shifted (I never do in these dreams), but I suddenly found myself outside the warehouse. The princesses arrived at the door, each in her own time, each pressing her thumb to that labyrinth symbol to gain entrance. When the door closed behind the last princess I stole up the spiral ladder and hid behind the roses to see what I might of the princesses. What I saw, however, was all those tattered soles lying amid discarded carousel horses.

I wonder what it means, if anything, that the horses were all either black or white? Hmmm ... This is intriguing. It seems almost as if the dream is a message to wake up from what I was trying to write and ... what? ... escort twelve dancing princesses to the ball, as a peacock? Can a woman even become a peacock - the ones with the gorgeous, magnificent tails are the males, aren't they?

"Is this a dagger ...?": "Melissa"

awn is hours away, but until then I must sit here in this small circle of light and write the dream that shakes me so.

The landscape was the barren parking lot surrounding the warehouse. Moonlight sparkled so brightly and beautifully on the snow. I saw my Crow perched atop one of the posts for the tall chain link fence, just above the manufacturer's metal plaque: "W & H Fencing". I don't know why I would have noticed that, but I did. My Crow seemed distant, as if he knew I was there but was more focused on something else. Indeed, he flew off without giving me much more than a glance and that's when I knew something was wrong.

He flew toward the door of the warehouse, all hidden in shadow, but landed in the moonlit snow near three snowdrifts. He stood motionless for a long moment. When he suddenly hopped up onto the nearest drift I was surprised. With singular concentration he scratched away at the snow in an area along the top of the snowdrift until he was able to grasp something in his beak. He hopped backwards and tugged with his magnificent strength and finally lifted off with some sort of pendant.

"My god, they are bodies!" I screamed inside even as he repeated his actions on the remaining forms. I stepped to run and help him, but I stopped short as I saw a figure with a lantern approach from around the corner of the warehouse.

She was magnificent. Her gown and cloak caught and held the night and the moonlight and seemed to flow around her like mist. Hair black as my Crow's plumage escaped from under her hood in waves. I watched the lantern light dance over her earring, a confection of silver and crystal that reminded me of a medieval stained glass window. She was darkness and power, but nothing, nothing about her was grave. She was, I think, only brave. She walked right up to this scene of death - surely violence had been involved - carrying only light. As I write this I think of some lines from "Romeo and Juliet": 'O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!/It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night/as a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear ...' (Act I, Sc 1, 51-53)

When my Crow finished confiscating the medallions the Lady took candles from a purse at her waist and lit them with the flame in her lantern before setting a pair at the head of each body. The six candles aglow She turned and held her lantern aloft. "Joseph," She called, "You may now escort Your little ones home." Silently, backlit by moonlight, Uncle Joe approached. He was dressed as he had been for his wedding. We greeted one another and the Dark Lady, for so I have come to think of her in these hours, with hands pressed palm to palm and the salutation, "Namaste".

As Uncle Joe approached the bodies I saw misty forms rise from them. They seemed puzzled. Uncle Joe touched each one lightly on a shoulder and it was then I saw that they had coats-of-arms strapped to their arms like the leprechauns in the labyrinth! He gently removed these from each figure and, somehow, hung them on the wall of the warehouse. "Our bruised arms hung up for monuments," He explained to me as He escorted them past. "You will see, my friend, that you and She are the only hope for little ones such as these."

I thought to move the candles nearer to the coats-of-arms, hoping to create a shrine of sorts. When I bent over the forms I saw that each one had worn several heavy medallions around their necks, not just that which the Crow had taken. My Crow and the Dark Lady were silent as I carried each pair of candles to the wall, separately. As I placed the last set there in the snow I saw my Crow reflected in the shield before me, three crosses dangling from his beak.

He lifted off and I turned to watch him fly. The Dark Lady walked into the night the way She had come. Before She turned the corner her cloak brushed an object glinting in the snow. Curious, I went to retrieve it. When I pulled it from the snow, a handgun with a most curious brand name, I could only think to say, "Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?"

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.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.

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?