Cubby

Again looking for space to work. Living in an apartment and wondering if my roomates would mind if Irearanged the furniture to accomodate an easel. Eyeing the walls for shelving space.
walking outside with Fred, down the sidewalk, Iremember saying, "We've gone too far- it's a few blocks back. " We were in some sort of chinatown full of slot machines on the sidewalks, everything gleaming with neon and adverts. In the slot machines were vegetables and food. People were gambling for different kinds of food. beautiful mushrooms, chickens, peppers. it was weird. Fred began to stand on my feet, making it hard to walk. I remember thinking " i am dreaming. i am dreaming..."
Then waking up.

Decided to build a platform in the closet of my office and put the bed in there, like a medieval bed, in the wall like a cupboard. I can store a few things underneath it, and make it cozy with big pillows to lean up against the wall and lounge; keep the curtain on the door. It will be a real cubby! Then I will have a few more feet of space in here..

Springtime

I dreamed that I was at my grandparents' house, as I have before. It strongly resembles the original structure next to the Masonic Lodge in Broad Ripple where my father grew up, but in dreams, it expands, and has secret stairways leading to many rooms, and a favourite secret spiral staircase to a lovely turret. There was some sort of banquet going on, with many guests roaming about the decidedly late-victorian settings. The furnishings were made of marble and carved wood in deep cherry hues, with lovely textiles of tapestry and heavy draperies, intricate wallpapers, leafy vine patterns woven into wool carpeting, all much like the actual characteristics of my grandparents' home.

There was much bustling, and I was to perform at seven o'clock with John Mellencamp and his band, outside in a bandshell on the premises. For some reason, I had to wait for Rob, who showed up late, and apologized for making me lose my job. It was ten after seven and I had been informed that my presence was no longer desired. I was unperturbed, however, and put a pair of John's gloves and a scarf into a ziplock bag, attaching it to the back bumper of a large flatbed truck with chairs on it that was to be part of a parade for his fans. Apparently, they were to be allowed to reach out and touch the ziplock which contained the gloves that once contained his hands. I remember that this niether impressed me nor bothered me. It was more like the way one feels when cutting the grass. It was just something that was to be done.

Then I went inside and up a hidden staircase to a room in which my father was lying in a bed, propped up on pillows, with the windows open and a fine breeze blowing through. My mother was there at the foot of the bed on a divan, relaxing with something, sewing? a book? A few others were there, but I only had eyes for my dad, so I could only see them peripherally. We were just hanging out, my dad and I, and talking. He was content, casually supping on a shallow dish of ruby red pomegranate seeds in a sweet jewel red sauce over a dark bread-like cake. He handed the dish to me, did I want a taste?- and I noticed the dish was piece from the English Porcelain given to Rob and I for our wedding. The bedcover was also red, a dusky rose red silk, and the walls were papered in a similar pinkish red brocade.
I thought of myself thinking of Persephone, and awoke.

Mercy Sunday

"He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice. (Diary 1146)."

Just the other day, after posting Fever, I came across this quote, which I found to be categorically, mystically pertinent. I call these coincidences and serendipities Consolations, as I am upheld and encouraged daily in my heart and soul by such appearances in the seemingly random and even mundane. Never do these occurrences take place without acknowledgment and thanks given immediately in prayer. Prayer takes place throughout the day, pulling the soul toward the Spirit like a needle is pulled to the north.

In looking further into this quotation, I discovered that this Sunday is Mercy Sunday, the first Sunday after Easter, a timely notification after a timely recollection.

I had never heard of St. Faustina, nor had I heard of the chaplet of Divine Mercy, or Mercy Sunday. However, I felt as t hough I had received a clue in January, when I was drawn to the prayer card at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. I now know that it was a depiction of the image St. Faustina had been commanded to have painted, that of Christ in His Divine Mercy, with two rays emanating from his Heart, one scarlet, the other white, representing the cleansing power of God's Love through His Passion. At the bottom an inscription: Jesus I Trust In You. A simple instruction, and simple prescription for the maladies which burden the soul, from the heart's own true doctor, the likes of whom Asclepius himself was a mere shadow..

I encourage anyone to read about St. Faustina and her obedient diary, her quiet resolve, her predictions of the "spark from Poland" Pope John Paul II, and her brief life beginning in 1905.

http://www.faustina.ch/index_en.htm

May God's Grace be upon you, upon us all, and may you be specifically blessed with acceptance of His Divine Mercy this coming Sunday, and all Sundays.

Fever

In 1998, I was stricken with a virulent form of encephalitis, a brain fever from which it took many weeks to recover. During that time, I could neither move nor eat without violent nausea, as my brain was swelling inside my skull, impacting my equilibrium and major nerve bundles. I could only lie flat in a darkened room, as my optic nerves were overly sensitive to light and even motion. My parents took me in, and tended me with spoonfuls of water and broth. There was little that could be done but wait and pray.

I drifted in and out of sleep for days on end, occasionally opening my eyes to find them standing there, together, gazing down at me in the room I had slept in during high school. I remember thinking one day that I might be dying. I could see it in their faces. I fell back to sleep, and dreamed.

I was in an ancient tower, made of stone, in a room at the top. Parts of the walls were crumbling, and seemed decrepit, but the floor was solid and smoothed by many years of foot traffic. There were windows, through which I could see the blue sky, and a beautiful green landscape in the distance, and I desparately wanted out. I was frightened in a nervous sort of way, and seemed aware of an impending doom. Something terrible was approaching, something unspeakable and horrendous, and I feared for all mankind. I felt a great knot of sorrow in my chest, and began to cry, surveying the perimeter for a way out.

The way to the top was a wide smooth ramp, which opened onto the spacious room
I was in, but I feared to go that way down, as what I dreaded was approaching from there. The windows were simple gothic arches cut into the stone, without panes, open to the outside, but too high up to jump from. There was a doorway also set in the stone, but it gave me a sense of foreboding. The sense of Terror approaching drove me to it. I crossed the room in an eyeblink, and flung open the door.

I was assailed with a shock of horror and disgust. From the doorway, a tunnel led downward, the walls of which were made of tongues, millions of tongues lining every inch, dripping a gooey thick saliva which reeked of something foul. The air was full of a buzzing sound, and I saw that it came from countless large black flies. I slammed the door shut, and stood shaking in a kind of traumatized still panic. My heart felt like it was breaking in my chest.

I went back to the center of the room, and prayed, weeping with sadness, for mercy. Divine Mercy. I prayed to God Almighty, pleading with him for the mercy of His Holy Son Jesus. I prayed for Jesus to save us all from this terrible dread. Everything was very still. Dusty. I felt as though I were in crypt. I knew that Jesus would not come if people did not have faith, and I wondered if my faith could be enough. I asked myself, in the still of that moment, where the dust had settled long ago, if I truly had faith.

I looked up and saw a simple golden crown hanging from a nail in the wall, high out of reach. It was dusty, as though it had been waiting there for centuries. I knew that the crown was somehow the key, and that by restoring it, all would be made well. I knew that I was alone there, and it fell to me to do it. I couldn't reach it. I jumped, I scrambled. I tried to shinny up by toes and fingernails. I searched around for a table or a chair, frantic. My heart was pounding, and I felt that time was running out! I begged Jesus to come, come and not to let this terrible thing come to pass.

This is when I began to fear that the emptiness there was real, that there was no more faith. I wanted to believe, even if I was the only one who would. I began to hear a rasping, a halting step coming up the ramp now, closer and closer. I waited, unable to breathe.

To my shock and amazement, there came into view a lion, tall and stately, walking like a man. He was emaciate, and his coat was thin and worn away in spots, bald patches where his skin showed through. His mane hung down, forlorn and matted and his left leg was paralyzed and dried like jerky. My heart burst as it seemed to recognize this lion, so slowly progressing toward the wall. Jesus. His eyes were full of compassion and sorrow, and I cried and cried.

Time was running out, as He scraped toward the wall. I realized what He had come for, He had come to get the crown for me. He couldn't reach it. I thought I would die of sorrow for Him. I loved Him, and believed that He could perform a Miracle, that He could do anything, that the crown would come to His hand.

I felt that we were almost out of time, and He looked at me, as though He knew that was so. And then He reached down and broke off his own leg, the one that was paralyzed and stiff, and standing on the other leg, held it up like a staff or a stick, and tipped the crown onto it, at which point I awoke with tears puddled in my ears as I lay still, on my back, the sheets wet beneath my head.

lavender and violets

Last night, I dreamed I had an apartment in Chicago. It was a place I was excited about, as it was all my own, and I could use the whole thing as a private studio. I could set up work stations for writing and painting, and I longed to go there. The problem was of course, that it was so far away!

I was thinking this over, figuring the cost of gas to get there and back, and whether I could spend weekends there. This seemed feasible, as my family could get along without me quite easily, and I needed a few days at a time to concentrate. But, being in another state, it still seemed prohibitive. Apparently, I was thinking about this while riding up to Chicago in the back of a pick-up truck, in the pouring rain. This bothered me, so I hopped out, and headed back to square one. I think I had a blue rain poncho on.

The problem of trying to work in a space where others were also living, and the problem of thus feeling suffocated by proximity were at issue, as well as the lack of finances to extend an independent facility to myself. I found these issues slightly annoying, and pondered them disinterestedly. These were not things I could concentrate on, while thinking about the work that was calling me. I wondered at what point in life I had succumbed to the notion that I could not or did not have what I needed, and how it had escaped me, but I knew that I knew the answer.

The last thing I remember was rolling tobacco with dried lavender and violets, and looking at my hands.

Looking at one's hands while dreaming is a technique for developing a level of communication with the unconscious used in the practice of lucid dreaming.

11.14.07

last night, i dreamed a lucid dream. it was strangely two dimensional, and seemed to impart to me something that was mathematical. i have dreampt math before, specifically geometry. in this dream, i went inward into space, and was being led by a familiar presence, who stayed behind me, in a golden light. a voice appeared in my mind, and said akashic records. i was shown pictures like etchings, and i can’t say what was on the first series, but eventually they became drawings of the cosmos, and the formation of the earth. it was a kind of turning inside out. they were like line drawings in red ink, on a field of white. they moved, like animation. so beautiful. there were clouds, circling above a chunky surface forming underneath them by some sort of precipitation which pooled beneath them and then piled up in a series of peaks, a like an island of mountains. the more it grew, the heavier it seemed, and began to sink further below the cloudy wreath above it. it seemed as though the clouds were communicating with the mountains through a kind of inner lightning. the mountains too, seemed to thunder back, almost desperately reaching up, like the outstretched arms of a child. the flashing increased between the mountains and the clouds, and the mountains drew power from the clouds, which began to sort of, settle downward upon them, until they were wreathed in this ink-drawn mist. the cloud bank above was not diminished by this, continued to be moving and glowing from within.

the mountainous area began to spread out, and take three dimensional form. then things began to speed up rapidly, and as the mountainous island took on three dimensional form, so also came colour and motion, and the former field of white upon which the drawings were shown became inky black within which began to swirl the island in the clouds. this swirling shaped it into a ball which began to resemble the planet earth inside a kind of cloudy tattered cocoon. as this was my impression, it became the point at which i began to have difficulty staying asleep. that is, the point that my conscious mind began to intrude, no longer be able to contain its wonder and surprise in its need to interpret what it beheld: i had realized i was dreaming before that, but it’s like trying not to let the rest of me know, because then, i will wake up. i try not to, but i usually do. if i am sleepy, i can often go back to sleep without coming fully out of the dream, but for some reason, i awoke abruptly, elated, mystified. as i was waking, i felt myself receding rapidly, like i was being drawn up and away by the scruff of my neck, backward, and i saw this cloudy kind earth nest within a greater sort of nebula receding from me so fast, growing ever distant with a strange suddenness, but i spied the galaxy in its swirl, ever tinier, just before i awoke.

nice.

Dinner Party

I've forgotten already, most of what i dreamed last night. I do remember the tail end of the last dream. I was at a dinner party outside among a number of gazebos on a lawn. There were lots of folks there. Winding through the tables and chairs was a little track, like the kind you see at the county fair. Upon the track was a little seven or eight car train, also like the kind you see at the fair, with no roof on top. Sweet. it was taking the guests for rides, and everyone was smiling and laughing, enjoying themselves. As it came by where I was sitting, I spied Geri Kay, whom I haven't seen in years. I looked intently at her, passing by, and whispered her name. The train slowed its rambling to a near stop, and I said her name again. She turned and smiled, and we leaned toward each other and embraced. Our eyes were wet with happy emotion, and a little sadness that so much time had gone by until now.