oneiros

I am at an artists retreat.  There are a whole bunch of men at the front collecting their belongings.  They all are caught up in being sterotypical males, talking about women as objects and proudly acting void of feeling.  I gather my things and leave.  I am here with my mom and several of her old friends before she became a dog woman.  There are others here too.  We step toward the back and one woman in our party, older and full of vivacious life talks to us over the railing.  She is so full of joy.  I look to mom silently asking about her.  She says "Cancer".  I tell the woman that I want to give her a message from myself ten years in the future (where I currently am asleep in my bed).  I say, "You mattered to me.  You made me better."  She smiles at me, a little quizzically, and invites us to the back of the retreat where there is beauty and an expectation of quiet.

I’m in a house looking out a glass window or am I in the front yard looking at locate? I think it’s  in the yard. There is a possum, bloated and frozen, in mid run beside a flowering bush that has lost all its bloom and foliage. Is the possum frozen in fear? Or is it dead?  Or stuffed? Beside the possum is a gazelle in mid run equally frozen. And to the side of the gazelle,  lying on its belly with a paw outstretched in front of the low gate barring the exit, there is a mountain lion or puma or some large cat of similar coloring. Equally frozen. I wonder, “Are they dead?” and then I think what could kill a possum, a gazelle  and a lion?  The lion  begins to move slowly. As it does I see children crouched in hiding on the other side of the lion all within the gate. I see their fear and I want to help them. Their eyes are wide and they look desperate. I am in the house now looking out of them. Did I move? Was it always in the house? I don’t know but I run out the front door. Just as they

I am in my childhood home, in mom’s room. C is there and no one else. I walk into the bedroom, where  I experienced so much abuse at the hands of my stepfather.. C. is newly showered. He looks at me and there is no protection in his eyes, no hardness.  He opens his arms and I step into his  embrace. There is forgiveness and nothing to forgive. As we hug, I feel deepening layers of healing and reparation. The past is the past. I lean into the strength of his arms and chest, breathing in the scent of him. Home. I am home.. I realize that he was right when he said, “Some connections maybe too big to be realized on this plane.” We would complicate it in the waking world with our desires and insecurities but here it’s pure and clear and beautiful.  I didn’t fail in my love for him. I couldn’t. It’s just not mine to know the trajectory of growth our connection inspired in him. I let go. The dream fades. I wake.

I am in a room with several other people. It’s an art workshop I think. There is a large mirror with an ornate frame that reflects  your future when you look into it. There is a woman, dark haired, tall, strong of spirit and a bit older than me, who is running the workshop and inviting people to look in the mirror. Three people do so before it is my turn, A young man with short hair and a traditional upbringing, sees himself as a painter. His whole body sheds the weight of trying to be something he is not. He is a painter and now he can be what he is. Next a beautiful, strong woman with ebony skin and penetrating eyes steps forward, she sees herself holding an ancient and elaborate map rolled into a scroll across her shoulder. In the reflection she wears a velvety robe and an academic cap. The dark haired woman beside her announces, “ You will be a world scholar,” and the young woman’s back straightens with confidence, casting off the white prejudice that tried to make her dreams small