Dream A Little Dream

I’ve always had an active dream-life. Most of the time they just seem to be the day tossed into a bag and like my Junk Oracle, rearranged in a different order or odd combinations.

My scary dreams were the Big Dark Monster chasing me. I never turned around to see its face. I only ran.

Another bad one recurred until my mid-20s. The interesting thing about this one is that, as I grew older, the dream changed slightly, which was a key to solving the puzzle of the dream. The basics were always the same. A tornado was headed towards our house, which, by the way, wasn’t really my house but was a farmhouse on a broad plain, dusty and dry. The idea was that I had to get away before the tornado hit. Then there were more tornadoes, three, then five or six. The wind is howling and the dust is swirling and I’m trying to convince my family to go now, leave in the big, old 1940’s-era long-nosed Buick or Pontiac sedan parked between the house and the barn. My mother instead continues to take the dried laundry flapping horizontally from the clotheslines.

My earliest versions of this dream have the terrified me in the car but unable to reach the pedals. As I grew older, I could reach the pedals, but I couldn’t drive the car because it was a manual transmission. As I grew more skilled, I got past one hurdle only to find another. Finally, and I mean seriously this dream chased me well into my 20’s, the last hurdle was that I could not get my family into the car. Led by my mother, as the storm approached they all turned into paper dolls.

I solved the problem by just letting the tornado take them away. I mean, seriously, folks, I had worked night after night to figure out how to rescue them, overcoming every obstacle. When I waved goodbye to my paper-doll family and let the tornado take them away, I was relieved of the dream and I never had it again.

I still have trouble watching the Wizard of Oz but at least it’s only a movie. And my feet reach the pedals. Whew!

Other dreams followed me year after year, flying at night above the power poles and trees, finding cats and kittens in sparkly turquoise, green, purple and red, and one of my favorites: Out on that same dusty plain there’s been a little rain and there’s a bit of green grass. It is night-time and there is a full moon. As I look for stars and planets, I realize that there are messages written in the stars, silly messages and intriguing messages. I realize there is not just one full moon, but it has suddenly turned into 2, then 4, then 8, then 16. I do cartwheels in my delight in the grassy field under the many moons. It is a lucky night.

These dreams, of course, are not the dream of future events that seem to have a more coherent narrative about them. Typically synesthetic, those dreams “smell” different from the colorful cats and multiple moons.

It’s pretty easy for me to figure out what’s going on with the tornado dream and the advice I gave myself—and followed—about my family drama, freeing myself from a co-dependent nightmare.

I look forward to the skywriting stars and multiple moons and perhaps, one night, the sparkly turquoise cats will come to do cartwheels with me.

The Moon in Tarot is a great card to signify dreams: In moonlight, things look real, almost. Some things are brought into high relief in moonlight and other things nearly invisible. You might not recognize the same landscape by light of day. In that way, the Moon sometimes signifies deception but I prefer to think of it as altered perception. After all, at high noon in the Grand Canyon, you can barely see the glorious colors of the canyon walls which, at sunset blaze in beauty and contrast. The danger in moonlight is that it comes and goes, that it hides things you may really need to see so you don’t step in a hole or stumble across the thing that was chasing you and wake it.

In one of my cute little antique books, Zadkiel’s Dream Book and Fortune Teller, there are some charming dream interpretations that I thought I would share. In no particular order, but using elements from the RWS Tarot deck:

Lamps (from the Hermit): If you dream that you are carrying a bright lamp, it foretells that in your particular calling you will succeed, and be highly esteemed…To dream of seeing many bright lamps denotes a coming festivity. If you appear to be exultant on the occasion it denotes your marriage.

Laurel (as the wreath on the head of the celebrant on the 6 of Wands): To dream of Laurel betokens victory and pleasure. If you marry it foretells possessions by your wife. It foreshadows great prosperity. If a woman dreams of it and smells it, it denotes that she will bear children [laurel is bay leaf, ed.]; to a maid, it shows speedy marriage.

Miser (from the 4 of Pentacles): This is an unfavourable dream. It foretells bad success through life and great troubles. You will never rise above your present circumstances, but probably become poorer and more wretched. In love it foretells marriage with a person who will make you miserable by low despicable ways and that you will have many bad children. [Well! Cross that one off the list, ed.]

Moon (from the Moon): To dream of the moon foretells unexpected joy and success in love. If it be a new moon it is a good dream for the tradesman and farmer and lover. The full moon denotes marriage; it is good for a widow. [OK, I’m not getting married 16 times. Not, ed.]

Crown (many Tarot cards have a crown, such as the Ace of Swords): To dream of a monarch’s crown denotes favour with the great and elevation in your state. To dream that you will wear a royal crown is a dream of contrary; it denotes your degradation. To dream that you give a crown shows that you will rise to independence. [Mixed blessing, that crown thing, ed.]

Snails (from the 9 of Pentacles): To dream of snails is not a very good dream. It foretells that you will be annoyed with very low evil-designing persons. Be watchful, lest you suffer through their designs. [Have always preferred my snails in butter and garlic anyway, ed.]

River (from the Empress, 5 of Cups, etc.): To dream that you see a broad, rapid and  muddy river and tempestuous [sic] it denotes troubles and difficulties in love and business; but if the river appears calm, with a glassy surface, it foretells great happiness in love, happy wedlock, beautiful children and commercial prosperity.

And last, two of the most enduring symbols from the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot, the lily and the rose:

Lily: To dream you see this lovely flower, it is a sign that by your virtuous and industrious career you will be very happy and prosperous. To the lover it denotes the virtue of the object beloved. The lily is the emblem of purity; therefore it augurs well. If you marry, you will be happy and have lovely children. If in your dream you see the lily wither, then your most ardent expectations will be nullified…portends failure….

Rose: To dream of roses in their season is the omen of happiness, prosperity and long life. If the roses are full and fragrant, it foretells to a young man who dreams it that his mistress will be fair and beautiful, intelligent and amiable, and that their union will follow in due time and be honourable and happy. It is a good dream for the tradesman and for all, prognosticating great success. If the roses are decayed, it indicates trouble and poverty.

So may your roses and lilies be full and fragrant and may moonlight and bright lamps shine on your calm river so that it sparkles like glass! See you in my dreams!

Best wishes.

Moon Ship

So there I was, sleeping like there was no tomorrow and I stepped into a dream, no, THE dream. It was not one of those one-liner dreams. Sometimes those make me wake up laughing. It was not one of those short stories with a distinct beginning, middle and end with well-developed characters. No, this was beyond that. This was more than a novel. This was the Dune series of dreams, unabridged.

It seems we had finally perfected time travel, well, perfected is a peculiar term. What we had done was make it reliable enough that the general public could schedule trips with various carriers, like airlines, who occasionally ran sales in competition with each other. There was a trip schedule. There were “hub” timeports, places where you could make connections to less-well-traveled times/places.

With the normalizing of time travel, the vacation industry really boomed.

“Go AnyWhen!”

Advertising slogans plastered billboards and internet space. Somehow, regular people like you and me, and since it was my dream, especially me, could afford to go places, excuse me time/places where/when you weren’t. There was that whole "two places" temporal anomaly thing, but the carriers were in charge of making sure that you didn’t get into trouble.

Oh, the butterfly effect was taken care of, too. Unlike the sci-fi stories that show how traveling to the past and accidentally killing a bug change the entirety of the future, that was covered. It was part of the technology, taken care of just like that.

It was a lot like the normalizing of airline travel. You figure most of people-dom felt that not only could humans not fly, they probably shouldn’t. Still, there were always a few agitators who ignored the rules and kept trying to come up with a workable design. True, there were a lot of failures, some with tragic consequences. Gradually, we were convinced that what first seemed like a miracle, then a wild luxury only for the ultra-posh was somehow no more remarkable, through the wonder of marketing to sell on volume, than catching a cab, bus or train.

Hop on a quick flight and spend the day in Los Angeles or Seattle or Albuquerque! You can fly back the same day.

When time travel got to this point, in my dream of course, I found myself in line for my little getaway with my husband.

We’re both readers so we had apparently agreed on a “somewhen” to go to together that was likely literary in nature. I wasn’t sure if we were meeting Geoffrey Chaucer or William Shakespeare, but whatever the destination we were positive we were not going to change history or more importantly make a new future.

Then, I got a call from work. You know, that kind of thing happens to me in real life.

I was answering my work Blackberry messages in Ireland. I was trying to debug an implementation issue on a Saturday morning at the Russian River. I sent status reports from the beach in Florida. I attended conference call meetings from the passenger seat over some of the more mind-numbing stretches of I-5. I performed production checkout from a haunted hotel in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Most remarkably, while in the middle of my father’s estate sale (yep, that tear-jerking task of sorting through and selling of the artifacts of my Daddy’s life), I got an email from my VP saying, “Handle this.” Handle this? While I’m doing something much harder than my Dad’s funeral? I handled it.

Even temporarily insane people can be productive.

"Ain’t it awful how work interferes with yer personal life?" my friend Sherry used to drawl, knowing how we make those decisions to work because the work is sometimes our life, like a family member. A really demanding family member.

I’ve been working with Lenormand decks lately, creating my Dust Bunny Lenormand and the Off-Center Lenormand. They are different from Tarot but they are used in cartomancy, usually for more of the “fortune telling” end of working with cards.

Getting the cards Moon (dream, intuition, imagination) + Ship (travel) would be a lot like having a time travel dream. Lenormand cards are always read in pairs. They are read nearly literally with their keywords with the first card being the subject and the second card being the modifier. My “moon-ship” was a travel dream of the wildest imagination.

 

Back to my dream: So I’m somewhere out of earshot there in the timeport while the Hubs holds our place in line and wouldn’t you know it? I miss my … flight? Transport? I’m not sure what we call this time travel event. I’m a little new to this.

But, hey, no worries. I can catch the next one. I do and catch up to John and we have an adventure. My dream conveniently skips this fun part so I don’t even know if we talked to Kit Marlowe or whoever. Work contacts me again—pretty amazing technology if your Blackberry works in the 15^th century or whatever—and I have to go back on a separate transport from my husband. Wow, this was supposed to be a super-special vacation and it’s all interrupted. John catches his transport.

I’m in line for my separate transport when I hear, Marcia!! The voices behind me are my long-time friends, Mark and Sally. I didn’t know they had gone on vacation to the same time/place or I would have suggested we connect. And here we are standing in line together to catch our transport home. But we both notice about the same time that something is different.

“You don’t look the same,” Sally says, smiling and frowning at the same time. She’s as sweet as pecan pie, always has been. We were instant best friends from the first time we talked. “Are you OK?”

I figured my hair was out of place and then it dawned on me what was wrong.

“Hon, how old are you right now?”

“43!” she said, shaking her head like I hadn’t gotten enough sleep. I hadn't.

“Well,” I sighed, that explains it. “OK, I cut my hair and you guys have a lot coming up, but fer sher I’ll see you in about 15 years.” She and Mark looked at me with widening eyes and laughed in realization.

Those temporal anomaly resolution algorithms guarantee you won’t see yourself coming and going, but not that you won’t see your friends or family out of sync along the way. Time-lag, they call it.

We laughed and waved and I stepped into my transport. The now-familiar near-nauseous blackout thing happened that I had come to expect with time travel swirled around me and when I came to, I realized I was in a sleek black limousine.

“You feelin’ OK, miss?” the driver grinned. “I know a lot of people have the same reaction you do when they travel. Your suitcase made it just fine. It’s in the back.”

I blinked and looked out the window. Nothing looked familiar. I mean nothing. I wasn’t sure I was even on the right continent.

“Driver?” I asked, pretty sure I knew the answer. “What year is it?”

“2016!”

Well, fooey. I hope I get a free trip out this.

“Can you turn around and take me back to the timeport? I need to get back to 2012.”

Sure is good to be back.

Best wishes!

***

Images of the Moon and Ship are from the Off-Center Lenormand, now available from The Tarot Garden, while they last!

Holiday Spirit

After the Ceili while the travelers slept late Christmas night on the Queenstown wharf in County Cork, Ireland, awaiting the arrival of the ship that would take them to Boston, a strange procession made their way in the moonlight. Some held deer antlers aloft but there were also additional characters: the Folk Fool, the Man-Woman or Maid Marian, the Hobby Horse and the Boy Archer. The magical notes of the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance led the group in spiraling dreamlike steps. Antlers clacked together as the men approached each other in two rhythmic lines, in greeting, in competition, in gratitude. And after they wove and dipped and clacked and skipped, as the music slowed and the recorder faded, they slipped off the stage and melted into the crowd.

This was part of my magical Christmas treat at the Christmas Revels which this year celebrated music and stories of Ireland and the British Isles around 1900. Directed by David Parr, this was the 25th anniversary of the Revels at the Oakland, California, Scottish Rite Center. My husband and I had attended once before years ago and I had found it charming. This year, in the spirit of “Consumables!” I wanted something wonderfully Christmas-y, something with unmistakable holiday spirit.

In the past, we have threatened to attend the Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus sing-along but never quite made it. We tried the Oakland Ballet’s Nutcracker Suite, somewhat less overwhelming than the San Francisco production but no less fun. And we’ve traveled on a family pilgrimage to San Juan Bautista to watch El Teatro Campesino for Christmas musical wonder. We’ve taken the ferry into San Francisco to watch the skaters at Union Square and visited the Macy’s Christmas window displays. My favorite of those was the Mouse Christmas where all the mice were celebrating tiny mousey holiday treats, decorating tiny trees and giving mouse presents under the floorboards of human houses. All the creatures were stirring and it was holiday perfection.

This year I had hoped to take our friend Gerry, the one who crawls through her window when she’s locked herself out of the house, to the Revels because Gerry is about as Irish as they come. And, betting that the Christmas Revels would not be singing, “The Last Rose of Summer,” a beautiful Irish song that sends Gerry into Mood Indigo, I figured this would be the perfect holiday mood-setter. What better than the Ireland that her grandparents and parents knew, at a happy but wistful time, Christmas, with family, yet embarking for America and likely never to see the family in Ireland again.

Best laid plans and all that: Gerry got flu-like symptoms from the whooping cough shot and, miserably over-apologizing (really, dear, it’s OK), she had to bow out. With three tickets and two people, John called his cousin David, found that his wife Wendy was glad to have him out of the house for a few hours, and we had our happy substitute. We barely made it to the show on time, got to our seats and the magic of Christmas began. We were transported to Queenstown in County Cork in 1900, where the Irish, English and Welsh, dressed in their warm traveling clothes and dragging their steamer trunks assembled on the dock, waiting for the ship that will take them to their new lives.

The show started with a medley overture, next, a 12th century song from Ireland, the Wexford Carol and went on to provide us with stories and songs, solos and sing-alongs that embodied the spirit of Christmas. There was no Santa Claus. There was no manger scene. There were adults and children dancing and singing, showing the season’s best and giving us a glimpse into the traditions we in America find curious and wonderful.

The Abbots Bromley Horn Dance comes to us from the village of Abbots Bromley in Staffordshire, England. It has been a family tradition in that village with the Bentley and Fowell families for centuries and is still performed today. The antlers used by the “deer men” in Abbots Bromley are actually reindeer antlers and have been carbon dated back to the 11th century. The basic concept of the dance is a thank you for allowing the villagers to hunt, but it is also a remnant of “sympathetic magic” acting out a successful hunt and bounty for all. The traditional village production of the Horn Dance occurs in September, but it also has ties to Christmas time. It shows the universal need to thank a higher power for gifts and hope for good things in the time to come, plenty for all. I love the Revels recorder music and the after-midnight dance because it echoes the magical traditions of Christmas: If you squint, you can see a semi-Santa in the Maid Marian who is a bearded man in a dress, with the deer like reindeer, the Boy Archer like an elf. It’s just a little different in the moonlight.

Much of the show was for the child in all of us, with the youngest performers dancing a “stitching” game, holding hands in a line and leading the line under the next two dancers’ arms. An Irish story edited by William Butler Yeats called “The Soul Cages” told us of the friendship between a young man and a magical creature half-man, half-fish called the Coomarra. We learned how to count sheep so that the faerie folk will not take them: Ain, tain, otherow, pothero, pitts. Umfit, cumfit, ethero, petherow, potts. No lost sheep! We sang The Holly and the Ivy and Lord of the Dance and a round in Latin, Dona Nobis Pacem. The Morris Men danced and the Cutty Wren was celebrated.

This was the winter solstice performance of the Christmas Revels. It’s only fitting today to note that not only do we experience the longest night this winter solstice but a rare full lunar eclipse, visible to most in North America tonight. The last time we had a full lunar eclipse on the solstice was 1368, so those clouds outside this afternoon better get on their way. I plan to stay up to see the red, red moon tonight. Moonlight can be deceptive in its own right, as reflected in the Tarot.  Are your eyes deceiving you?  Is there more to this story than you know?  Think you'll ever know? The full moon’s light made red by the shadow of the earth between it and the sun must be magical indeed. Is that a man in a red suit with eight tiny reindeer or Maid Marian with how many Deer Men? Ain, tain, otherow, pothero, pitts….

Gerry, don't worry.  We will do something else when you feel better!
Best wishes!

**

Want to know more about the fun and affordable California Revels, a bargain in the Bay Area with convenient and safe parking? Visit http://www.calrevels.org/ and get on their mailing list.

How about more adventure at Christmastime with El Teatro Campesino in San Juan Bautista, California, an unforgettable performance in the historic mission right on the San Andreas Fault? Visit: http://www.elteatrocampesino.com/

At Long Last, Love

I knew a man, but not so very well,

His secret he could to no one tell,

Until his kind and fluffy wife did expire

Then would he choose to show himself entire.



He bought the finest fitted outerwear

And traveled freely first class everywhere

In pent up rage, with once-hidden love aglow

And a well-formed paid companion in tow.



Cancer. In vanity he could not bear to endure

Disfigurement that might have meant a cure,

He learned almost too late his family’s devotion,

Fortune spent, neither nature nor choice the magic potion.



Truth will out, often with a sharp blade at its side.

Closet’s closest friend, the mirror, hangs outside.

The fragrance of the violet is forgiveness’ scent.

Oh spring up gently towards us, twig, when you are bent.



It was not the secret that swordlike ran us through,

But the fury aimed at all his own when he at last was true.

The Moon shows but one face to us from up above.

How far must we all travel until, at long last, love?

***
 
For him and for those who loved him, who are dear to me.
 
Best wishes.

The Incompleat Workes of Beth the Jester

Oh, wow, I’m breathless! I just received my latest Beth Seilonen decks, among them, the Tarot of the Red Jester. And I also just received the originals of a deck not otherwise published, Owls in the Night. Beth lives and breathes art and tarot in Maine. I would like to say I’m one of her oldest fans, but I think there are people older than I am who love her work too. At least I hope so.

I first saw mention of her work on Aeclectic Tarot where some of her other fans were oooh-ing and ahhh-ing over her decks. I had to see what the fuss was about. And what a delight! Now, I know that there’s a time and place for those bite-you-in-the-neck-scream-and-swoon decks; I have those too, trust me. Even the relentlessly optimistic have a dark side. But Beth’s work fills a gap in the whimsy department like no other tarot artist. So I’ve become one of her frequent patrons of the arts.

Besides those two new arrivals, my collection of Beth’s work is, to my mind, small: Another Way, Arcana Cats, Fishy Tarot (true, I’m a fish-nut but I love these fish), Foxy Arcana, Funky Lighthouse, the incomparable Isabel Snail, the Pink Arcana, Purple Penguin, Home Sweet Home, Split View, Tree Women, Watchers, Whimsy Tarot, Witches II and Jester’s Tarot (not to be confused with Tarot of the Red Jester). It is by no means a complete collection! Yet to be snagged are The Maine, Sun Conure, Symbolically Simplistic, Hues, Sails, Baby of Thine, well, good grief, you guys, just go look at all this lovely stuff! http://www.catseyeart.com/index.html

Beth’s decks aren’t just whimsy and color. Her trees bear messages of the harm we do to the environment, the preciousness of our earth, the delight of life and the enormity of circumstance as viewed by the individual. Take a close look at her Watchers and you’ll start looking over your shoulder. Her Tree Women have deep roots. Even bouncy little Nestor the Jester in the Pink Arcana shows the emotion and ambiguity of the tarot much deeper than his pink rolly-polliness may at first glance convey. The Jester makes us laugh, but stay a moment because he (or is that she?) makes us think too. The Jester plucks the conscience of the king as Shakespeare might suggest. Even slow-moving, unsuspecting, gentle and delicate Isabel Snail can ooze up to rest on the wrong golf ball of life with dire consequences. As in that funny-but-true song, “Sometimes you’re the windshield. Sometimes you’re the bug.”

Beth’s limited edition decks are easy to read with but personally, I don’t usually want to take the risk of ruining them with shuffling and use. I do like to get them out to admire and meditate. Isabel Snail’s Tower feels just like October 2002 for me. I can still feel that *whoosh* of the wind I caught just before life hit me right square in the snail shell. The Foxy Arcana “Yearn” shows we all have dreams, the fox and the chickens: If you have sweet little dreams, you sleep; if you have obsessive dreams, you’re up all night.

Just this past weekend, though, I broke my own rule about reading with Beth’s cards. Owls in the Night is so tiny (most of Beth’s decks are “normal” playing card size, but the Owls deck is a bit smaller) that it easily slips into my purse along with what seems to be several hundred pounds of other stuff in there (the Hubs swears this is where the missing Mr Hoffa may be…gotta love those vintage Dooney & Burkes for durability). I read for a private party, some delightful ladies, one of whom had been the successful bidder on my silent auction offering at the Benicia Vallejo Humane Society’s Barkitecture fundraiser. Our hostess plied me with the always-welcome endless glass of water and a glazed donut, plus treated me to a break between readings with a walk in her backyard full of roses and a glorious view of the Carquinez Straits. As a special treat, each sitter got to pick an owl’s card as their closing message for the day. It ended what might have been a “heavy” session on a light note.

Each of Beth’s decks has come with its own hand-decorated box and usually a little drawstring pouch. They are generally laminated, numbered, signed and easy to hold. Beth’s note cards are nearly as much fun as her decks. And, with Beth’s permission, I wanted to share some examples here with you.

The best news of all is that Beth appears to be nowhere near the end of her creativity with tarot. Her Red Jester comes in two alternatives, true to her tailored to the customer’s wish, in its limited edition. For those who want only to be guided by the image, there is the choice of having the card interpretations printed on additional cards supplied with the deck. For those collectors who want to preserve both her images and words together on each card, there is the choice to have the Red Jester “with interpretation.” In addition, there’s a silk cloth, 11” x 11” in choice of 4 colors. I picked “with” and red, being subtle in my collecting.

I’m quite pleased to note that we have available to us here the (happily) Incompleat Workes of Beth the Jester, a whimsical Maine artist and mom, with wonderful new visions of the funny, scary, angry, sad, joyful and loving world of tarot. Encore! Encore! May your inks and watercolors never run dry!

You can find Beth’s decks through this website: http://www.catseyeart.com/index.html, on Etsy, on eBay and if you’re really nice, she’ll accept your friend invitation on Facebook. Please write to her to encourage her to come to this year’s BATS (Bay Area Tarot Symposium) too!

**

Psst! Registration for BATS just opened and they accept PayPal. The dates are August 28-29, 2010 in San Francisco. It’s loads of fun for tarot enthusiasts and always features fabulously informed experts and a luscious marketplace. For more information and registration, go to http://www.dodivination.com/sf_bats



Best wishes!