Poetry for the New Year
A bit piecemeal, but here goes:
Dream (12/30/09): I’m sitting in some sparse, wintery woods with a couple other people. We’re hiding. Some people are coming through the woods to get us. I am sewing poetry along the collar of a dress I designed (rusty red thread on a cream collar). It’s the start of a poem I’ve been working on. “Like as…” it begins. I sense the people are getting closer. One of my comrades and I run away through the woods. We get round to the other side and I jump off the path into the thick just before they shoot him with a rifle. The enemies back off, and I step onto the path to see him. He’s dead, but a wolf with a hunchback comes to me from his body. I say, “Oh, good, you can help lead me to safety.” The wolf seems uncertain of this. He’s thinking about going back to the place where I was sewing. I don’t think that’s safe. We run back on the path that led us to the shooting. The poem keeps running though my mind. I keep thinking of it and working on it. Going all the way back doesn’t feel safe. At one point on the edge of the the woods the path meets up with the back of someone’s dirty gold ranch house with chain link fence and dog. I think we can get through without the dog hearing us and attacking. I look at the wolf and scoot through the fence and make it through the driveway into the town. The town is old. All the architecture is 1800’s. I touch the curvy molding on a shop, it’s freshly painted–red and white. We run through the streets. My running is fast, but on some level I know I am dreaming and could just be gliding through the air. I run and run and run until I cross the train tracks and get to a motel. I go inside my room, still afraid that someone is after me. I crash on the polyester covered bed. I wake after hours and am surprised to see the door ajar (not very safe of me). I go and close it and turn around to see that David has slipped through the door and is sitting in a chair in the middle of the room. He’s a bit hunched over. He reminds me of the wolf in his expression.
Wake: Here I am hiding in the woods from all the people I think are after me, crafting clothing and writing poetry. In the place I love doing all the things I love, only problem is that there are too many people and not enough woods. The poem reminds me of Shakespeare’s sonnet 118–starts off, “Like as, to make our appetites more keen…”–confession and getting sick off of preventative medicine (cathartic purging that seems downright sick). The wolf comes when my friend dies. I think of him as a guide, but he doesn’t really guide me; we do go together. The gold house is very like a house in my childhood neighborhood. The kind of house that has been neglected for 20 years, and has a sketchy/dangerous vibe, bull dogs, etc. I associate the era of the old town with simpler times, which is appealing, although in the dream there wasn’t much feeling about it, just relief at so many fewer things to interface with maybe–no cars, computers, no people on the streets, etc. A motel is the logical place to hide. David…well, I just found out that my friend’s husband, David, joined the circus when he was younger. This changed the way I think about him. The circus reminds me of wolf people (loners in a pack). The expression of the wolf and David don’t really remind me of David. The woods remind me of the woods in Iowa that we used to live by. David and Dee are in Iowa. It’s almost like seeing this side of David makes me think twice about going back to Iowa. I am running from people and memories from Iowa in the waking time, though I yearn to be back in Hickory Hill Park. Dee sent me a Hickory Hill Calendar along with this exciting info about David. I look forward to hear the circus story some day.
Dream (1/1/10): I’m in a dark hall, with a bunch of people, we’re in line to see my Guru–Shri Dhyanyogi. When I am in front of the Guru, he tells me to draw an Om on my third eye. I am surprised that I remember how to do it–it’s in reddish orange ink. I go into a very deep meditation. I can hardly will myself to move. Guruji talks to the crowd, while I am sitting in front of him in my state. I am aware enough that I am blocking traffic, even though I really shouldn’t worry, just meditate. I eventually move to the side, which breaks my meditation. I think of poetry. I hear, “just write the Truth“. I also wonder about my meditations being not so great, and I hear, “soon”.
Wake: Poetry again, I think of my the falcon poem that I wrote for my Guru, but also of my Fly Awake installation that was meant to be poem-like in its construction. A poem you could walk into and feel, between the text and imagery I created. The dream seems like a reminder to organize my art in this way, while working aligned to the highest Truth. Also gives reassurance that my meditations, which haven’t been the best, will become infused with light again. A Day or so before these dreams, I smoked some Calea and asked for help with my art. With Calea I am not surprised to find dreams coming up long after the physical interaction.