Beech Trees Uprooted
Upon waking I tell my partners that I have had the worst nightmare ever, and the nightmare is this ...
I find myself working in an office.
I laughed as I told them, but the reality is that the last time I worked in an office, I frequently had to get off the tube train several times on my journey in, in order to manage panic attacks. I was so pleased when I found work which meant that I didn't have to attend an office most days. That work was Tantra - indeed, it was sex work too - many people don't realise that sex work can actually be a good and empowering choice, a relief when finally arrived at.
But back to my dream ...
I find myself working in an office.
I am dealing with pieces of paper with numbers on them. I can feel the scratchyness and discomfort of my office clothes, and see it in the bodies around me unnaturally swathed.
I look at the paper and the numbers there-in and decide, well I am doing this, I at least want to do it well. It will relieve the boredom. So I engage with the numbers, and while doing so find I am very aware of the texture of the paper they are written on, heavier than ordinary office stationary. Textured, woven.
I engage with the numbers and realise "they are not true" and I start to try to tell the people around me. I go from one to another (all men) and say "the numbers aren't true, look".
They look at me like I am mad and brush me off - "we don't care" or "we don't check" they seem to say "what are you doing, you are breaking the unwritten contract". I look and realise how dead they are - I look around the room and suddenly perceive that people are having affairs, lots of them, to relieve the boredom of their work.
[edit note: I realise for the first time I am compelled to mention that I have done sex work on this blog. As I write now I realise there is a cross over with the dream. At best sex work felt sacred, profound, shattering and life changing in equal measure - both for me and for those who encountered my work. At worst I felt I was using sex to relieve the boredom of those occupying a world I despised and had consequently fled].
This dream sequence stretches on for a painfully long time, just like an office day used to for me. All the points of action above are interspersed with long phases of nothing but paper and numbers. In those long phases I sometimes look through the white aluminium framed windows, through the glass, to a delightful copse beyond. Broadleaf, deciduous, on a hillside, I can see its full extent and boundary.
It emerges in my awareness that each time I have looked at the copse, a few more trees have been cut down. I realise that the extent of that, though slow and cumulative, now threatens the existence of the copse at all. I realise if nothing is done, it will soon be gone.
Again, I seek to raise the alarm [it comes to me to ask here, why am I continuously petitioning others to do something?] ...
People respond and go outside, though I am still inside. I look out and see there is a stretch of pure beech. I love pure beech forests, they are the most beautiful thing, especially in autumn.
The people responding to my call encircle a tree, and become engaged in fervent and purposeful activity. To my horror though - and its almost comical - in their ties and cheap polyester suits of grey and black, they are circling the tree to uproot it ...
And they succeed, one by one, they uproot and push over beech after beech ...
I wake up sweating and deeply disturbed.
Postscript - I looked up the spiritual meaning of beech here -
http://www.thegoddesstree.com/trees/Beech.htm
Here are the bits that stood out for me -
"Year in and year out, the beech tree reminds us of the importance of learning and of the need to preserve our knowledge in writing for the benefit of generations to come. Just as lovers carve their names into the trunk of the beech so their love will grow with the tree, so must we continue to record our wisdom and understanding for future benefit. Rooted in the knowledge of the ancients and sustained by the ideas of the present, we will continue to reach for the stars."
Beech is a symbol for the written word, and for the wisdom within ancient learning. It is the sum of the wisdom of all the other trees. It was used to make writing tablets, and thin slices of Beech wood were bound together to make the first book. A great deal of paper is produced from beeches. The bark is excellent for carving, this practice dates back to Roman times. The Beech tree reminded our ancestors of the need to preserve all knowledge in writing for the benefit of future generations.
Reading that I realise how it's a dream of the speeding up of the end of things, the end of knowledge, future generations, wisdom passing from generation to generation. I see now how the beech links with the paper and figures at the beginning of the dream, and the search for truth.
I also see that
In aromatherapy, the essence of beech helps to boost confidence and hope. Flower remedy enhances sympathy and tolerance.
And realise in some ways the dream reflects my loss of hope and confidence that we can stop the systems / climate breakdown and substantial loss of life on earth, that we are facing - such that I have ceased (for now) the environmental activism I was previously engaged in.
Upon waking I tell my partners that I have had the worst nightmare ever, and the nightmare is this ...
I find myself working in an office.
I laughed as I told them, but the reality is that the last time I worked in an office, I frequently had to get off the tube train several times on my journey in, in order to manage panic attacks. I was so pleased when I found work which meant that I didn't have to attend an office most days. That work was Tantra - indeed, it was sex work too - many people don't realise that sex work can actually be a good and empowering choice, a relief when finally arrived at.
But back to my dream ...
I find myself working in an office.
I am dealing with pieces of paper with numbers on them. I can feel the scratchyness and discomfort of my office clothes, and see it in the bodies around me unnaturally swathed.
I look at the paper and the numbers there-in and decide, well I am doing this, I at least want to do it well. It will relieve the boredom. So I engage with the numbers, and while doing so find I am very aware of the texture of the paper they are written on, heavier than ordinary office stationary. Textured, woven.
I engage with the numbers and realise "they are not true" and I start to try to tell the people around me. I go from one to another (all men) and say "the numbers aren't true, look".
They look at me like I am mad and brush me off - "we don't care" or "we don't check" they seem to say "what are you doing, you are breaking the unwritten contract". I look and realise how dead they are - I look around the room and suddenly perceive that people are having affairs, lots of them, to relieve the boredom of their work.
[edit note: I realise for the first time I am compelled to mention that I have done sex work on this blog. As I write now I realise there is a cross over with the dream. At best sex work felt sacred, profound, shattering and life changing in equal measure - both for me and for those who encountered my work. At worst I felt I was using sex to relieve the boredom of those occupying a world I despised and had consequently fled].
This dream sequence stretches on for a painfully long time, just like an office day used to for me. All the points of action above are interspersed with long phases of nothing but paper and numbers. In those long phases I sometimes look through the white aluminium framed windows, through the glass, to a delightful copse beyond. Broadleaf, deciduous, on a hillside, I can see its full extent and boundary.
It emerges in my awareness that each time I have looked at the copse, a few more trees have been cut down. I realise that the extent of that, though slow and cumulative, now threatens the existence of the copse at all. I realise if nothing is done, it will soon be gone.
Again, I seek to raise the alarm [it comes to me to ask here, why am I continuously petitioning others to do something?] ...
People respond and go outside, though I am still inside. I look out and see there is a stretch of pure beech. I love pure beech forests, they are the most beautiful thing, especially in autumn.
The people responding to my call encircle a tree, and become engaged in fervent and purposeful activity. To my horror though - and its almost comical - in their ties and cheap polyester suits of grey and black, they are circling the tree to uproot it ...
And they succeed, one by one, they uproot and push over beech after beech ...
I wake up sweating and deeply disturbed.
Postscript - I looked up the spiritual meaning of beech here -
http://www.thegoddesstree.com/trees/Beech.htm
Here are the bits that stood out for me -
"Year in and year out, the beech tree reminds us of the importance of learning and of the need to preserve our knowledge in writing for the benefit of generations to come. Just as lovers carve their names into the trunk of the beech so their love will grow with the tree, so must we continue to record our wisdom and understanding for future benefit. Rooted in the knowledge of the ancients and sustained by the ideas of the present, we will continue to reach for the stars."
Beech is a symbol for the written word, and for the wisdom within ancient learning. It is the sum of the wisdom of all the other trees. It was used to make writing tablets, and thin slices of Beech wood were bound together to make the first book. A great deal of paper is produced from beeches. The bark is excellent for carving, this practice dates back to Roman times. The Beech tree reminded our ancestors of the need to preserve all knowledge in writing for the benefit of future generations.
Reading that I realise how it's a dream of the speeding up of the end of things, the end of knowledge, future generations, wisdom passing from generation to generation. I see now how the beech links with the paper and figures at the beginning of the dream, and the search for truth.
I also see that
In aromatherapy, the essence of beech helps to boost confidence and hope. Flower remedy enhances sympathy and tolerance.
And realise in some ways the dream reflects my loss of hope and confidence that we can stop the systems / climate breakdown and substantial loss of life on earth, that we are facing - such that I have ceased (for now) the environmental activism I was previously engaged in.
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