2 bird dreams

The Parrot

I am in a bar with Joanne, an old school friend I haven't seen for years! She is with a male friend.

I walk in with a very tall thin man (my shamanic lodge friend?), but he is also a little like a baby. Joanne and her friend take over looking after "the baby". I feel a little embarrasseed, I get the sense he is mine to have been looking after but I haven't been doing a very good job. Maybe I have neglected him, let him get cold or not been very considerate of his needs.

They take him off my hands, I am vaguely aware there maybe something sexual in their care of him (like kink baby play?) and kind of unsure or unkeen about that. But I let him go off with them anyway.

Next I notice there are some birds in the bar, they are amazing finch like birds, so elegant, two parents and two baby birds I think? I point my friends to them exclaiming with excitement and awe.

Next - a parrot lands on my head! He is beautiful too. I feed him big red / orange berries (sea buckthorn maybe?). I feel uncertain about what are the right foods to give him. But he eats and squishes the juicy berries and seems very happy with them!

The seagulls

I am staying in a room by the coast, it has amazing large floor to ceiling windows on 3 sides. I am lying in bed gazing out of these windows, many things and people are passing by outside, I am aware of / can see the sea too.

Then a flock of seagulls start flying towards the window, there are thousands of them! They fly en masse towards the window, I worry that they will crash into it but they don't seem to. Its the most beautiful awe inspiring sight!

The Hot Spring

A few nights earlier I recall a dream about being in a hot spring with my friend Mary. The water is very warm and there are plants in this medium sized pond, it feels very good to be in it.

The Elements

After these dreams I have a talk with my supervisor about elements and shamanism. 

A constellation for dead people

 I am in a big round ceremonial tent - there are lots of dead people in it.

A few live people are around me including Sarah and Am, a black woman funeral celebrant. I am going to do a constellation for the dead people and they are helping me.

We lay all the dead people in a circle with one in the centre of the circle. I sense in the dream that they were not related before their death but they are related in death, and that the relationship all orbits around the one in the centre. E.g. perhaps a train driver and people who died in a train crash he caused - it is not this - but something like it.

I ask Am to go and represent for the dead person in the centre.

She stands by the body (I am not sure, is it a he? yes I think so ...) and begins speaking. "I am getting steam, yes its the age of steam and of trains. It is this era". She says some more. I say "that's great, now can you tell me, do you feel any relationship with any of the other people in the circle?" Other live people begin moving towards the dead people in the circle about to represent for them too ...

At that moment a pigeon flies in chaotically and thwaks on the back of the tent. Then another pigeon and even more ... I can see a great flock of them appearing on the horizon from miles around all heading towards the entrance to the tent.

The pigeons flock on the dead body in the centre. They are all pecking on the body just like they do in our garden when we put down handfuls of seed. They are not tearing at the flesh though, the beak pecking is delicate, not harmful, precise - maybe they are even cleansing the body somehow?

As they peck the dead body I know and feel that they are pecking my body too even though I cannot see the pigeons on me I can feel it ...

We all run out of the tent eventually. There is a phase where I am having a shower, I am trying to wash conditioner out of my hair but the tap is a dribble, Sarah says not to worry it will come out. She is right I think as I feel my hair going nice and soft and clean.

Eventually we gather to go back to the tent and continue constellating, but we discover the tent and all the dead bodies are gone! Some of our assistants say "oh sorry, we thought you had finished so we packed everything away". I get the sense it has all been packed into a lorry.

Something feels ok about that in the dream and I am not perturbed.

Now awake I feel maybe the pigeons had done the work and there was no more constellating to be done? I look up the spiritual meaning of pigeons and find this which feels right:

"pigeons symbolize triumph, resilience, and personal growth. They guide through challenges, encouraging virtues like mercy and forgiveness. Spiritual Guidance And Dream Meanings: Pigeons serve as messengers, delivering messages of peace."

https://hellofearless.com/blogs/blog/pigeon-spiritual-meaning-dream-meaning-symbolism-more

Bunny

 I am living in an upstairs flat, an attic room.

A white bunny appears! I find it in the bathroom, I think it belongs to someone else and wonder why they have been neglecting it in the bathroom. "You should take better care of it" I say.

It is running around the bedroom now very fast. It runs and runs the slips between the railings at the top of the stairs (old fashioned wooden ones) and hurtles into the void of the stairwell. I run towards the stairs in shock certain it must be dead. But it is limping up the stairs with its right paw held infront and rigid looking very sorry for itself (a bit like our dog Gigi would with phantom paw pain when she wanted some attention).

Next I find myself looking at a city map. I am going to vote with someone, they (or i?) are disabled, we are looking at the map to work out the route to disabled voting. We step down into the tube tunnels and are on our way. Suddenly I remember, Bunny! What has happened to her?

I run looking around in panic wondering where she is. I see her then in a long empty underground tunnel, one of the older ones with discoloured, yellowing ceramic tiles. She looks so vulnerable there in the tunnel all alone.

A Bull in the Bedroom

 I am back at my childhood home, not been here in dreamtime for a long time!

I am in my brothers bedroom, there is a bull in there (or maybe a bullock?). It is asleep, I try to adjust its bedding without waking it. But it awakes, it is pleased to see me, I run to the other corner of the room a little scared. I sit down, it nuzzles its head in my lap, I stroke the curly mop of hair on its head which is soft.

Next it bounds off downstairs - who on earth put a bull in the bedroom I wonder? - of course it needs to go outside! I bound downstairs after it, there is a dog (Gigi), a cat, some birds and a frog. I worry about their safety with these hooves bounding around and spend some time getting them to safety in the hall. 

Next I head into the kitchen where the bull headed. I can't see it but there is mess, straw and shit in the room. The it bursts out from under the pine kitchen table, I wonder how it fitted under there, it is clearly bigger than the space it just came out of. Again it is not scary, just big and with lots of energy!

Some significances

It begins in my brothers bedroom. I think this dream is to do with power! In the power dynamics between me and my sibling, my brother held the power being 4 years older. The bull though seems to be friends with me.

His mop of hair on his head is a little like the curls on the head of Rusty, my first dog, a springer spaniel. In breathwork and other work, I have understood Rusty to be a great healer of mine. He grounded me, bought me unconditional love, presence and joy. Springers are also very enthusiastic, in the way the bull was bounding around! Where the bull emerges from under the kitchen table - this was Rusty's sleeping place.

I have been doing some somatic movement exercises recently, using pandiculation to release tension stored in muscles which probably come as a result of early trauma. I wonder at some of the energy and enthusiasm - and along with this power - that may become available to me as I unfurl these tight springs of stored energy waiting to be released!

I have also been reflecting on the qualities of the King of Pentacles, how his "enthusiasm and willingness" that he brings to life generates wealth 

https://www.elliotoracle.com/blog/2017/8/18/the-card-of-the-day-the-king-of-pentacles

Terror, terror, terror 2 ...

 I am back with my 2 adventuring friends. We are at the edge of a cave now in the mountains.

My male friend looks into the cave and starts to say "terra ... terra ... terra ..." *

He is frozen with fear looking and I look to what he sees ...

He then says "a Pterodactyl has her, a Pterodactyl!"

I see a Pterodactyl emerging from the cave (its beak actually is a little like a Pelican interestingly ...). In its mouth is a woman - her face peers out from its throat, her arms are poking out of the mouth wrapped awkwardly around he head. She looks for all the world like a baby being born out of the Pterodactyl's mouth.

The Pterodactyl picks up pace and runs off the cliff edge soaring into the sky. I remain connected with the woman's feelings of terror. She is now soaring above the earth leaving her in a terrible dilema. She longs to kick and break free of the Pterodactyl's mouth. However the animal now keeps her safe from plummeting to the ground.

Later relaying this dream to someone I realise that the "terra ... terra ... terra ..." sounds like the word terror, terror, terror - the predominant feeling of this and the previous dream on the same night.

I also note all the birth symbolism in this one. She looks like a baby being born though she is adult. I can sense / feel her body curled up in the Pterodactyl stomache like a baby in the womb. The bill of the Pterodactyl is "like a Pelican" that delivers baby's in folk lore.

It also made me think of the existential terror and dependancy of an infant, upon the adult who carries it - if that adult is in anyway unsafe.

The Blue Dragon

 I am at sea, there is a giant blue dragon, about the size of a 12 story block of flats.

The dragon has in its hands three people - a woman, a man and a child. They are a family.

The man is black with long dreadlocks, he wears a gold silk dress and trousers. He is quite 'feminine'. The dragon gnaws his head off his shoulders and casts his body aside.

The child is about 6 years old, she has fair skin and blond hair. The dragon throws her along a large arc, her body turns in space until it sploshes into the sea where she drowns.

The woman has dark hair, the dragon holds her in his hands and carries her away. The dragon has killed her family to kidnap her to sing. In the dream I sense it is a tragic situation. The woman has lost her family and there is the sense she will spend an eternity singing for the dragon, that there is no end to her pain and torture.

Followup

(not a dream).

I am in the gym, a new regular visit that I am really enjoying both for getting fitter and as a mediation too. I love also that my local council facility has all ages, genders, ethnicities, body shapes and sizes and I guess, a diversity of economic situations* using the gym. It feels very inclusive and friendly, not how I imagined gyms to be at all which is why I have avoided them till now.

I was on the rowing machine, with the resistance setting turned up to a new high. I noticed at one point an inner voice saying words like "rip it, smash it, kill it ...". I was quite shocked by this voice, inquiring into it I found it to come the "blue dragon" in my nervous system.

I began to be curious as to what would happen if the feminine black man in the couple hadn't been killed, how would I row then? What part of my nervous system did he represent? After a while contemplating this, I settled into a pattern of saying internally "love" or "strength" on each half of one stroke. When I said it would was interchangable, sometimes "love" when I pulled, sometimes "strength".

I can honestly say it was the most exciting, fun, alive, awake, energised and energising 10 minutes that I have ever had on the rowing machine! I felt like I was flying, it was so much fun. It was still hard but also at times I was able to ask inside "what if this were to feel easy?" and intermittently, it would.

Towards the end of my 10 minutes, internally I looked for the blue dragon. I found it behind me, wings open, like a guarding over "love" and "strength". I am not sure if I found the little girl in my contemplation - though maybe she was there in the bubbling joy and feeling of fun.

What I do know though is that as is so often the case - my dream showed me how the trauma in my nervous system was playing out. The dragons "rip, kill, smash it" felt like an old fight response, coming from a more primitive reptilian part of my nervous system, represented by the dragon.

In the unity of "love" and "strength" I found how these qualities can be combined and turned towards achievement driven by care and "power with" - rather than a "power over" relationship within and towards the world.

It was interesting to me that the dragon was there at the end behind the union of these two qualities. In my rowing it felt like a felt sense quality of a larger 'spirit' guiding and protecting.

* As I build my new business and rent a new therapy space, cash is very tight. I started going to the gym predominantly because it was the only exercise facility I can afford right now, because I am now entitled to a 'senior citizen' council funded place, which means each session is just £2.

Because these "pay and play" users have to queue for up to 20 mins to buy a ticket - rather than sweeping through the electronic gates flashing a monthly subscription on a smart phone - you get to see who is cash strapped enough to need to queue. 

Spider bites my red cheek

From 2012

Camping at a festival, a great variety of wildlife took refuge in the tent from torrential rain. This and many other things led to a vivid dream of a large spider abseiling down in the night to take a deep bite into my rosy red cheek.

Looking in my dream mirror, I studied with curiosity two deep puncture marks, which I observed joyfully and with a smile. When I awoke I reflected that through a willingness to literally face my own wounds, I had woven for myself the most magical web of a weekend.

Spider told me she was the teaching of a fearless wild mother nature, one that consciously embraces risk in order to grow.

Post script

Here is what was happening at the time, from a friends FB post:

Back from Bliss Ireland. An amazing and challenging weekend. I'm yet again reminded that I never stop learning, even though it's hard sometimes. I'm also very proud to have assisted Cathryn when she co-facilitated Ireland's first ever open (drop-in) yoni massage workshop. There have been others, but they were all apparently done within closed courses/trainings.

I feel part of a very powerful movement.

White Rhino at an English Festival

 I am at a festival with my partners and their adult son. First S arrives, then T, then Ts son D - we are all staying together in a caravan.

We are scanning about and wondering what to do when we realise we are still in a pandemic still. We realise this means there are no tents, no gatherings, no dancing, no music, no groups ...

Awww this is going to be REALLY BORING we all say in moaning childish voices!

We head out of the caravan anyway to see what is going on. There is a shower and I say "oh I need a shower, please wait for me". I strip off and get inside, though I feel a bit self conscious as the shower is in a glass cube! My partners son is nearby and think "I hope he can't see me ..."

The window is partially steamed with droplets of water obscuring my vision, but as I scrub my body enthusiastically with lots of foam getting really clean (I am quite enjoying this) I peer through the glass and see - A WHITE RHINO!

It is not just the species 'white rhino' though that would be amazing enough in a green English festival field! It is a PURE WHITE RHINO - absolutely pure white - strolling relaxed and totally at home through the English fields.

I rush out of the shower to tell my partners "LOOK LOOK ..."

But by the time I get out the white rhino has gone. In its place are two children wearing masks, a boy and a girl aged about 6 or 7. One wears a pure white mask (the girl I think) and I think to myself, is SHE the Rhino? They run up to us, I find them kind of eerie, uncanny - I instinctively avoid them. However D (Ts son) welcomes them and rolls about on the floor with them in a playful fashion.

"Oh maybe they are ok" I think - and reflect not for the first time how good D is with children.

The Shaman and the Squirrel

 I am with a man - and he is me - I know this clearly.

He is leading the way though so all I can do is follow and communicate an input into our journey as best I can, as he determines where we go.

He is visible to others, I am not, we cannot be separated.

He is telling me about the upcoming journey, what his aim is. We are in a jungle by a river, it is dark and I smell swamp, earth and water. He tells me he has learned two words of the local language, the language is very hard and it has taken him a long time to learn just these two words. He says he will use it to communicate and get us to our destination (I am still not clear yet what that is).

An indigenous man appears, about 25, dressed casually in white linen smock and baggy brown linen trousers. He is friendly - "my" man tries to communicate with him in the two words he has learned. He repeatedly makes two deep guttural sounds, a bit like a seal.

The indigenous man looks confused, then his face lights up and he repeats a few times "ah, Shaman, Shaman, Shaman!" He smiles and laughs, he is pleased he has worked out what "my" man is saying (he never addresses me, I don't know if he can see me).

Through his confusion then his chuckle - and his light high voice completely unlike "my" mans two words - I guess that my man has completely misunderstood something about the culture and language here. I am momentarily embarrassed for him.

My man is lead to a canoe by the indigenous man - it is hand chiselled from a large but buoyant singular piece of wood and is simple, light in colour and elegant - rather like its owner. My man is gestured into the canoe , as he is climbing in I notice he has a backpack on - it is small and completely the wrong size for him - like the kind of day bag a boy would carry to school.

Seeing the backpack causes me to recall something - the squirrel, where is our squirrel! I start to gesture but I have little agency in the scene not being visible. It is moving on and I am in a terrible dilemma - I have to go with the man so must get in the boat - but I also cannot leave without the squirrel.

In a singular moment I can feel two ends of a polarity - I can feel the power of the place of the Shaman deep in the jungle and I know that we must go there. At the same time I can feel that even though she is small and vulnerable - squirrel is also essential to our journey and CANNOT be left behind - I cannot be separated from either of them.

Part Two

This dream was so powerful for me that I went to bed some nights later, holding the intention to get in the boat with the squirrel and all parts of me (me and my man) and see where the boatman takes me. I did this and here is what I dreamt ...

I am in a family constellations workshop. Its confusing as the group is run by ES, the person I saw for many years to constellate my own life. But the workshop is also run by Mrs Smith, my music teacher from secondary school!

I haven't thought about her for years, I recall her as being uninspired and uninspiring. Despite loving piano playing and composition - which I mainly learned from Mr & Mrs Kenney who taught me outside of school from the age of 5 - my lessons with Mrs Smith I recall as deadening.

So strange to have a group run by her and ES who inspired my own soul calling as a family constellator (see my website here if you don't know what this is https://trueselfsystems.com/family-constellations-therapy-2/)

In the workshop someone says "xy has died and I am devastated I will never see them or speak with them again". ES says "oh but you can still meet them, would you like that?" - the participant says yes.

We all sit in silence and something descends into the room, a presence. It moves into some people and then (as I know it will) finally lands in me. I am channelling this dead persons relative and I do my best to step aside and allow them to move through me - which happens in feeling and movement rather than words.

The participant is moved and cries ...

Then a rainbow appears on the workshop room - it is a rather extraordinary moment. The space is large and bright with one whole wall of patio doors and a pale pine wooden floor - and now a rainbow is arching across the space!

We all go up to it and move our hands through a rainbow vapour with awe ...

ES suggests that now is a good time to break for lunch. I am drinking tea and look back at the rainbow wondering "but is it [and the channelling that has just happened] real? Is it all really happening or is it all fake?" In that moment the rainbow 'breaks' into an ugly piece of fabric that has a rainbow projected on to it. The second I believed it to not be real, the magic and awe is gone.

Disappointed I move into the next activity which is to make some "day of the dead" style candles for a ritual, skulls and that kind of thing.

A friend who I shared this dream with later shares this quote with me ...

"My definition of Magic - unbelievable but happening - and the joy when disbelief dissolves ..." ...

The quote comes from this sculptor and his long project to create ice music https://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/short-film-showcase/00000159-b8cd-ddda-ad5b-fcfd30670000?fbclid=IwAR0UC152bOS2JAe7O-Ppd2TGidDlSCs6kK4TupLEVtmWbZN4qwop4dpoXwc

Some notes on astrology and my dreams

I am interested in astrology of late (for the first time), in particular I am interested in the "raw data" of astrology and how one experiences that. What I mean by this - at some point someone somewhere must have felt something about the planets and ascribed a meaning to them and astrologers have built around that.

Rather than just reading about astrology I am lightly holding a meditation on the planets in order to try to know (sense and feel) myself this raw data. I used to look at the stars alot as a child - growing up in a small town they were much more visible to me then than they are now living in London. I recall times travelling in my twenties too when I saw some incredible skies (most notably high up in the mountains in China).

Now in London though, I don't have access to this visible sense of being part of a greater universe. So I am looking at scale images of our solar system and also recalling to focus my attention to different planets that I choose (though sometimes the planets 'choose me') as we move around the astrological cycle.

I have felt that some of my dreams cross over with this process. For instance - as the smallest and most feisty planet in the solar system - I feel that the Squirrel in this dream corresponds with Mars. Squirrels in our garden regularly come and eat from our hands and though small they can be very warrior like too - just like Mars!

In the man (who was me too!) I felt the qualities of Mercury. I feel the boatman (and the boat!) was Saturn - both his clothes and the boat were even the sandy beige colours of Saturn. The Shaman we were going to see was Pluto.

Don't ask me how I know all of this - I just do know that these dreams cross over with my daily planetary meditation and a prayer I regularly make to know intimately our solar system!

Last night after escaping from a forest fire, I found myself naked as a 6 year old girl perched at the edge of an ice flow, dangerous captors pursuing me.

I wondered watching myself, how this little girl would survive so naked and vulnerable ...

To my astonishment and that of those pursuing her, she slipped into the sea - the precision and focus of a slinky seabird streamlined dive - laughing her body pulsed fast and free, totally at home in the ice blue sea.

A tragic dream ...

I am at a school or university, I seem to work there. I am moving around doing tasks independently - kind of doing my own thing rather than working as part of the team. I go to leave and recall some kind of message that I should stay safe by booking a bus rather than hopping on one randomly (it is late).

I run back in with my rucksack having forgotten something, for though I am at an institution, the dream also crosses over with a kind of "travel".

A man is there whom I fancy, he is a teacher. He is looking at something on my desk - some images including one I have made - I wonder if he will notice it. The one I have made I only see in a brief flash. I recall buxom thighs of a female body, a flash of intense scribble which could be pubic hair. A body very round - possibly no head.

He doesn't notice this, and instead comments on the one next to it which I didn't make. He says "now THIS is REAL art ..." and I am stung.

I look at the picture - it is a young slim woman with long hair who has "fallen outside of the city". She lies on the steep banks surrounding the city, like a fortress. The teacher waxes lyrical on how the land looks like the billowing sheets of a bed softly catching her (it is a black and white engraving).

As I stare at the picture, I slowly move into it. The woman begins to slide down the hill ...

She falls off a rocky precipice, but the rocks turn into a hand and catch her! I breathe a sigh of relief.

But then a big female snarling mouth opens in the rocks and says "I am going to crunch you up and eat you slowly" and begins to pull the young woman to her mouth.

The young woman says "no way!" (or something like that) and then takes a very deliberate and elegant dive, plunging out of the rocky hand. She lands with a sickening thud and a squeak another rocky outcrop. Then she pushes herself deliberately to fall again, and again, and again ...

It is too terrible to bear to watch ...

Even worse, a faithful companion dog - a springer spaniel - is running around and down the cliff desperately trying to reach her. The dog is quite young, like Rusty when he first came to us.

Finally the springer comes into contact with the by now bloody mess of a (still breathing) body and licks the woman.

I wonder if the rocks will scoop them both up to eat - but it seems now that they have found a place so low down, that they are out of its reach.

Spider massage

Last night I dreamt a spider had woven a web on my bedroom ceiling. The web radiated out from a central light bulb and stretched down the walls. Spider abseiled down to greet me and gently took a drink from my eye. I pretended to be asleep but was not afraid as I felt it combing and teasing my hair with long limbs traversing the top of my head.

Stags head hair ...

Last night I dreamt I had huge antlers on my head, at least two foot tall. They were woven out of my own long chestnut brown hair, in places the hair was plaited with red ribbons ...

when the dream began I had no antlers. I was in a chaotic room, where everything and everyone was disconnected. As I watched the chaos I felt energy building up inside me. It didn't seem like anger, just pressure plain and simple, no judgement, no name.

The pressure built up till tendrils began to creep out of my eyes. The tendrils grew into ribbons, then into great swathes of colourful fabric pouring from my eyes, sweeping the room and wrapping around all the fragmented parts.

All the parts were swept into a great pot, a lid put on and I blasted it with a burst invoking "KALI" and one great wave of destructive energy.

Now I was seated, poised, wearing a long cloak and great antlers on my head woven out of my own beautiful long chestnut brown hair. I looked very regal.

I opened the door of the pot which was now a room and walked inside. The blood of the destruction was splattered across walls and I crunched over bones - but there was no feeling except "it needed to be done".

I was looking for something though in the wreckage - a little girl. I looked, sensing, hoping "yes, she will have survived, surely....".

Then gazing into a window I saw reflected in the glass - the little girl, emerging from the carnage! She looked so sweet, so innocent. As I watched in the glass her image came into clarity and merged with my own so that we were both wearing antlers.

A lizzard living in my leg

I dreamt last night that I had an area of dry skin on my outer left thigh. When I observed it more closely it's shape was like a little snake, with four little foot like protusions. I took some nivea cream and spent some time covering the area of dry skin with this, rubbing more and more in. The area of dry skin began to emerge from my thigh (drawn out by the cream) and turned out to be a lizzard that had been living in my leg. It ran off and hid in the bathroom, leaving a lizzard like dent behind in my thigh.

The emergence of the lizzard was actually very painful in the dream (I had to look in the morning to see if I wasn't injured there!) but within the pain there was a feeling of something departing my body that needed not to be held there. The dream ended with the lizzard still in my bathroom - I wanted to catch and contain it, but also I was afraid that if I went after it, that if might 'occupy' my body once again, that it might even take me over.

Later that day I drew the tarot card - The High Priestess - whose qualities include objectivity, penetration, foresight, perception and emotionlessness. I felt then that the lizzard perfectly embodied these qualities with his cold emotionless eyes (someone some days previous had actually commented on how cold my eyes are - a reflection that both shocked and intrigued me). That it was at liberty and abroad in the world - whilst thi might frighten me, perhaps this represents a positive development in how I manifest in the world...?

Red squirrel

I am in bed back at Trysull road, the house where I grew up. I am in my parents bed, it is a huge, beautiful hardwood bed like a boat boat and I am lost in a sea of soft quilts along with my ex partner Steve. The scene is one of happy, safe and cosy domesticity rather than sexual.

A red squirrel appears, first at the window, then in the gulleys of the quilt, cautiously sniffing around. Gently I hold out my hand and coax it toward me. I notice it is wearing a very deep, brown leather collar - the collar is at least two inches wide and seems a bit excessive given the small size of the creature. I say to Steve "look, it has been tamed, someone must have been keeping it as a pet".

It comes to me and we start to make friends, I am playing around with it and it seems quite tame. But then it starts to hiss, to bite my hand - it's jaws open to a supernatural degree like the creature in alien. It then starts to attack my teddy bear (brown teddy, as old as I am to the day and held together by fragile threads of love) and I have a hard job parting them.

I continue to play with red squirrel but realise that the notion that she can be tamed is a false one and that the collar will have to come off.

the most beautiful dream

I am at Trysull Road, in the house where I grew up. I am there alone, it seems as if everyone has left, I think I am locking the place up to leave it behind.

I go out into the back garden, it was a beautiful big garden with plenty of trees (apple, poplar, cherry) and a hedge. I walk up to the 'wilder' part of the garden (the bit that was always slightly overgrown) and there I meet:

Fox! A beautiful, large, stately, golden fox. He emanates wisdom and protection as he smiles at me kindly - it is the spirit of fox. I feel his presence in my dream, communicating something to me beyond what I am seeing. He seems to be surrounded by an aura of golden light.

I move on an my attention is drawn over the fence into next doors garden. This garden was a big vegetable plot, owned by an elderly widow Mrs Jones. As a child I used to climb up into the poplar tree and slide over into her plot with great excitement and nervousness. Me and my friends believed her to be a witch and we would look for evidence in her garden, wondering what purposes the many plants she grew might be put to...

I look over the fence and see - lots more animals! I have a set of native american indian animal medicine cards and the animals are all drawn from this set. I can't remember them all, there were so many, but I remember seeing rabbit, and moose, and I think there was badger or skunk too? Maybe a deer. They come over to greet me, as if they have been waiting for me. I feel their presence as spirit, not just as a fleeting chimera or image.

As I am locking up my home in my dream to depart for somewhere else, I have a sense that the animals have come out to tell me that they were there with me in my childhood - in the 'witches garden' - and have been ever since. The house at Trysull Road was sold in 2001 - but in my dream life I have never, till this moment, ever left it. In fact in many many dreams I have been looking and looking to find my way BACK there: perhaps this dream marks a moment of psychological departure.

The fox in my medicine cards is a guardian and protector, watching unobtrusively over it's family, creating a safe place for it's children to play. The fox family is often also to be seen on the move, so this animal totem is a good omen for travelers too.

the corn king 2

I see an old scarecrow lying on the floor, it is all splayed out and lifeless with corn sheaves sticking out of it's sleeves.

Suddenly though it begins to move, it is jumping and twisting at the neck in a most peculiar way, as if trying to get up. Briefly in my dream I think of another dream - when I saw the corn fields stand up and kill families, children.

I tell myself to be brave and move closer. His head starts to fall off and inside I see...

Woofa! My lovely old little dog, white and wiry a cross between Jack Russel and a Terrier (she died last year). She has made her bed in the straw but perhaps it is itching her, she is rather grumpily (as was always her way as she got older!) digging and turning trying to get comfy; it is this that is making the corn king dance.

She settles back down again, I note in my dream that she must have gotten cold and so had hid in there for warmth; I note that I must make sure I provide bedding to keep her warm.

3 red setters

I am a red setter (the dog) swimming in the sea. I am the dog but I am also a human presence watching myself. I have 2 other friends (also red setters) and we are having a fabulous time diving, surfacing, swimming underwater, playing together. The part of me that does this is ecstatic, the part of me that watches knows that a tragedy is unfolding.

I dive, surface, dive, surface all of the while looking for my friends - to connect with them in my ecstasy (think of a dog running around on the beach, plunging into the sea and you will know the kind of joy that I mean)...

Only I become aware that I have not seen one of my friends for a time? I am now at the shoreline, scanning a vast and increasingly unfriendly looking ocean, with red setter number 2 at my side. We scan the horizon desperate for sight of our friend but to no avail, and with a sinking feeling we realise that he is lost under the waves of a sea now gone grey and cold.

The part that watches the scene nods sadly, she knew that this was coming, she had already seen it.

the foxes lair

I am at a small sea-front park with a beautiful young girl, about 6 or 7 I am pushing her on a swing. Our attention is caught by a commotion on the beach so we all run over.

We find a crowd has gathered around a creature that has beached itself, it looks like a cross between a seal and an eel - it has beautiful big round eyes and the plumpness of a seal, but a length and razor sharp spine more like that of an eel. We are considering how to save it and I think that I step forward and begin to move it; but then it manages to flip and push itself back in to the sea without assistance.

Now I am moving into the sea following the creature. I have no body and no need to breath and move effortlessly through the dark cold substance. I see dogs, lots of dogs - they are forming into a long train, each one holding the next ones tail between it's teeth (the pattern they form doing this reminds me of DNA? of the basic chains and molecules that form life...)

I follow their train into the darkness, as if being guided by a length of string I had left to find my place back to somewhere really important.

Deeper and deeper they take me till I reach a wooden door, it is wide, old, heavy and made of thick wooden beams of the kind that might be salvaged from a ship wreck. The door is closed but I sense it will soon open. I am greeted by a presence, the spirit of a fox. His presence is huge, but not at all malevolent. He is much bigger than the dogs and looking again I realize that they are all beagles, the dogs that used to be employed in the hunting of foxes.

Only in his lair the fox is the king and the dogs are his loyal servants.

I stand awaiting the opening of his lair with a feeling of peace, knowing that I have been seeking this doorway for some time, and finally, I have arrived.

(later in the day when I am swimming, the dream surfaces once again from my subconscious, only this time the fox is a shark and the dogs are sea-lions; this daytime reconfiguration is althogether more fearful).

brown sparrow wakes me

I have had a poor nights sleep, I silence my alarm and doze off again despite having an important meeting that morning. I snooze for a while, lying on my back, until a little brown bird (a sparrow?) flutters into my room, dips down and 'bops' me right in the middle of my forehead as if to say "Get up!".

I wake up and see that I will only just be in time for my meeting.