A meeting with wealth

 I am at dinner with a man, he has long thick black curly "Italian" hair, like a number of men I have been in relationship with or attracted to.

At the dinner table I know (implicitly) that he has separated from his ex partner and that I am being 'tested' somehow as a suitable future partner. I feel anxious and insecure. He speaks to me but not directly, he speaks through insinuation, hints, implies things but never says them directly, then sees how I respond.

Most of the time he looks young and very very handsome. But there is a moment as the dream goes on that he looks very old, his skin is pale, dry and very wrinkled. He ages fast for a moment before my eyes and I am suddenly not sure what age he is.

He seems to want to know what I want, but it also feels like a test too, one that I am bound to fail. And so I do - feel like I am failing. I feel that he is looking down his nose at me. I finally feel that I have lost him and so - therefore - I have nothing to loose ...

At this point something emerges within me. I feel for the first time like I have a clear and direct sense of self. I am no longer dancing around internally trying to "live up" to whatever it is that he wants in order to "get" or "win" him. I feel myself fully and clearly and no longer 'care'.

I begin speaking and I say ...

"I want a relationship with you, one that is authentic. Simple and direct. One that is not based on game playing. I want us to be kind to one another."

Something changes with these words, I feel it and I wake up feeling it.

The weekend before

I had set up a short relationship constellation with my shamanic group. Someone represented me and someone represented wealth, I wanted to look at my relationship with wealth.

I set the constellation up where I thought the relationship was. I was standing in the centre (nearly) of the room, looking out of the window. Wealth was behind some distance back to the right of me, looking in the same direction.

This represented a relationship where I felt that I had not tended to, or looked at wealth in my life. I asked for the constellation when I realised through conversations that everyone in the group had wealth (property, assets) except for me and suddenly felt a sense of shame. I do feel many kinds of "wealth" in my life, but just not wealth of the financial, savings, investments or property kind. It wasn't something I "looked at or towards" in life, so of course I don't have that! I was busy looking elsewhere.

In the constellation my representative turned towards wealth - and began a dance of slowly trying to connect with and get wealths attention - nut wealth kept backing away. My representative was slowly chasing wealth around the room!

My rep said "I want a relationship with you". Wealth didn't respond, so she gave up in the end and went and stood elsewhere. The "elsewhere" was I noticed more central in the room (standing at the centre of your own circle, a good place to be) and she was no longer so preoccupied with something in the distance out of the window, she seemed more present and to have arrived in the space.

At this point, wealths representative, he felt like coming and standing next to me. At first he had his armed crossed, but cheeks clenched and seemed very closed. He said he felt a bit like a seargant major, or a bank manager maybe. Eventually though he softened and seemed to open a little more to me, he uncrossed his arms. My rep said "this is a good place for now, its not the end, but its a good place for now".

This dream felt like a continuation of this constellation. The man in the dream was "wealth": I wanted a relationship with him, I was chasing that but he was retreating and not really being relational with me. In both dream and constellation, things only change at the point when I have nothing left to loose and "give up" and stop chasing him.

These dream themes continue on another night A meeting with wealth 2.

Plural self states

Lucid Dream Early Morning:

I am offering Transforming Touch (the main touch modality I use)  to someone in my therapy room. I am leaning over them on the table offering the criss cross (touching left shoulder to right hip). It’s a woman on the table - as Iook at her I wonder for a moment, is it me? It looks like a younger version of me.

I continue working and close my eyes for a few moments to better 'feel' and intuit, as I do sometimes in my work. I feel unnerved all of a sudden, I know something is about to happen. It's a feeling like you get in a 'haunted house' when you get a cold shiver move through you.

A voice speaks from the body I am touching, it’s a man’s voice, I don't recollect what he said. I recall that the voice perhaps came from somewhere lower down on her body, maybe her heart. In the dream I open my eyes quickly, startled. The woman (me?) has her eyes closed and is in a deep rest state. I wonder to myself - did she hear the mans voice?

I drift back to wakefulness, its a very small distance as the dream was lucid and in a light sleep.

I lie reflecting for a while - my body in the dream reacted with 'shivers' like when we meet a ghost. It was a bit scary, reminding me of a 'haunting' or 'possession'. However I also knew deeper down that it's all ok and that this voice needs to be heard. I have been reading about Plural-Self states and feel this voice is one of the "we" within "me" and has always been there. 

Petrol Head

 There is an open moorland with a wide green rusty metal pipe emerging from the ground, a turn valve on the top.

A man opens the valve and drinks the oil that the pipe is transporting. He drinks it then sets it aflame, like a fire breather. Flames lick around him burning his nose, he looks arrogant and inflated, I think it can't be good for his body what he is doing. It feels toxic and horrible.

A woman is stood next to him. I hear a voice say to her "before the day is out, you will sacrifice your body two times for things that have no meaning. Things that have no value or worth, for these no-things, you will sacrifice your body".

I wake up feeling very disturbed.

I talk about this dream a few times. In the past, work has sometimes led me to crash. I have felt like someone who "can't to the world of work like others can" due to past traumas. I have felt that I have not fully materialised my full potential in the world of work.

I am now flexing a muscle and finding it strong. I work more hours, with a focus and continuousness that has eluded me in the past. I have felt proud of my new found strength. However my body also seems to be reacting to this. I have tinnitus, a bad back, a rash on my feet and have even been having blood tests regarding RBCs, exploring the possibility of a very rare illness ...

I have been reflecting on the figures in the dream. One is 'ego-inflated' - self agrandising -puffed up on fossil fuel. The other is self abandoning. These feel like two kinds of trauma response to an out of balance world, one that is dying as we drink more and more fossil fuel for our endless expansion ...

I wonder if it is really a good thing, to be able to undertake a ferocity of work that is our "normal".

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. 

Two similar dreams - the spiritual couple

 I am at a spa, I am there with a couple. They are slim and attractive - the archetypal beautiful spiritual tantra type couple that you might see posting pictures on Instagram.

I follow around after them (particularly after the woman) feeling insecure, not good enough, insignificant.

We go to the lockers and I realise I have forgotten my swimsuit, so I put on my Bikram yoga pants (hot pant style shorts) and a yoga crop top. I walk around and people are staring at me - I pass a mirror and realise that the pants are see through and you can see a big bush of pubic hair, both through them and peeping over the top.

I feel so much shame.

I follow the couple into a hot tub, once I am in I realise I have accidently brought my satchel in with me. I pull it out spilling water and place it on the side - more shame ...

I meet Mooji

Once again I am with a spiritual couple, this time on a workshop / retreat.

The man this time is Mooji (though it looks nothing like the real Mooji).

He is delivering a talk. He asks a question and I can see it is a REALLY IMPORTANT question. I know the answer and am surprised no one else does, I hold back from replying though. I open my laptopt and try to type the answer to him but I am too slow - by the time I hit send he has gone and it is the lunch break.

We eat sandwiches, chat and mill. I wonder if he got my message.

We go back to work, a strange dance is forming, people are being told to do strange swirls and arm waving things by the wife of Mooji.

I go up and ask her "where is Mooji" and she replies "he is gone".

I take a sharp intake of breath - "he has gone?" - I gasp and I feel the impact of this through my whole body. What she has just said is "God has given up on us and gone" - this is how it registers in me, as a tragedy, unbearable.

People carry on doing the strange dance she is teaching them. I reluctantly and half heartedly join in, but all the while I am thinking -

Did he abandon us because we did not answer his question, we didn't get it so he gave up on us?

Did he get my message?

If only I had spoken up or sent it sooner!!!

I do the dance but I know she is just filling time, giving us stuff to do that FEELS like we are doing / learning something but we are not really. It is all just a sham.

Some recent dreams ...

This series all feels related, something new in me grows, or perhaps something old that I had forgotten?

A beautiful silky beard

I am looking in the mirror and have a beard. It is not too long, silky and black, I enjoy stroking it. I know that its always been there, but it was blond before so no one could see it. But now the hair has gone black everyone will see it. I worry for a while "people won't like it, this won't be popular".

However I feel such love and pleasure stroking my beard that I conclude I just don't care, people will just have to put up with it.

(its looks a bit like this one https://menshairandbeards.com/maintain-a-short-beard/)

He loves me ...

I am sitting with an old boyfriend, he looks like he did when we first met, lovely long curly Italian hair. His skin is more tanned than usual and he looks beautiful. He is trying to tell me something, I listen closely, intently, and he says ...

"I love you so much, that I am afraid, if I tell you, the ground will fall from beneath my feet."

Later I see him with a blond haired woman on his lap, he is stroking her - and she dominates him - I am sad and can't understand how I lost him.

He loves me 2 ...

I am on a bus, distracted by a myriad things, looking around my attention unable to settle anywhere. I feel someone sit beside me, it is my old family constellations therapist whom I saw over a couple of years and had a bit (not too much) of a crush on.

He sits beside me, my attention settles, I unify - he smiles at me and I feel loved.

I am a soldier

I am in a white navy uniform (USA?). I walk into a school with alot of other military men. I have an extinction rebellion logo on my shoulder, printed onto a scrap of fabric.

Suddenly I am outside of me, and now in a young womans body. She is with an older woman who mocks my wearing of the logo.

The younger woman says "for him, this is huge, its a huge step to wear this. Leave him alone."

Trans man pan

I am with a trans man - he is like pan - I am with him and I am him. We play, he has a huge penis, its very exciting.

Next I am just him and working out on a weight lifting machine. I face forward in it (the wrong way round!) till I work out how to use it and face outwards. I squat down, then up, down, then up lifting the weights. Each squat feels powerful and effortless, I am very aware of my spine and thighs.

However I catch sight of myself in a window and my legs are a bit wonky (almost like bambi) as actually is the case in waking life - I have ankles that roll in so everything upwards from that is a bit crooked.

I wake up aroused for the first time in a while - and all day my legs feel really powerful and I am very aware of my energy connection with the earth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_(god)

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.

The Barbers Shop

[TW: contains description of violence]

In last nights dream I was back in my old home town of Wolverhampton. In the area around Victoria Street and Queen's Square - it seemed to be about the 1920's and I was at a barber shop.

I had seen briefly into the basement (psychically somehow) and down there was a man being staked out on the ground in the shape of a cross. The last wooden and rope stake was being put in place onto an old stone flagged floor. He was pleading to be killed saying "I can't bear this". I knew there were other men down there, and that they were each suffering the terrible fate of slowly being eaten alive.

Back up top in the Barber's shop ...

I am in the body of a man. I am talking with the barber who is giving an army style short back and sides to a man the chair. I quietly argue and plead with him, in horror at what he is doing to the men in his basement. He tells me coldly yes he has about seven men in the basement, in various states of being eaten alive. The oldest one I understand is hovering in a place of dead / non dead - like a zombie perhaps - almost no longer human.

I realise that he will not be persuaded and for the first time I begin to feel in fear for my own life. Till now I have felt in no danger, I am in an open fronted shop facing onto the street, life is going on as normal, people shopping etc - what could possibly happen here? I start to try to move away, but then men dressed in the barber shop uniform (black with a small white logo) start to close in around me. They are tall and threatening, I suddenly realise I am trapped.

I look to people in the street and wonder if I can mouth the word "help" silently without my captors seeing. There is a pause of some minutes helplessness, in this time I wonder about the guards supporting this crime. One has glossy black shoulder length hair with androgynous features that seem soft, beautiful and quiet incongruous with the abomination unfolding here. "What do they get out of this?" I wonder. "How does the barber afford to pay them all?" And "does he feed them in human meat, do they partake in this (I sense not) and if not, why do they support it?"

I have slowly edged towards and am sitting near the open front of the shop - free and civilised space is so close yet there is this looming wall of danger in front of me. Behind me is the man still having his hair cut by the barber, he is silent all this time. I lean backwards finding some comfort leaning against his chair - at least here I can find some sense of connection and camaraderie, even if I cannot see him.

Then something starts to happen down the street, people start to run. I don't know what it is, but the guards are distracted and move to look. I turn to the man in the chair behind me "quick, now is our chance, run!" but he is frozen and does not move. I get up willing my own frozen with fear muscles to move and slowly I begin to walk away. Turning the corner out of the shop, I catch sight of myself in a window, I have a flat cap on and a tweed jacket. Poking out from under the cap is a long thick braid of brown hair tucked as if to hide it from view. I see a version of my own face, only much younger and I am a definitely a man.

I weigh up whether to run all the way down the street and round a corner, but opt instead to duck into a bank a few doors down from the barbers. It's a risky win or loose strategy. There is a woman moving off from the cashiers desk for her lunch break, I say to her "please can you help me, I really need to hide, I am in terrible danger, please help!". She is voluptuously shaped - like the venus of Willendorf - with luscious long brown hair, red lipstick and a kindly face.

I think at first she will say no, but in actual fact she smiles and says "Yes I will help you, wait and I will come and let you in ..." She disappears though a door behind the cashiers; I see a door over on the other side of the lobby. I run and stand by it assuming the door will open from the other side and she will appear. I stand frozen and waiting for her with the key to save me, wishing only to see her round smiling face - looking out the window I dread seeing the barber and his men ...

The dream ends here.

NB I feel like this dream has been stirred by the metoo movement. It seems to convey how men have been dehumanised, "eaten alive" by the capitalist machine, their bodies given to be consumed for the benefit of the few and directly to be benefitted from by the one in power. it seems to convey the consequences of a world in which "the feminine" has no place and has to be hidden. She is there right in the beginning in the names - Victoria / Queens.

The opening horror in the basement also hints at the cannibalistic undertones of the transubstantiation ritual in my church of origin - Catholicism - the man is clearly staked out in a cross shape. Does the dream point at the consequences of a material order built around a spiritual life that holds to a mono masculine God, having entirely eradicated the feminine? At the heart of everyday life, normalised structures of power and violence holding everything in its place?

Interesting though that within that system is also a distraction that gives rise to a moment of liberation, and the liberation is not to be found by turning a corner into a new street, but by stepping into the bank within the existing one. I recall now as well, that I imagined the woman when she comes to open the door, would lead me down into another basement ...

The school and the ocean

I am with a former art teacher of mine and we are in a school. A dignitary is soon to be visiting (OFSTED maybe?) and we are doing the placed up.

We are in the sports hall moving out old furniture, broken shelves, and painting the space blue, silver and pearl metallic (like the inside of a mollusc). I notice that some if the painting is shoddy, it has been done too quickly, the paint applied too thickly and without sensitivity. I point this out to my teacher who quickly rectifies it without pause or fuss.

We are being helped by school girls, one of them has gone out on top of the building to look for something and is reporting back to us via video camera. She is on the roof of a skyscraper and close to the edge, she seems oblivious to the danger and I fear for her.

Back in the sports hall I am playing a word game now with some of the girls. We have little blue and red foam 'pellets' (like little pills) and they open out to reveal words within. We open our pills, deep red, deep blue, deep red, deep blue...

the girls are all childish teenage excitement - of the kind that comes about with the opening first flush of puberty - climbing all over me, I find I am annoyed with their exuberance.

The words in the pellets are all related to the sea, or seafood - "mollsuc", "starfish", "mussel", "sea shell" - each word as it is opened seems to release with it the essence of the sea and I find myself lost and overwhelmed once again in the beauty of the Ocean Goddess.

Blue Heron

I am overwhelmed by the arrival of a Blue Heron; its presence is majestic, awesome. This is one of those rare moments in dreams where I become suddenly sentient, aware that I am dreaming and of what I am dreaming.

I leave this conscious space and dream next that I am the keeper of a Jail. I have granted a pardon to two men and am releasing them from their cells. One is old, the other much younger - they both have the appearance of having lived life on the street.

As they are walking away, I have the sudden realisation that a potentially fatal theft has taken place. Instinctively I run to the older man and tear at his trouser leg. Attached to his calf (and bound in a most cruel and distressing way) is the blue heron.

At first I fear it is dead, but then it opens it's eye to look at me - I easily release it with a sense of relief that I spotted and averted this 'death' in the making.

Brett and Scarlet

I see a couple sitting on a very stylish sofa. They are handsome, sophisticated, both have beautiful coal black hair and are well groomed. I think they are called Brett and Scarlet; they give the impression of having finally married after a long and tempestuous affair.

They are at the house of some friends, another married couple. This couple are well groomed also - she is blonde and him a brunette: they are handsome too but somehow a little more bland than Brett and Scarlett.

The evening is polite, the couples sit and chit chat. The women are mute though, lacking in animation, as if something essential might be missing from their character. And the two men, they engage in shallow banter, yet there is an undercurrent of something else, something paranoid and violent - Brett suspects that this husband might be after his wife.

The evening relaxes a little as Brett and Scarlett lie out together on the settee, reveling in one anothers presence. They leave, it is dark and they are driving on an unlit road across a harsh desert like landscape.

Suddenly a car swerves round them and the couple are cut up in flashing headlights and veer off the road. Brett is enraged. He swings the car round on the desert sand looking for the man who cut him up. He is driving wildly in circles, farther and farther from the road in search of this 'other' that is clearly now nowhere to be seen.

I watch him drawing circles in the sand from a distance above (before now I have been inside the car with them) - in a cinematic scene the camera pans back and I see that they are now circling near the edge of a long peninsula overhanging a chasm. I want to shout to save them, but watch helpless as a few seconds later, the car plunges off the edge into the abyss.

Thieves

I am in an attic room with Steve (a friend and ex partner), hearing noises downstairs I go to investigate. I come across three burglars (they do not see me) and in the dark I try to muster an authoritative voice to command them to leave. I find though (once again) that I have no voice and so return to the attic.

I wake Steve and he descends from the loft to challenge them whilst I remain hidden. Some time later I come down, and find Steve chatting with them! He is reasoning, making friends, rationalizing their actions and forgiving their trespass.

I motion that it is time for them to leave and we all descend the stairs, looking around me I see lots of valuable antique furniture: sideboards, candlesticks and china. “We must be doing well”, I think to myself. I study the three robbers as they walk on ahead: there are two younger men (of no real note) and an older more distinguished gentleman with longish white hair, clothes of faded wealth.

I see that the thieves are drunk, they engage Steve in jovial banter but I feel paranoid that they will steal something on the way out. I try to see into their pockets and at the threshold spot that the old man is indeed carrying something. It is an abstract painting - blue, violet and green – small and slightly tatty (oil on canvass), a battered old sketch pad.

“STOP” I scream, for the first time finding my voice. “GIVE THAT BACK NOW”. The old man seems sheepish, like a small boy caught out - “Amidst all the rich furniture that you have, I didn’t think you would notice this one little thing missing” he says, and puts it down.

I grab hold of it knowing that something very important has been rescued, just in the nick of time.

Diamond Mining

I am in the cellar of a large building with three men, one of whom seems more special to me than the others. I am drawn by the strange qualities of these men. We have a heavy task to undertake and they are strong: I appreciate their physical presence and am excited by their muscle. But I am aware also that these men are strangely feminine: they are artists and are creative, sensitive types. I find myself pondering their suitability for the task and realize that I need to be firm in my leadership.

The task is this: a man has hidden some treasure in the rocks beyond this basement. The treasure is a beautiful diamond (I can still feel it shining within me now as I write). I lead my team into a cramped and dark tunnel and shut the door behind us. I explain that the diamond is embedded within the rocks somewhere beyond this tunnel. It is very close nearby, I sense the presence of its beauty: but we do not know exactly where it is and so will have to tunnel blindly.

There are risks in our task. Once we begin to tunnel we cannot return until we have found our treasure. There is a danger that we may spend the rest of our lives down there in the dark, never finding the thing that we seek.

I ask the team if they are up for it, “YES” they all shout and we turn to the task. But then a strange thing happens: I turn to the man to whom I felt most drawn. We smile at each other and then we lie down. I realise that we must begin our work now – the treasure is so near! – but our hands stroke each other and we float away to a warmer brighter place where all is well and nothing is to be done.

Merely Decorative

I am back at art school with some of my old friends: Vicky (now my step mother) is there and Judith too. My friends at the time were mostly women, mostly in their fifties.

Vicky is asking the teacher about her painting (he is white, middle aged and authoritative in his half moon specs):

“Should I put in shading, should I be painting the shadows?” She asks him.

“Well it depends” he replies “the shadows make it real, without these your painting is just decoration, it is merely decorative.”

He shows us a small oil painting of a pink orchid: it is deeply shaded - almost bruised it is so dark - and as I stare I feel enveloped in its folds.

Vicky returns to her painting and considers the teachers remarks. I can tell from her shoulders that she is annoyed and feels somehow bruised by them.