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.

ice channel melted

I am with a man, we are on an open hillside looking down an a huge glacial channel of ice cutting a great fissure into the surrounding rocks.

He says "we can move this" and levers himself into place at the top of the channel - back braced against rock and feet straining to push the ice. It seems ridiculous that we could move so much ice but I join him in the endeavour.

To my surprise it begins to shift and soon the ice is on the move, crunching and creaking it's way down the mountainside. We follow behind it giving it a helping push now and again, but it happens mostly easily and without effort and we have time to 'surf' on on the shiny surface left behind as we follow the flow down the mountainside.

We skate laughing all of the way down till we reach the ocean, where I see that the salt is slowly breaking the ice plug into a vast ocean slush puppy. The mood of this event is joyful, playful but also contains within it a sense of awe that so much could be moves so quickly and effortlessly.

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.

The Ocean Painting 2

I am with a middle-aged woman, we are guests in someone else’s house: she is quite large, motherly, but insecure too and seeks my advice.

She tells me she paints: it is something she does on “her own, unrecognised” and has “no outlet for her work”. I remember she has shown me a painting the day before - a colourful abstract piece it was ok but not amazing.

She pulls out another recently completed painting; it is morning time and we are outside, I feel fresh and bright in the early light. Her husband is there too and he watches us mutely.

I hold her painting and look into it: a small picture of a grey stormy ocean, oil on canvass board. I find myself becoming absorbed in the tumultuous sea, rolling with the waves and cast about by the wind. I sense and see rocks rising up out of the water, jagged primal forms: I become the beginning of time, the emergence of land.

I recognise in the work a memory of my own work, a picture that I painted when I first returned to college as a mature student in 1996. My painting was huge: a blue and red sea crashing against rocks, a giant orange globe spinning and throbbing in a psychedelic sky. It was quite abstract and dramatic and it tried to express the beginning of time.

What impresses me with her painting is that it doesn’t try to do anything – it simply is.

I tell the woman how much I like the picture, because it is so real. She is pleased but tells me she is frustrated: she wants to know how can she get her work ‘out there’, how can she earn a living from this. I sense that this question has something to do with her pride.

I start to tell her of the things she can do – she can buy the Artists and Writers Yearbook, which lists greetings card manufacturers who will print her work. Or she can subscribe to the arts magazine ‘a-n’ which has lots of opportunities for exhibiting.

But as I tell her all this I wonder in my soul ‘how would this beautiful painting translate into a greetings card? Wouldn’t it’s magic be lost?’ I feel uncertain about the opportunities that I am trying to ‘sell’ to her and my voice sounds hollow as I speak.

Is it possible I wonder to translate her beautiful painting into a commercial product without losing its essence?

I climb into a car with her and the (still silent) husband. We begin the journey home though I realise as I gaze at the scenery passing by that I don’t know where this is.

Black Rock

I am at sea again, on a large boat that is cutting through the water at a tremendous rate: I stand at its prow. I see something appearing on the horizon, as we move closer I realise it is a large black rock rising up out of the waves. I realise that we are on a collision course and start shouting to raise the alarm.

The captain turns the engines to full speed reverse and we come to a halt only just in time, grazing the surface of the rock as we turn. Everyone on board congratulates me: we would surely all have died had I not seen the danger ahead. As we cruise around the base of the black rock, which is the size of a mountain, rivulets of water pour off its surface: evidence of its recently submerged state.

The rock is black, dense and razor sharp – like granite maybe. But is also is shot through with shining metallic threads: iridescent lightening bursts of precious metal flashing throughout the darkness of its body.

We get off the boat and explore the surface of this new land.