What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

The truly brilliant and always-grounded Athenae has up a great weekend post asking people to discuss the most transformative trips they've ever taken. What a great question!

One thing that amazes me is how, for most of her commenters, the important trips were trips into nature. Oddly, one of my most important trips, much as I always push a connection with nature, was a trip from the mountains and woods to a city.

As I answered at Athenae's blog, one of the most transformative trips that I ever took was when I was five and my family moved from rural Colorado ("my city of mountains, stay with me, stay") to Washington, D.C. For that little, impressionable Pisces, walking off of the train into a city of marble monuments and heroic statues was completely transformative. My entire conception of what the world was and could be changed when I moved from wooded mountainsides to a city full of architecture and gardens devoted to an heroic archetype of democracy. I fell madly in love (and fifty years later, I am only that much more devoted) with every carved marble wheat sheaf and arrow, every faux-Grecian column, every naked woman representing some high-minded ideal (bite me, John Ashcroft, no, really), every amazing painting calling to me from the walls of a museum. I gave myself all the way to the United States Botanical Garden, to the National Arboretum, to the fountains (Lit! At night! I'd never seen a fountain before, not to mention imagined that they could be lit up at night! Kennedy was in the WH, it was Camelot in DC, the entire city seemed, to me, full of sparkling fountains that shone all night long. And there were ladies in pillbox hats and amazingly-constructed dresses w/ princess seams, wearing 3/4 length gloves! 3/4 length!).

I still love to retreat to the mountains, although, now, for me, five decades later, it is the Allegheny and Appalachian mountains that soothe my soul. I haven't been to the Rockies for forty years. And I've been v happy during some long, long trips to the California coast. But in my dreams, I am still, most often, in a very wet city on the edge of a river, a city full of marble monuments and archetypical statues.

Just last night, I dreamed that there was a wonderful arts program inside the Capitol, run by a brilliant and energetic young woman. I was hosting a young teen-age woman interested in government and art and, finding ourselves downtown with a bit of extra time, I decided to drive her to the Capitol to check out the arts program. We drove past statues that, while they do not exist in the "mundane" D.C., most certainly do exist in the archetypical DC: statues of heras, and feminine beasts, and deep principles. My (long dead) mother and I walked our guest into the Capitol which turned out to be, as only the not-so-"mundane" Capitol really is, full of open skylights that a young woman might step through and hurt herself and large bookshelves that she could climb on and pull over on herself. And, yet, we got our guest up to the front to meet the young hera running the history and arts program and, when I awoke to put myself magically back into the dream and started to soothe over the dangers, my young guest showed up in my not-awake-not-asleep dream and said, "Please, don't. I like it better like that." She's right. So do I. I love this city best with all of its dangers and pitfalls. Especially the ones that people mean when they sneer about "inside the Beltway."

I opened up and embraced them half a century ago when I was five. One of the first dreams that I ever had of this city was when I was six and dreamed that I was swimming in a fountain at the pool of Blessed Mary's feet, just outside Union Station, looking up and watching her nod to me. (There is no such "real" place in the "mundane" city, not even at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which somehow transposed itself with Union Station in my dream.) When I was six, Mary was the only image that I had for the divine feminine. Today, I see that ancient dream as my first attempt to connect to (swim in the water of) Columbia's symbolic city. May I swim here until I die. May you dream yourself into your own most important landscape.

How would you answer Athenae?

When you bring a child to a magical place, you can't be surprised if she spends half a century or so living there, both physically and in her dreams. Where will you take the most important child in your life?

Picture found here.

Deep in the Cellars of the Tower

Maybe it's the slowly-growing light. Maybe it's the mystically epic winds that have been blowing new ideas all over my snug little cottage. Maybe it's the way that the still-long-dark nights dance in my consciousness, but, whatever the reason, my dreams lately have been far more capable of making an impression than normal.

A few nights ago, I dreamt that my mother and my sister-the-antagonist were teaching G/Son an evilly racist form of Asatru (and, believe me, neither of them ever even imagined anything such as Asatru) devoted to Horus (I know. What can I say? It was a dream). In particular, they were teaching him a set of movements designed to mimic water-birds and to invoke some (in my dream) particularly racist form of Horus/Asatru worship. I was almost beside myself with anger, and I called them out on their behavior. I stormed outside to the front of my childhood home, where they had hooked my car up to their dilapidated car in an attempt to repair theirs. There was a license plate removed from their car (that I can almost see, but can't remember) that held the entire message of the dream. I got in my car and drove off, unhooking my car from theirs, and lecturing the First Ex-Mr. Hecate about just how angry I was. I always pay attention to the dreams where I tell him that.

Then, last night, the serious winds woke me up and made me realize how cold and bitter it was outside and how safe and warm I was inside. Maybe it was that I'd been thinking about Thalia's gift from her sister and how much I've been thinking about gifting myself with Jung's Red Book, but something drew me off into a dream about a red-stone house beside the road with a huge round turret out front. At first, I was, in my dream, driving past the house, just admiring the turret and the ornaments set around it. Then, I realized that, from my car, I could see right into one of the 4th story windows, and I thought, "That would be my bedroom, visible to all who drove by." In a moment, like Alice through the looking glass, I was inside the windows and realized that, no, this wasn't a bedroom, it was a lovely drawing room. There was a party beginning, and many of the guests had brought with them mask-faced guards out of a chess game. I wandered in and greeted the hostess, aware that she wanted to sell the house. I wound down the steps, a bit less enchanted with each level of the underworld that I explored. Wow, her kitchen's not as good as mine, by a long shot. Her bedroom's not nearly as nice as mine. I could make this kitchen good, but when I mention to her that I'd turn that low, industrial sink into a fireplace, she says to me: "Of course, you can't." She tells me that the house is selling for "75," but I can't figure if she means $75,000, $7,500,000 or what. I exit the home at the very ground level and begin climbing back up the outside steps. I realize that there are shrubs blocking each of the steps, and I like the outside garden a lot more than I like the inside lower levels. As I decided when I bought this cottage, the outside has more potential than it shows. Sheesh.

And I wake to write down the dream and realize that I'll spend a few years figuring it out.

Do you have dreams like this in the cold wind? Do you record your dreams? What magic work do you do with them?

Picture found here.

In Which Our Heroine Ponders A Corner Market

Katrina Messenger once told me that magic workers who ignore their dreams put their spiritual growth at peril (or words to that effect). I've been working with my dreams ever since.

One of the first, slipperiest, and most challenging things for many of us to do is to remember our dreams. Not those great, big, life-changing dreams that you can't help but notice, but our every-night dreams. Gotta know what you dreamt before you can easily work with it. There are lots of suggestions for how to begin to better remember your dreams: tell yourself before sleeping that you'll remember your dream, keep a pen and journal by your bed and write it down as soon as you wake up, etc. I've tried lots of things.

I find that if, before I move physically, I can tell myself the story of the dream, often starting with the last little bit and remembering backwards, tell myself the story in words, I can keep the dream from slipping -- as our shadows and unconscious fears half want for it to do -- back into oblivion. Once I move (roll over, get up to pee (I'm an old woman!), turn the pillow over), I tell myself the story another time or two, trying to "see" the dream and recapture the "feeling" of it, often managing to remember another detail or two. Finally, I tell myself the story again, paying special attention to the words that came to me when I was telling myself the story. My subconscious likes to communicate through (or hide its messages behind!) synonyms, puns, word games. Thus, a dream about "one deer" may really be about a "dear one." A dream about a bridge may be about "Brigid," a dream about business on the river "bank" may be about my finances. Then, I look carefully for Goddesses, Gods, archetypes, Tarot. That old housewife in the thatched house in Ireland may be Brigid. That cool Japanese woman with long hair, a younger lover, and a house full of fountains and gardens may be Kwan Yin. That African American woman with green skin in the doctor's office may be Green Tara. That swan that carries me and my six male concubines (swordsmen) to the cave may be, duh!, the Six of Swords.

Then, I often slip back into that not-quite-asleep-not-all-the-way-awake place and "re-enter" the dream. I then "dream" the outcome that I want. For example, a very common dream for me involves being somewhere and trying to get to somewhere else, running into one obstacle after another. (Lately, this has morphed. I'm on a cell phone trying to call someone and the contacts list won't come up, I can't get a signal, I can't find the number, I call but nothing happens, etc. I blame Apple, for making me switch from Verizon to AT&T.) When I wake up from one of those dreams, I go back to the, for example, train station, but, this time, I decide ahead of time that there will be an "Arrivals/Departures" board that gives accurate information. When it tells me to go to Gate 8 1/2, I go there, the gate is there, the right train pulls up (and this time, it looks like the Hogwarts train, damn it; it's my dream; I don't have to take Amtrak! and Younger Self works best with strong images), I get on and easily find a seat, enjoy some scenery, and arrive safely at my destination. Someone I love is there to greet me and help me with all of my baggage (double entendre intended).

Years of practice have yielded the result that I can now, sometimes, even before waking up, realize that "I'm having that dream again. I need to pull into the gas station that has a lovely lady working behind the counter, the one whose maps always show me exactly how to get where I need to go. I should throw the old Slim Jims at Coyote, Trickster, who's hanging by the door, to divert Her, and then run into the store." Then, when I wake up, all I have to do is go back, thank the cashier, pay her a bit extra, ask her to show up the next time that I need her, hide a pack of Slim Jims near the door for next time.

I had a variation on this dream the other night.

It was snowing (and, in real life, with my little car, I HATE to drive in snow). I generally avoid it at any cost, but, in this dream, it wasn't expected to snow, yet when I leave wherever I've been, there's snow on the ground. I get in my car and begin to drive home, but it's dark and I'm having more and more trouble even seeing the road. I try blowing hard on the window, but that only fogs things up, and now I have no idea where I am or how to get home. It's pitch black; I don't even know if I'm still on the road. I decide to pull over to what feels like the side of the road, get out my GPS, and plug it in. It will make a little light and will tell me where I am and how to get home. I do pull over and now I can see that I've pulled, at a bit of an angle, into someone's driveway. It's late February; there's no more snow. I pull out my GPS and by now I can see pretty well. It's a small house, poor but respectable neighborhood, with a window in the front of the house through which I can see a beefy guy watching tv in a recliner. I plug in the GPS, program it for home, and begin to back carefully out of the driveway.

It's at this point that the guy in the window looks out and sees me. He's enraged -- in a way that doesn't surprise me, that reminds me a bit of my father and a bit of most white men in general -- that I've dared to pull into his driveway. "Hey! You! Quit pulling in here and messing up our yard and our furniture!" he screams in rage, getting up and heading for the door so he can come outside. He's furious. I say, calmly, and somehow resignedly, "I'm not messing up anything. I'm just trying to get home. Calm down. Have a nice day." I begin to drive away, but he's following me, running after me, yelling and screaming and demanding that he has the right to question me. I feel horrible; this feels too familiar, that I'm trying to fix a problem and getting yelled at for it. My nice, calm response didn't soothe the savage beast; it didn't save me.

Next, I'm running from him, through a walled alley, between buildings, out into a crossroads. He catches up with me there, I turn to face him. Looking at him, I realize he's an old guy in a grey sweater, not quite the beefy, strong guy I was so scared of. I say, "Fine. What do you want?" This is a victory for him. Meanwhile, I'm looking around and realizing that we're near a small corner market, but more or less alone on the street.

At that point, I woke up, heart pounding, still terrified, really upset. It was one of those "I need to get somewhere" dreams, I was about to work out a solution, and unjustified, raw, male anger sidelined me.

So I told myself the story a few times, got up and splashed water on my face, grounded, did some deep breathing. I suddenly realized: I met this scary person at the crossroads. That's Hecate's ground. No way I'm not the stronger party in that location; my Patroness loves me and I KNOW this territory. I may have no idea where I am, but I am never lost where three roads meet. I'm at home. Then, I paid attention to the words. Blowing hard on the window just fogged things up. This guy is a blowhard, his anger and sense of entitlement fog things up, but I can use tools to achieve clarity. I know it may sound silly, but it was at this point that I began to really calm down.

In Kissing the Limitless, Thorn Coyle suggests a technique for dealing with our demons. Fairly sure this angry guy is one of my demons, I sat in bed, grounded, and called the Elements, my allies, my Goddesses, cast a circle as I've done thousands of times in my life. I cast a double triangle in front of the circle, bound around with words of security, protection, my own "entitlement," and I summoned the demon -- both in his terrifying, beefy form and in his "real" form, a grey old guy, standing in a ratty sweater near a corner market facing me and trying to keep his image as a scary guy --into the triangle. I said, "Well, it's three in the morning, you've awakened me from a deep sleep and you've fucked up my almost-successful attempt to get myself home in the middle of one of my 'can't get where I'm going dreams.' You must have a pretty important reason for being here, something pretty important to tell me. I'm listening."

We had a decent talk, although, like most demons, this one has trouble speaking clearly, is hesitant to tell what he knows, tries to hide or misdirect, and then grudgingly gives up what he knows while still trying to appear sly. In the end, he told me what I needed to know. Next, I asked him where all of his energy came from and all that I could get was that he believes that he is entitled to it. So I thanked him and told him, "I'm going to send you back to your recliner. I want you to sit there for as long as you need to figure out how you can help me instead of terrifying me. I'd like to use all of the energy bound up in you and my fear of you. I'm sure that you and I will speak again." He left, and then I opened his triangle, thanked the Goddesses, allies, Elements. I opened my circle, lay down, and slept like a baby for five more hours.

What I still can't figure out, though, is what that corner market is all about.

(Uncannily accurate) picture found here.