Of a horse and a dog and the Cavern of Death

I am in the old house. There is a horse there. It is a friend, and it is an enemy. It is in love, and it is insane. He chases me across the yard, across the corridor, across the room. I lock myself in a metal cabinet, and I am trapped. He menaces me through the holes in its walls.

I am walking, walking through the old neighbourhood. I can feel the presence of the horse, but he does not come after me here. I make my way to the Cavern of Death, though I shall fear no evil, for my friends are with me, their presence and their comfort a soft source of peace.

The close walls of the cavern are grey, the low roof is grey, the steps leading downward into its very bowels are grey. Death walks deferentially behind me. I never thought of it before as being polite. I am to be locked in a chamber, a cavity, a cell, with no food and no water, no companionship or stimulation. It is penitence and atonement. I must dwell on what I have done.

After some while, I am brought a platter of food, of creamed potatoes and cooked meats and corn without the cob. I am brought a cup of sour sop punch. I have paid my penance. I am free to leave and to live. Death will not leave its cavern for me. It will not follow me wherever I go.

I feel the encouragement and support of my friends, the well-wishes of those whom I love, leaving that place with me. I make my way back to the neighbourhood, wending through its myriad, multitudinous roads. A little dog named Sally is at my heels and by my side. Presently, happily I return to the old house.

The horse is there, laying in waiting for me. This time he cannot touch me, he cannot menace my soul, and I feel no fear. This time I am the one who chases him, for I am strength and he is fear, my will is stronger, and without worry. He runs and he leaves, scattering throughout the neighborhood about us, for I am no longer a place in which he can hide.

Sally stays on his heels to keep him going. No one shall look for him there. And he shall have no friends in the Cavern of Death, where he now goes. His penitence shall be long, and so too shall his suffering. There will be no platter or cup to signal the end.

I awake.

Travelling Nightmares, Faerietale Dreams

I am travelling through worlds ... through forests, through mountains, across oceans. I settle on an island waiting for you to find me, waiting for you to love me ... forever. Now I am being pursued, into an alley, into a dead end, He has been chasing me. He is not you. Desperate I phase through the solid grey brick of the wall to my left and find myself through air, and wood and stone to the other side, to the inner side of a crimson castle. You are waiting there, Dream. You are kind. You care. You love, and you are lovely. You give me protection … sanctuary … hope. You are generous. You are considerate. You are compassionate. All the things he is not, everything I am no longer. He phases past the crimson curtain, those blood red drapes that veil the portal into your kingdom. He phases through air and wood and stone to land by our side mere inches between us. But he is clumsy in his transcendence and smashes the wood and stone in his passage. He is here, a snarling menace beyond ready to attack, to crush us with his dark and wicked will. But he cannot harm us here, not me, least of all you. You take my hand, my soul, my spirit and you guide it, leading me down into the dark of the corridor to a time and a place and a home and a how, where he cannot follow. And I am safe. And I am loved. You love me. The Dreaming comes to a close.

Of Caterpillars and of Lions

I am at the old house. Small red and black caterpillars with red and black spikes protruding from their soft, spongy, bodies, looking for all The Dreaming like gothic wristbands, are everywhere, in the furniture, the curtains, the carpets and the clothes. The texture of their bodies, smooth and fuzzy like the leaves of ferns, contrasts with the glint and gleam of the metallic spikes stemming from their backs. They disgust and disturb me, causing my skin to crawl.

Suddenly Rafiki, the shaman baboon from the movie The Lion King appears in my dream. I myself am no longer human, but am Simba and Nala emerges from The Dreaming as well. We are now in the blue bathroom of the old house, and I reject Rafiki’s advice, and stubbornly refusing to explain the way I feel to Nala. Now we are climbing the cliff face from which Mufasa fell, and when I reach the top I am now Nala. There is a tree to the right of me and Rafiki joins me, squatting on a rock to my left of me. I lay on my back as I wait for Simba’s mane to appear over the top of the edge of the cliff like the sun. It does, and thus I depart from The Dreaming.

The Wizard and The Water Boy

I am a little girl. I am standing on smooth stones by the sea. The Wizard is there. He is teaching me water magick. I cast my eyes upon the ocean and with a wave of his wand I understand.

Now I am beneath the surface. Now I am under the undulating atmosphere of the waves. The water is cool. It suspends me as I sink further into its depths.

Now there is a child. A little boy. He is not like me. His skin is a pale, silvery blue, like the scale of a fish. His ears are long and pointed, extending beyond his head like those of a rabbit. He is a mer-child. A water boy. An undine.

He wants me to come to him. He wants me to play. But if I stay, I’ll drown. I turn from him and try to swim back to shore. But his will oppresses me, I can feel his childish desire drawing me back into the deep. He is not trying to harm me. He just wants me to stay. He is curled into a fetal position, distressed that I want to leave.

I break the surface of the water. I break free of his will. I clamber onto the smooth stones by the wizard’s feet. I breathe deeply the fresh air. I am tired and saddened. We all regard each other from our own realities. The wizard in his wisdom knows this is for the best. We play together within our minds for we can Never be … The Dreaming shifts.

Cat in a Cabinet (from fur-child to spirit guide)

I am in The Dreaming, when at the bottom of a flowering bush appears a small kitten. I reach tentatively down for him, wary that he might scratch or bite me out of fear, and though he is hesitant and afraid at first, he in time begins to trust that I will do him no harm, and relaxes into my hand, becoming comfortable, playful and affectionate.

Suddenly one of my recently passed fur-children, a cat called Vanna, appears in a cabinet floating in the air, where he is watching games of cricket and football on a field spread before him, before falling to sleep. After some while passes, he wakes up and leaps down from the floating cabinet and walks over to me, shifting the dream from the field to my room.

I am now in my room, but still in The Dreaming, and I am talking to Vanna online. He types that he is outside my door, waiting patiently to be let in … and he brought crickets with him. Whether they are alive or dead, friends or food I am not certain, but I get up from before the computer and I walk over to the door to let him in, and in he strolls, graceful and cutesy with a mouth full of crickets. I guess they were food after all. Thus The Dreaming ends …

(To Vanna: Thank you for the visit Love, it is nice to know that even from Other-where, you are making sure that I am well-fed. I love you too).

Faerytale Castle

Before me lay the ruins of an old castle. The stones from which it is made of are yellow with age and stain and decay. It is enshrouded in rich, lush, wild, overgrown flowery foliage, giving it the air of a whimsical, secret, faerie garden. You can tell the air is sweet with the scent of flowers and the rot of the undergrowth, as within a hidden forest. Inside the castle, the ceilings are vaulted onto giant pillars except in the place where the roof has caved in, creating a natural skylight through which the scent of the garden outside can waft, and beneath which is rubble on the roof.

It is too dark inside to see the walls in any great detail. The only light comes from the sky light, and due to the flora creating a canopy over and about the castle, even this light is dim and pale, enough to highlight the rubble directly beneath it which it falls on, and no more. I cannot tell from what the floor is made, but I assume it is marble or something equally befitting for the kind of decadent castle only to be found now in a child’s tale. There is a stairway to the right, leading outside and upwards onto an elevated courtyard. The stone here is also yellow from age and rot, and the cobble-stoned ground is covered with fallen leaves and flower petals and the dappled sunlight breaking through the leaves. It’s a very beautiful place, lined with low, decorative walls on which to sit. It belongs to the Golden Age, and it is enshrouded with mystery and presence. To the right of the courtyard there is a high wall with a small brown door cut into it. I do not know where it leads.

There is a couple. They are not young or beautiful or very describable really, but I later find out that the ruins belong to them, and that they bought and preserved them as they lay, only adding a modest section for living in, which is the high wall with the door, which is in the same stained yellow stone as the rest of the castle. This explain why it isn’t rotted or decayed as the stone is of the rest of the castle.

The couple wants my help in choosing a colour to complete the mottled stains of the courtyard cobble stones and the grounds inside the castle beneath it. There are thinking of a darker complementary colour like auburn, but when I suggest white it blends perfectly with the yellow stones of the walls. They are very happy with my choice, but if I had to say the thought out loud, I would say that they were my dream maker in disguise, who needed my aid in completing a dreamscape that was meant for me.

Spirit Guide

I am on the beach with a boy named Remi, at the place where Brandon and Brighton meets. The slope leading to the highway is directly before of us, and we are standing on a small niche of earth between that slope and a tree which is directly behind us. On the ground in front of us, at the bottom of the slope, in the niche where we stand is a little altar or memorial, comprised of shells of different kinds, and I know intuitively that this display is not man-made, for it is a dwelling place of faeries, where the shells are their home.

The boy named Remi crouches down and begins to rearrange the shells. I knew it would upset the residents of those shells, but he does it anyway, and then he leaves for work.

Suddenly behind me appears, a large, pale being dressed like an Arabian genie, with bright blue crystal eyes, the pupils of which are ebony black and slitted like the eyes of a cat. His ears are pointed like a goblin’s, and the rest of his features despite his rotund form are sharp. His arms are huge and spread eagled with no discernible fingers at the ends, and the rest of his body is pretty much the same. He is bobbing up and down like a balloon at a fair, and I am not afraid of him, for I know he is my spirit guide.

Suddenly we are inside the shells themselves. Somehow our forms have contracted and we are as tiny as the People who dwell therein. Inside the shells are dark, with a dim red glow, like a museum at night. Between me and my guide, whose name I never learn, and my mind’s eye, there are glass cases behind which are faerie artifacts and whole worlds within the world of the faerie shell dwellings. Worlds within worlds, like those Russian dolls. First I was in our world, then in the smaller world of the faerie shell dwellings within our world, now seeing littler worlds than even that within it. I wonder how much smaller can I get, and how many worlds exist that are both larger and littler than my own.

Suddenly the boy named Remi joins me and my guide, on my tour of the worlds within worlds, within the faerie shell dwellings within the world of our own.