As I wrote my dialogue, several dream moments/images arose. I am including a small montage from my journal of images which were created from some of these moments (in the past, prior to this class...I listed the titles below my writing). I have a new one that I am working on now from a recent dream, which I hope to share before the end of the class! Thanks for letting me share.

DIALOGUE

Me: Ahhh, my soul. How I have longed to call you mine. To feel you as gold in my heart, to be blinded by your glory. To see and feel in color and texture and tingle.

Soul: Do you believe I have belonged to someone else?

Me: No, but I had shunned you to the basement and I did not even know until one day, in a vision, I found you there. A skittering, pale girl. Shell-shocked. And I lifted you from that dark place.

Soul: And now you are waiting?

Me: What do you mean waiting? Waiting for what?

Soul: When I arose from the dark basement, I yearned to be free and yet still you hold me back.

Me: What do you mean, gypsy? When you stole from me? When you were too precocious? Too wild, taking to much, needing attention? Do you not need to be tempered? Should I let you simply fly free? Ungrounded? Untethered?

Soul: Do you presume morality? To know what is best for yourself? For your soul?

Me: If not me, then who? Mustn't I be responsible, caring, humble? Am I not learning the lessons of life?

Soul: I care nothing for these things you speak of. Perhaps you have learned the lessons too well.

Me: How then should I be?

And then my soul spoke.

You must come empty-handed. If you are a fisherman, you must come with no fish. If you are a tailor, you must come naked. If you are a carpenter or farmer, you must put down your tools and come with your rough hewn hands extended. If you are a nurse, you must come infirmed and feeble. If you are mother, you must come childless. You must come as you are. Show yourself. You must come with nothing in order to receive. You must truly know that you are lost before you might be found.

I felt the deep pain of loss. Of all that I have thought I have known. All I have believed about myself and my family and the world-side life I was stumbling through. I felt the loss of childhood abandonment, abuse, love withheld, addiction, betrayals and hurts. All of the why's and shoulds and the should nots. It was as if I was in a foreign city, where I knew no one, did not hold currency, bereft of family or people, my face pressed into smooth stone and dust. Feelings unidentified, longing, need... Anguish flowed through my body. The pain of gratitude in hearing the gypsy's words. And the pain of grief, love remembered. I became overwhelmed. I could not speak.

My soul, seeing me thus, spoke again:

You must descend the mountain and when you arrive at the high cliff, you must jump. When you enter the water, you must breath. When the fire kindles in the wood, you must burn. When they take you down into the depths, you must fall into the darkness and know that I am there. When Ole Georgie creeps, whispering doom, you must know that I too am there. When you walk the moss-covered stone halls of your heart, you must listen for the rush of blood, alive! as it fills the holy grail that is you. When the snake rises, you must let him bite you. You must take in the venom. You must die. When the Goddess comes and offers you porridge, you must dip your bread and stand in the flames of her fire. You must face her when she slips her steel blade into your heart, opening you. And when the red handed potter shows you the beautiful vessel he has made, you must know that this is you, ready to receive. When you are asked to sing your song, let yourself be sung. Like Mozart and red flowers, let the silence be broken.

Painting titles clockwise from top left: Mozart and Red Flowers, Girl in Basement, Snake Rising, The Piano

for red book class.jpg