Monday, January 14, 2008

Dreams of Death

I had a rough day yesterday, rough but fun.  Actually, just a rough morning.  I enjoyed lunch at McMenamins, great times with Rory, and accomplished some writing stuff in the evening.

It was the dream.  In classic Kami dreams about a lost pet mode, Mojo was darker than he was in life.  He was still white, but he had darker points--still patterned like a tabby, but brown and black striping like Wiz instead of ginger and buff.  I was so happy.  I knew in the dream that he'd died, but somehow he'd come back and I didn't care how.  I picked him up and held him close--and that's when the dream fell apart.  He was weightless in my arms and the illusion couldn't hold up to reality.  I woke so empty, not even being able to dream about him without my conscious mind stepping in and saying nope, it's not real, tough luck subconscious you can't enjoy this.  

This morning I dreamt that a friend of mine from high school got sick and died.  I got to tell him how bright, how strong and wonderful a human being he is, how the world needs people like him.  He seemed to be doing better, but then he died and I suffered through his funeral.  Once again I get to go through the morning with an ache in my chest and a lump in my throat.  

I'm sure he's fine.  It's just my brain thrashing around coping with something or other.  I might blame an external spiritual influence if this keeps up for no reason, but for the moment I think it's just my mind responding to lots of loss and change and potential.  Although growth and change can be very positive, even essential to survival, some very primitive parts of our minds want things to stay the same.  Any change, good or bad, causes stress responses.

In a tarot deck, the Death card represents change, whether it's good or bad.  Things are changing.  I'm not completely aware of what it is that's changing so much in the past few days that my dreams are affected, but I know it's been a big year.  Andy's death, two cancer announcements, my grandmother went blind in one eye, some relationship stuff, Mojo's death and Claire and Misty disappearing, the new pace in my attempts to publish, going to Radcon as a guest panelist with no actual publishing credentials, putting together the websites, never ending car trouble, financial pressure, losing the puppies and Beast and then having them all come home again, big vacations, a very busy OryCon including a bid to chair next year, Rory's book being accepted for publication--all lumped together in a twelve month period.  I'm sure I'm missing things too.

I started to write about how I feel like a delicate flower but on sober consideration, it really has been a big year.  I guess having a couple of death dreams in a row isn't out of line.  Writing about it helps.  The dreams help too, I'm sure, but it's not the easy sort of help.  More like physical therapy.  I can have a cheering section, but the heavy lifting I have to do by myself.  That's life, and love, in the big world.

1 comment:

The Moody Minstrel said...

This does seem to be a time of fluctuation both inside and outside. I'm experiencing it too, but in different ways.

Speaking of tarot, acting on a friend's urging I got my decks out for the first time in years. The old Aquarian deck, my first, the one I bought in my college days, felt warm and comfortable. The Golden Dawn deck that Tere gave me, on the other hand, was ice cold, didn't want to shuffle, the cards were annoyingly clingy when I tried to deal them, and the messages it gave were all razor-to-the-privates blunt and nasty.

I don't know when I'll dig them out next.

Lots of weird things happening in the world. Something tells me lots of weird things may be yet to come.