LOWREY - Spirit Dreams

Spirit Dreams:

Forward

Spirit Dreams is a branch of riverdream through us, wherein the masks which function as guides for that River Sounding ceremony (and other masks) tell their individual dream stories as a further way to enter the mind(s) of the non-human realm. This work is for recited texts (live and/or recorded), sampled sounds of the Delaware River environs initiated by a real-time complex-dynamic (fractal) computer interface program, and the singing masks, set in a context of ceremonial dream time participation by all present.

Each of my masks has a voice and it is through that voice that they tell their stories. But the language that each speaks is different. They have dictated their dreams to me during ceremonial-time experiences and these form the basis for Spirit Dreams' recited texts. The texts are mostly in English, but occasionally the actual language of a mask, as it is expressed in verbal form, emerges. During the ceremony of Spirit Dreams, the masks sound their dream stories "in the moment" as the texts are recited and the river sounds occur. There are 13 stories, plus brief introduction.

In Spirit Dreams you are invited to join the masks in their dreamings, to sleep even, and to otherwise enter your own and our collective Dream Time. You may not find all the texts to be intelligible all the time. There is no need to feel frustration on this account. You are encouraged to suspend any preconditioned attempt to understand the words and to listen to them as sounds, the transliterations into speech of the masks' imaginings having only the meaning of music and nature's inner soundings. If you should drift toward any discomfort, your are invited to repeat this simple mantra to yourself: "This is a dream..., this is a dream..., this is a dream..."

Spirit Dreams includes references from the following sources:
3. Bear - Ars Poetica by Jorge Luis Borges
5. Harvey Lackawanna - The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet by John Blofield; Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma and Heart Sutra (traditional Buddhist texts); Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, A Book of Tarot by Rachel Pollack
6. Anima - Breaking Open by Muriel Rukeyser; The Far Field by Theodore Roethke; Roots and Branches by Robert Duncan
7. Raven - The Sefer Yetzira, The Book of Creation, a Hebrew book of the mystic tradition, c. third-sixth centuries A.D.
10. Spirit of Voice in the River - Medicine Cards: The Discovery of Power Through the Ways of Animals by Jamie Sams & David Carson
11. Loon Spirit - The Wild Swans at Coole by W.B. Yeats
12. Blue Oracle - Wherever by Muriel Rukeyser; A Death in the Family by James Agee

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1. Introduction

Just to establish the appearance of a connection to "normal" waking reality, here are a few words of introduction. Beware, however. Explanations may be misleading. Nonetheless, within the realm of the Spirit Dream itself there is room for casual and apparently normal discourse; the expression of ideas that seem more or less reasonable and which make more or less sense.

So it is that we begin with a premise: whenever the masks are present, we enter Ceremonial/Dream Time. Nothing special need be done. Nothing dramatic. No invocations even. We may not recognize that there is anything different going on at all. Nothing different may be going on. Proceedings may be entirely mundane. But this is just the point. What may appear to be commonplace is utterly and ineffably unique. No single entity, no single nanosecond, is the same as any other. The ordinary is indeed extraordinary. Acknowledgment of this is the essence of Ceremonial/Dream Time. This is our premise. There is, of course, room for alternative possibilities. But let's say that this is the way it is.
For now...

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2.EarthSinger

For now. Maybe for always.

EarthSinger is here.
This is what she/he says.
We are dreaming this.

Mountains. Yes, it is in the mountains. My family walks. We are a family taking a walk. The trail is steep but we walk easily. There is no hurry. A meadow. A plateau now. Tall grasses. Farmland. Our farm. The mountains are now in the distance. Suddenly a bird of tremendous size swoops down and lands not 10 feet from us. It is an eagle. With the head of a golden retriever. Well, a head somewhat more dog-like than bird-like, but still it is clearly a bird and clearly an eagle. Eagle/dog walks along with us and allows us to pet it on its soft feathery/furry head. This bird, this combination of a thoroughly wild inhabitant of ethereal heights together with domestic pet, fills us with joy, with love even. The eagle simply lifts off the ground with a strength of wing nearly unimaginable and is gone into the sky. Some 70 or 80 feet into the air it becomes a tree, roots, trunk, branches, an oak suspended in midair, every leaf finely etched against a cloudless sky. The branches are supporting a boulder of immense weight. The effect is of mammoth density and heaviness floating weightless.

EarthSinger is here now.
We are dreaming this.
We are walking the path of this our dream world into the heart of earth. Earth's heart is our heart. We are listening to the earth breathing as we breathe. Our inhalations and exhalations are one breath. We are walking the path of dreaming into the heart of the earth. Into the heart of earth’s dream. She is spinning our dream into music. We are breathing earth's breath. Inhalation
and exhalation. Breathing in and breathing out. Earth’s heart beats. Our hearts beat. We are walking the path of the dream of the earth.

Rivers Heart of Earth
Rivers Heart of Earth
Living Waters Heart of Earth
Living Waters Heart of Earth
Rivers Heart
Living Waters Heart
Heart of Earth
Dream blood flows
Rivers
Living Waters
Rivers Heart of Earth
Rivers Heart of Earth
Living Waters
Living Waters

We are walking the path of this our dream world into the heart of earth.

EarthSinger says this.

But where does the chipmunk come into this? Scurrying across the meadow. Storing up seeds for the winter. Cheeks bulging. Two white stripes down the length of his back down the length of his tail. Chipmunk, do you know you are in this dream about the heart of the earth about rivers heart of heart of earth and living waters? Yes? Chipmunk?

We are dreaming
This

But enough of dreaming

Nothing but

Everything

Tree suspended midair
Boulder flying
Weightless
Eagle
Retriever

Retriever
Eagle
Heart of Earth

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3. Bear

As soon as I awakened I noticed the spider's web. And entered the woods. Through the web. Neither the web nor the woods had been there before I fell asleep. I'm sure of it. Perhaps I'm still dreaming. The web glistens across the upper window pane. Is it inside or out? The glistening suggests it's outside and has collected dew. From the woods, looking back, it's gone. So is the window. Typical of a dream. The web, the window, the woods. All those W's! And, of course, the wind. Which weaves in this remembrance of Borges:

To gaze at the river of time and water
And recall that time itself is another river,
To know we cease to be, just like the river,
And that our faces pass away, just like the water.

To feel that waking is another sleep
That dreams it does not sleep and that death,
Which our flesh dreads is that very death
Of every night, which we call sleep.

To see in the day or in the year a symbol
Of mankind's days and of his years,
To transform the outrage of the years
Into a music, a rumor and a symbol,

To see in death a sleep, and in the sunset
A sad gold, of such is Poetry
Immortal and a pauper. For Poetry
Returns like the dawn and the sunset.

At times in the afternoon a face
Looks at us from the depths of a mirror;
Art must be like that mirror
That reveals to us this face of ours.

They tell how Ulysses, glutted with wonders,
Wept with love to descry his Ithaca
Humble and green. Art is that Ithaca
Of green eternity, not of wonders.

It is also like the endless river
That passes and remains, a mirror for one same
Inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
And another, like an endless river.
(Jorge Luis Borges, in Ars Poetica)

Wavahh, says the wind
whispering Wavahh
the web on both sides,
visible only from the bed
from which I awakened,
not from the other side,
the woods,
yet it undulates
in waves along with
this wind, Wavahh...
On both sides though
I cannot now see it
in the woods
it is not there

Wavahh...

Dancing through woods wind curvature of air spiraling spiriting around through leaves beckoning onward sniff sniff Wavahh dancing shaft/shift of sunlight leaves oak maple dancing dangling ants where are you branch crackling my fur by stream streaming wrinkling water winding wind Wavahh dancing over there here fish flopping ARRR swishing umm slipping
silvering splashing boulder dancing resting here snaff ARRR Wavahh web waking window slithering is that a snake spider where are you spider

To gaze at the river of time and water
And recall that time itself is another river,
To know we cease to be, just like the river,
And that our faces pass away, just like the water.

We are walking the path of this our dream world into the heart of earth. Earth's heart is our heart. We are listening to the earth breathing as we breathe. Our inhalations and exhalations are one breath. We are walking the path of dreaming into the heart of the earth. Into the heart of earth's dream. She is spinning our dream into music. We are breathing earth's breath. Inhalation
and exhalation. Breathing in and breathing out. Earth's heart beats. Our hearts beat. We are walking the path of the dream of the earth.

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4. Spirit of Dream Time

Through the sky
the air redolent with the aroma of roses

This is the dream

Unhayah ya batu
Sinu Lavat meegish
albi albi senahma
Ya buta ashiman
Uv lem ya batu
Uv lem ya batu
Unhayah
Sishima byat nya
Legush shim ut -
Uv lem ya batu

Byamar lesh ka
Syamar besh la

Rrr Strala
Sss Sss Sss

Thus repeat the ritual
saying that stone
beneath stone
and again
beneath stone
sleeps noiseless
but minute crackling
as ice slips effortlessly
through veins mineral
vegetal
stone beneath
stone

Unhayah ya batu
Sinu lavat meegish
albi albi senahma
ya buta ashiman -
Uv lem ya batu
Uv lem ya batu
Unhayah

Through the sky

We walk on the clouds, the clouds sustain our weight. Blue above. White, grey, turquoise below and all around. Cloudwalking. From far below sounds ripple upwards, weaving patterns into the clouds, whorls of song design. Winds swirl. Mists rise. Rivers of rainbows as sunlight is diffracted through droplet after droplet. Hold on. Nothing to hold on to. Nothing here. Sound all around. Slipping. Sinking. Drifting. Dreaming.

Through the sky

Unhayah ya batu

Sinu lavat meegish
albi albi senahma
ya buta ashiman -
Uv lem ya batu
Uv lem ya batu
Unhayah

I am Spirit of Dream Time

I am dreaming this

Through sky
sky into earth
earth into sky
through earth
and sky

We are dreaming this.

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5. Harvey Lackawanna

'Om Vajra Bhumi Ah Hum! Now let the ground be spotlessly pure. Om Vajra Rekhe Ah Hum! Now let an iron wall arise with Hum in the centre. To the east, south, west and north lie the four continents interspaced with four pairs of lesser continents, andalso the Mountain of Precious Substances, the Wishing Tree, the Wishing Cow, the Unploughed Harvest, the Precious Wheel, the Precious Jewel, the Precious Queen, the Precious Minister, the Precious Elephant, the Precious and Best of Horses and the Precious General. Also present, are the Great Treasure Vase, the Lady of Gestures, the Lady of Garlands, the Lady of Song, the Lady of Dance, the Lady of Flowers, the Lady of Incense, the Lady of Lights and the Lady of Perfume. There are besides the Sun and Moon, the Umbrella of Precious Substances and the Banner of Victory.'

'Om Vajra Bhumi Ah Hum! Om Vajra Rekhe Ah Hum!'

'I pray you out of your compassion to accept these offerings for the sake of all sentient beings. I pray you, having accepted them, graciously to bestow your blessings upon all.' (The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet, John Blofeld)

We are a river. We are a river of listening angels responsive to the least noticeable sound of joy or sorrow. We are a river of spirits sounding prayers into the depths of mystery. We are a river of smiling Buddhas forever sitting in compassionate peace under one billion stars which appear shining as the one great enraptured Bo tree. We are river... r?vers, splitters of all dualities into the multitudinous manifestations of human souls living, dying, suffering, delighting, bubbling into the ocean dream of the One, the singlemost point of connection among all the droplets of water. We are river.

"That Buddha's former vow was,
'After my passage into extinction,
wherever I am, wherever I go,
there may my purpose be to listen to dharma.'"

I have lived this life before. I have dreamed this dream before. Before time and before space the whorls of light began.

Uh. Hiya. Harvey Lackawanna here. I am the Buddha. Ha. Uh. Hiya. Sounds serious. All wrapped up within. Within earshot. Within crawling distance. Then there's Norman's MCI experience. It goes like this:

One of his projects during the summer of 1997 was the task of porting his Music: Imagination & Technique software from its DOS version into Windows 95. Most of the sound functions in Windows were easy to implement, but there were some obscurities in handling some of the more advanced digital audio calls. These were all associated with what Microsoft labels "Media Control Interface" - MCI, for short. For some strange reason, there was little readily accessible information about the advanced MCI functions. So he devoted a considerable amount of time to scouring the Internet and bookstores for any titbit of information that could shed light on using the MCI.

Sometime toward the middle of July, he went to his local Barnes & Noble in a last-ditch effort to find something, even though he'd been there several times earlier. He was in the store about an hour, and came across a couple books with some possibly useful information. But he was late for something else and had to leave.

When he got out to his van to unlock the passenger side door (the driver's side door had a broken lock - he couldn't unlock it with the key), there, on the parking lot pavement, staring blatantly up at him, was something that looked like a little advertisement sign, about 6" x 12", with the large block-print letters in glowing reflector orange: "MCI". He now has this object in his possession. It is a magnetized rubber panel that must have been on a truck or van, but wherever and whenever it came from, its appearance at that time, given his preoccupation with MCI, was nothing short of absurdly miraculous.

Um. So that's a true story. So they say. So I say. And regarding the numerology of MCI, I say that, as a Roman Numeral, MCI is 1101. 1101 devolves to 3. Or it could also be thought of as 13 in binary. 13 devolves to 4. M is the 13th letter. C is the 3rd. I is the 9th. Together these add up to 25. 25 devolves to 7. 7 plus 3 equals 10. 10 devolves to 1. 3... 7... 1...

Gate, gate,
Paragate
Parasamgate
Bhodi suaha

In the Tarot, 3 is the Empress, 7 is The Chariot, 1 is the Magician.

With regard to the Empress, "...until we learn to experience the outer world completely we cannot hope to transcend it. Therefore the first step to enlightenment is sensuality. Only through passion, can we sense, from deep inside rather than through intellectual argument, the spirit that fills all existence." (Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, A Book of Tarot by Rachel Pollack, p. 42)

"A river flows from the trees behind her to disappear beneath her seat. This river is the force of life, running like a great current beneath all the separate forms of reality, and experienced most fully when we give ourselves to unrestrained passion. Deep in our selves we can sense the rhythm of a river, carrying us forward through experience until, with death, our individual lives
return to the sea of existence." (Ibid. p. 43)

"Certain experiences, especially mystical union with spirit, cannot be described. Language can only hint at them with metaphors and fables. People who rely totally on speech have even gone so far as to insist that non-verbal experiences, or experiences which cannot be measured by psychological tests, do not exist. This is simply because they cannot be scientifically described. Such dogmatism receives its perfect symbol in the charioteer's merging with his stone wagon." (Ibid, p. 62)

"The Magician emerges very directly from the Fool in the image of the trickster wizard.. For many people the Magician can become a strong personal symbol for the creative force throughout their lives." (Ibid, pp. 29, 32)

I am, yes I am, Buddha. Ha! Bet you thought I couldn't come up with these ideas! Well, granted, they're not all mine. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Ione. And Rachel Pollack. And John Blofield. Among others.

Ha. Hiya. Harvey Lackawanna here. We are river.

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6. Anima

Teaching about the logarithmic spiral, asking a class about the flight pattern of a moth around a lightbulb...

In the medieval monastery town of Cluny, central France, southern part of the province of Burgandy. In a valley, surrounded by green-forested hills with patterns of fields delineated by ancient walls and hedges. Country of chateaux, peaceful farmlands, singing birds.

What remains of the Abby gives only an inkling of its former grandeur: one bell-tower and another tower over one wing of the transept.

The logarithmic spiral, the flight pattern of a moth...

How these come to me, from the stone and from the water, from the plants, the leaves and petals, the flowering jacaranda, or was that simply the plain daisy in disguise?

Phrases I've been thinking about: The membrane of consciousness. Dreams, dreams, dreams... Transmutation of dreams. In the balance of dreams.

Chipmunk, do you know you are in this dream about the heart of the earth about rivers heart of heart of earth and living waters? Yes? Chipmunk?

I pray for the dancing light
I pray for flowers
and the quicksand
I pray for angels
and yes for the chipmunk
and above all for the
waters of the world
for the "ripples winding
around the
waters of the world." (from The Far Field by Theodore Roethke)
I pray for the dream
within this dream
waking into
"the country of our waking."
"Then came I entire to this moment,
process and light,
To discover the country
of our waking
breaking open." (from Breaking Open by Muriel Rukeyser)

Music is like that. And dreams. I remember meeting an ant in the meadow while I was kneeling in half prayer. The ant, startled to see such as myself, started to run away. But I called to it in the gentlest of my voices and it calmed down and returned to me. "Where were you going?" I asked. "Oh, the usual, the usual," it said. "And what may I call you?" "Please, if you will, my name is Avinope." And now we are best of friends, for he too enjoys this music and is likely to break into dance at the least sound of it.

I pray for Avinope
and all his kin.
And that cat Geoffrey
of one Christopher Smart.
I pray for all the music.
And, yes, for the cactus.
And the butterfly.

"Sail, Monarchs, rising and falling
orange merchants in spring’s flowery markets!
Messengers of March in warm currents of news floating,
flitting into areas of aroma,
tracing out of air unseen roots and branches of sense
I share in thought,
filaments woven and broken where the world might light
casual certainties of me. There are

echoes of what I am in what you perform
this morning. How you perfect my spirit!
almost restore
an imaginary tree of the living in all its doctrines
by fluttering about,
intent and easy as you are, the profusion of you!
Awakening transports of an inner view of things."
(Robert Duncan, "Roots and Branches")

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7. Raven

Twenty-two Foundation Letters
fixed on the wheel at 231 Gates
the wheel turns forward and back

The mark of a thing/word:
if good nothing is greater than happiness
if evil nothing is worse than torture

Twenty-two letters He:
   Lawed
   Carved
   Weighted
   Combined
     ALEF with all of them
   Combined them and made
   the soul of all made things
   and the soul of all things to be made

How did He weigh them and combine them?

ALEF with all of them
all with ALEF

BET with all of them
all with BET

   and so with all of them
   returning empty
   going out from 231 Gates
   so that the souls of all made things
   and all speech
   comes out of one Name

He made the Distinct from the Indistinct
made the Nothing Something
carved great rocks from the air that has no substance

The three Mothers   ALEF   MEM   SHIN
are like a scales           one plate for what is earned
                                    one for what is owed

the tongue of law keeps them apart

The three Mothers   ALEF   MEM   SHIN
are a great secret
covered    wondrous    hidden    by six rings
Fire    Water and Wind come out of them
dividing into male and female

Know Consider and Be Silent
Fire bears Water

The three Mothers ALEF MEM SHIN
the birth of the sky is from fire
the birth of the air is from wind
the birth of the earth is from water

Fire above water beneath
the tongue of law keeps them apart

From them Fathers were born
and from them All was made

The three Mothers   ALEF   MEM   SHIN
are       in the world    Wind    Water    and Fire
            the sky made from Fire
            the earth made from Water
            the air from Wind keeps them apart

The three Mothers   ALEF   MEM   SHIN
are       in the year    heat    cold    and wet
            heat    made from Fire
            cold    made from Water
            wet     made from Wind    keeps them apart

The three Mothers   ALEF   MEM   SHIN
are       in the being head    belly    and organ
            the head made from Fire
            the belly made from Water
            the organ made from Wind keeping them apart

The three Mothers   ALEF   MEM   SHIN
               She/He         lawed them
               carved them
               combined them
               sealed by them

The three Mothers ALEF MEM SHIN
are in the world

The three Mothers ALEF MEM SHIN
are in the year

The three Mothers ALEF MEM SHIN
are in the being male and female

She/He made the letter ALEF king in the air    crowned it
         combined the letters one with another
         made by it:
                         air        in the world
                        wet       in the year
                        organ    in the living being    male and female

She/He made the letter MEM king in the water
         crowned it
         combined the letters one with another
         made by it:
                         earth     in the world
                         cold      in the year
                         belly     in the living being    male and female

She/He made the letter SHIN king in fire
         crowned it
         combined the letters one with another
         made by it:
                         sky       in the world
                         heat      in the year
                         head     in the living being    male and female

How did She/He combine them?
                                                ALEF    MEM     SHIN
                                                ALEF    SHIN     MEM
                                                MEM    ALEF     SHIN
                                                MEM    SHIN      ALEF
                                                SHIN    ALEF     MEM
                                                SHIN    MEM     ALEF

              Sky=Fire    head=Fire
              Air=Wind    belly=Water
              Earth=Water heart=Wind

The three Mothers    ALEF    MEM    SHIN
    made with
ALEF    Wind    Air    Wet    Organ    lawed Tongue between

made with
MEM Water Earth Cold Belly plate for what is owned

made with
SHIN Fire Sky Heat Head plate for what is owed

These are ALEF MEM SHIN

(From "The Sefer Yetzira" The Book of Creation, a Hebrew text of the mystic tradition (Neo-Pythagorean), c. third-sixth centuries A.D. Text: The four texts in Sefer Yetzira, Lewin-Epstein Publishers, Jerusalem, 1965. In Origins, Creation Text from the Ancient Mediterranean co-Edited and Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Charles Doria and Harris Lenowitz, Anchor Books, 1976)

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8. Lion

Let me tell you the story of our origin.

Now one day, Sun was out dancing through the Sky, dancing to the drumming, as usual, when Old Void came along. Old Void was angry because, while everything was made out of Void, Old Void felt ignored and hated. Old Void thought that everyone else thought Void was ugly and maybe even evil. So Old Void went around stealing everyone's drum. It took a long time, but eventually there wasn't any drumming anymore, and just as had been predicted, life stopped.

You can imagine what it was like. A big silence. No life. Nothing. Just the Void. After awhile, Old Void began to think that this wasn't such a good idea. Now there wasn't anyone or anything around to pay any kind of attention to Void, and so Old Void began to get lonely. Things seemed empty and sad.

But what Old Void didn't know was that there were things behind the silence and behind Void, hiding, gathering together, slowly forming a new kind of life. They came out of Nothing and started planning how they could get the drums back. They knew Old Void would be curious about any kind of sound, so what they did was to learn how to sing.

It came slowly, but finally Inua Yua learned how to hum. It came out of Nowhere, just like the drumming had, and it seemed pretty effective. So others learned how to do it. Spirit of the Dream Time began singing, then Bear joined in, and Earth-Singer. Also Fox and Raven. Soon everyone was in on it.

Now life was going again and everything singing. Old Void heard the singing and so intrigued, went to see what it was about. Old Void liked the sound so much that Old Void agreed to never steal the drums again if they would teach Void how to sing. So they did. And Void gave the drums back and began singing. And now everything accepted Old Void for what Void was and no longer thought Void was so ugly. They realized Old Void had just been lonely.

So to the people, Inua Yua said: "You must keep on singing and drumming. These things will keep you alive and will keep you from being afraid of Old Void." And Inua Yua, together with all the others, taught the people how to make images of everything that could sing, so they could remember what life was about and how to keep it going. And how to have courage. So the people made masks and learned how to do this ceremony.

This is why we have masks that sing.
This is why we tell this story.
So we may remember.
So we may have courage.

This is the way it should be in our minds.

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9. Fox

Walking up to our front door, we come upon a dead yellow-shafted flicker lying on the ground. Its presence there is a mystery, since our cats are indoors and there is nothing for the bird to fly into above where it is lying. But we accept it as a gift, for use of its feathers. We have not, however, plucked a whole bird before, and we don't feel up to dealing with it right now. So we put it in the basement, fully intending to remove the feathers tomorrow. Several days pass.

We have a dream. We meet an old friend outside a movie theater. She says it's about time we do something with that flicker, since it is beginning to stink. So, in this dream, we go down to the basement and clip the flicker's wings and de-feather it. We notice nothing unusual during this process, but when finished, we see a spot of blood in the palm of our left hand. We think that this is peculiar, not having seen any blood from the bird. Then we realize that the blood is from our own nose. We think: this is just like what happened at South Hill. We awaken.

Two years prior to this dream we are on an outing to explore South Hill, a place overlooking Canadaigua Lake, which several sources refer to as the birthplace of the Seneca Nation. We are there two or three hours and are returning to the car, scattered around a big field. We are walking through a patch of tall grasses and suddenly come upon a bare spot of earth that has a collection of small bones in it. We lean down to examine the bones, pick up one or two of them, and our nose starts to bleed all over the pile. We don’t have a cold. We haven’t bumped our nose on anything. We haven’t had a nose bleed for years. This is the incident referred to in the flicker dream.

The day after our dream, we do indeed take care of the flicker. Because of the dream, we are careful to observe whether or not there is any bleeding. We see none. But when we finish clipping its wings and de-feathering it, we notice a patch of blood in the palm of our right hand. The blood is not from our nose, but a close reexamination of the bird reveals that there is a bit of blood coming from its nostrils.

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10. Spirit of the Voice in the River

In and out of sleep.

Dreamed that I was reporting this dream to the group - holding up an egg - perfect in every detail and luminous. It catches light and holds it, changing into rainbow colors. The egg is also and eye. I associate the phrase “Eye of the storm” with this eye/egg.

I’m in a large meadow. There are wild strawberries everywhere and I am enjoying eating them immensely. A large crow flies low overhead and I decide to follow. She leads me through some woods to the entrance to a cave.

     East             Weasel       Stealth
     South           Frog           Cleansing
     West             Grouse      Sacred Spiral
     North           Spider       Weaving
     Above           Owl            Deception
     Below           Turtle        Mother Earth
     Within          Swan         Grace

     Left              Hawk
     Right            Bear

Into the cave. Not clear most of the time. Palatial at times. Glowing, jewel-like. I first see a green light. Before long I realize that what I will find in this cave is my mother. I weep. The cave is sometimes full of stalactites and stalagmites. I have to put on various ceremonial robes. Within all the swirling is the realization that I am reliving my life backwards - to infancy - to birth - the cave is a womb. I am reborn.

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11. Loon Spirit

We lift it up to the Moon at Night and to the Sun during the Day. Our Song and Cry. From all the Lakes upon whose Shores we Dance, we Dream into another Dream. How curious is our Enrapture. I have dreamed this in Poetry which reminds of Yeats:

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamourous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away? (The Wild Swans at Coole by W.B. Yeats)

We lift it up to the Moon at Night and to the Sun during the Day. Our Song and Cry. From all the Lakes upon whose Shores we Dance, we Dream into another Dream. How curious is our Enrapture.

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12. Blue Oracle

In light the darkness surrounds.
In darkness the light surrounds

In center the light broadens
In center the darkness thickens

We do not fear this

In grass we weep
In sand we laugh

In height we dance
In depth we collapse

We do not fear this

"Wherever
we walk
we will make

Wherever
we protest
we will go planting

Make poems
seed grass
feed a child growing
build a house
Whatever we stand against
We will stand feeding and seeding

Wherever
I walk
I will make" (Wherever by Muriel Rukeyser)

The eagle simply lifts off the ground with a strength of wing nearly unimaginable and is gone into the sky. Some 50 or 60 feet into the air it becomes a tree, roots, trunk, branches, an oak suspended in midair, every leaf finely etched against a cloudless sky. The branches are supporting a boulder of immense weight. The effect is of mammoth density and heaviness floating weightless.

We do not fear this

Bedeviled by the light
on surfaces of moss,
from interiors of fibers
glowing on rocks,
I see green hair
embrace the sun.

I am transmuted
by a shimmer of gold

Moss-light sifts through
the cells of my brain
and grows, stretches,
rages, dies.

We do not fear this

On a cliff face
one hundred feet
over gently serrated
blue-gray waves,
we sit, wind’s force
full in our faces
like pressure of
rampant starlight
in dream:

that inevitable
insistent voice
inside us
both says:
"Jump. Leap.
Fly. You
can fly!
Yes.
Fly!"

We are held, however,
by lion's roar
delirium of
black-eyed susans,
intensely swaying
bodies and heads,
tenderly, wildly,
out and over
devouring space,
above water.

We do not fear this

Magic

in moon's arc
behind
sea
of
clouds:
Death hangs
on the
scythe:
now you see it
now you don't

We do not fear this

"And who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer’s evening, among the sounds of the night." (James Agee, A Death in the Family)

We do not fear this

Fusion and dispersion:
furled bud compacted,
bare dream of bloom.

Photon compressed, zero,
nightmare energy
inside light...

In nothing is...
everything:
pressure:

luminous
black-soft
wind.

I cannot hear my
parents' cries in
their moment
of love...

cannot hear furious
atoms falling
back into
nothing.

But I have heard a subtle
suspiration that shakes
mountains and oceans.

I am listening to the
incisive music
of flesh rent from
the heart of...

empty...

space.

We do no fear

Elm tree in winter in spring
In height it spars
gray-brained folds of
snow and snares
tickling crystal spikes,
an electric tracery of sparks
frozen against the heart of
the sky's thorny rage.

Through the window
a filtered sizzling
of shimmering
emerald elves
                sing:
                       Listen....
                       Listen....
                       Listen....

Listen

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13. Inua Yua

In this silence.

The great stillness.

Images emerge from the deep source:
pine tree...
birds.

All the earth, the air:
rootedness and
flight.

I sing myself to sleep
night after night
my voice becomes choral,
polyphonous:

hope, passion,
blood
chatter
insensate drumming
stream to the sea
history, people,
the rich
the poor
dying
the crackle of paper
names
marching to money
soldiers
flight of geese
a gesture of human warmth

birth
baby's cry
still the moon's mystery

a tree
shaking its needles
receiving birds

past and present

dancing the repetitions
rhythms
of life
death

Oh, yes, I want immortality
the tree in me says

balm of completeness
a sparrow alights on the tip of a branch
together they sway
branch and bird
at the exact moment
a wave of light
moves from behind
the shadow
of a
cloud.

In this silence

the language
of dream

of...

forever...

for now...

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Contact:
nlowrey@drew.edu