Song from a Dream – “My Queen’s Soul Lies Naked”

Tags

ancient rituals, chants, Dreams, nursery rhymes, poetry, songs

Henri Rousseau – Il Sogno

My dreams have always been enticingly rich and evocative. Often it’s as if I’m watching an elaborate film in gorgeous Technicolor, exquisitely choreographed. Sometimes I am a character in that film. But often I’m standing outside the action, waiting to see what happens.

When we were sailing my dreams were especially vivid. One morning I woke with a song playing in my mind that had been sung in my dream by the people of some ancient kingdom. It was almost as if they were chanting it, as if they were singing something that had been handed down to them over the ages, something to be sung on special occasions.

I had the feeling upon waking that something momentous was about to take place. A royal wedding? A coronation? A sacred initiation?

Upon waking I wrote down all that I remembered—which is quite unlike anything else I’ve written. But all these years later, I am still mesmerized by its beauty.

Truly, it is not mine, but something I overheard. It’s time I share it.

Song from A Dream

Five golden rings adorn her toes,
But the Queen’s sole lies naked.

Garlands of lilies lace buttocks to hips,
But between them her belly beckons.

Sashes of satin encircle her waist,
But her legs lie loose and languid.

Sapphires and rubies stream from her neck,
But her breasts are bare as mountains.

Bracelets of silver ring her wrists,
But her arms are free and fervent.

Rivers of ribbon flow through her hair
But her back is a gleaming dessert.

Ashes of coal shadow her lids,
But her eyes are two burning candles.

Juice from wild cherries stain her lips,
But her breath is the Khamsin blowing.

Mysteries and marvels flow from her mouth,
But my Queen’s soul lies naked.

I don’t know what the song means, if anything. It reminds me of a favorite nursery rhyme:

With rings on her fingers, and bells on her toes,
She shall make music wherever she goes.

This nursery rhyme has no meaning that I know. Nonetheless, its playful images are so enticing.

This dream fragment may be like that. But I sense there’s something deeper going on, which the play on the words sole and soul in the first and last lines calls to mind—a reminder perhaps that for all our attempts to adorn ourselves, our most pleasing and precious parts, our very essence, our souls, perhaps, are best seen naked.

What do you think? Is this a meaningless but pleasing rhyme? Or something deeper?

Your guess is as good as mine. I was only taking dictation.

Dreaming of Death—Oops, Bears

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Bears, death, dream interpretations, dream symbols, Dreams, Humor, rebirth, renewal

I’m going to die. Soon.

That’s what I thought, waking one morning, remembering three distinct dreams, each in which I was suddenly “taken.”

In the first, I was whisked away by a whirlwind that dropped out of the sky. In the next two, bears got me.

The dreams were so vivid and similar, I was sure they meant something significant. Knowing the best interpreter of any dream is the dreamer, I asked myself:

“What do YOU think it means?”

“It means I’m going to die!” was my answer.

This realization was so disturbing, tears sprung to my eyes. It’s too soon, surely! I have a lot of living yet to do. I’m not ready.

It wasn’t my first dream of death, or bears. Only a week ago I had a similar vivid dream of being chased by a bear in our garden. Fortunately, in that dream I managed to escape. It was my husband who got gobbled.

This dream fed my certainty that bears must symbolize death in dreams. I rushed to my computer. A quick google search confirmed my fate.

Bears do symbolize death!

Among other things, I learned as I searched further. Like rebirth and renewal.

Ever the optimist, I latched onto that explanation. Perhaps I wasn’t dreaming of my real death. Perhaps it was only symbolic. The death of my “little self,” and the rebirth of a brand new shiny me. What a relief!

This new interpretation seemed even more likely when I recalled that in the last two bear dreams I was walking with a “little sister” who was dragged away, kicking and screaming, before I was taken. But when the bear came back to grab me, surprisingly, its paw was soft as it led me away.

I realized then in my dream that I had been “chosen.” The bear was taking me on a journey and I was no longer afraid. In fact, the bear was so amiable that when I worried about leaving unprepared, he let me go home to grab a coat.

I was certain this must be the correct interpretation of my dreams since bears also act as spirit guides and signify fresh beginnings.

Still, the “death” scare lingered.

So I decided to share the dreams with my husband. Just in case. That way, if I did suddenly expire, he’d have a good story to share:

“Well, you know, she dreamed about her death only days ago!”

I didn’t tell him about the dream where he got gobbled. No need to alarm him.

Besides, that would make a good story for me. You know. “Just in case.”

[NOTE TO READERS – If this blog goes dark, you too have a good story!]

A Dream Within a Dream Within a . . .

Tags

choosing our paths, Dreams, Insight, magical thinking, Metaphysics, reality, waking up

My daughter’s wedding day had arrived and everything that could go wrong went wrong.  We arrived at the church only to discover no one had come to decorate it. The food we’d ordered was half-prepared.  My daughter showed up in her beautiful gown, but we’d forgotten to get her hair done or her make-up.  It was so horrible, we cancelled the wedding and sent everyone home. The wedding party climbed into a car and was driving away when my daughter said, “Stop! I can’t take this anymore, I just want it over!”

So she forced the car to pull over at a tiny diner and announced that’s where she was getting married.  I tried to talk her into going to someplace nicer, where it wasn’t so shabby and dirty. But she insisted. I remembered how I had planned to hang all the beautiful photos of her wedding on our walls at home. But how could we take photos of this! My worst nightmare was happening and it was all my fault. I shouldn’t have left the wedding planning up to her. I should have taken charge. I should have had a check-off list and made sure everything had turned our as planned. But it was too late. I screwed up. And now all my dreams for her wedding were ruined.

Then I woke up with a raging headache. And a sense of doom I could not shake.

It was crazy! Why was I having this dream?  My daughter had already had the most beautiful wedding imaginable just last year.  And she had planned it all!  I hadn’t had to lift a finger. Why would I be worried about her wedding?

Then I had a flash of insight. One after the other.

#1 Flash of Insight

This was just a dream! There had never been a reason to be so upset and despondent.  I could have changed the dream at any point–decorated the church, fixed her hair. I could have created the perfect wedding, if only I had realized I was dreaming. If only I had known I had the power to do so.

#2 Flash of Insight

This dream wasn’t about my daughter! It’s about my son. About the terrible addiction that has ruined his life, the beautiful life I had dreamed for him. And I blamed myself.  I shouldn’t have left something as important as his life up to him! I should have taken charge. I should have planned better. But now everything was ruined and there was nothing I could do about it.

#3 Flash of Insight

Maybe I’m still dreaming!  I remember how real it all seemed in my dream. Like it was really happening.  So much so that even when I woke, I couldn’t shake the sense of sadness and failure. Maybe I will wake up and find out that this is all just a dream of addiction.  Maybe in “reality,” he’s living the perfect life I’d always wanted for him, just as my daughter had had her perfect wedding.

Maybe I’d wake to find him in his perfect house with his loving wife, surrounded by his beautiful children, happy and healthy.  He’d flash me a big grin and put his arms around me and say, “Silly mama. Why so sad? You were just dreaming!”

#4 Flash of Insight

But if I can’t wake up, maybe I can at least practice lucid-dreaming, wake up enough to know this isn’t real, and that I can change things, if I could only figure out how. It’s possible, right? Isn’t change possible?

#5 Flash of Insight

Maybe this is what they call “magical thinking.”

I keep thinking of those talks by Alan Watts that I posted here not long ago. He talks about the interconnectivity of the universe and how it has evolved into human consciousness–how the very cells of our bodies and brains are made of star stuff. We are the eternal universe, he tells us. Each of us, individually, is a pinprick of the whole, and altogether we are the whole itself.

Is believing this more fantastic, more “magical,” than believing in the Big Bang in the first place? Or that an infinite number of galaxies are spinning out in space, or being gobbled up by black holes? Or more magical than the “fact” of all those electrons and neutrons spinning in the cells of our bodies like tiny galaxies?  What could be more fantastical or magical than reality! The reality we accept on “faith” because we believe what science has revealed to us.

Watts also mentioned this possibility: That we each are sparks of the divine–whatever force that created all we know–living an infinite number of lives over and over.  Sometimes we choose easy paths, sometimes difficult ones.  Sometimes we just want to see how much we can take, how far we can push ourselves, how bad it can get before we turn ourselves around.

Did my son choose his path? Did I choose mine?  Are there layers of reality, as I wrote about in my last post? Are our night dreams and waking dreams just various stages in the ever-expanding understanding of who we really are? Will we wake to another understanding of reality and realize this life is just a dream within a dream within a dream . . . and each life is just as “real” or as “magical” as the next one?

We once believed the earth was flat and the distant ocean spilled off into nothingness. Later that the sun circled the earth, and we felt smug and special at the center of the universe.  Then we woke up.

What more will we come to understand about reality–the universe and ourselves–as the eons unfold?

Wake up, Deborah, wake up.