Lia Ling

This was a dream within a dream.

Interior/first dream: I am at home, but home is slightly different from now. The windows are open. A dining table and chairs sits in the middle of a living room. Something begins coming through the open window and out of fear I hide under the table. It’s a burgundy machine, and from my place watching I can’t tell what it is until the very end. It’s very loud. Whatever it is, some type of crane, retreats and leaves a child in a walker in its place. She’s just of walking age and looks East Asian. I’m immediately thrilled at panicked at the same time. She’s a foster child that we’re testing out for adoption, and it turns out her arrival is very early and in conflict with the life I had planned. Nick’s grandparents come to visit and celebrate the baby. Her name is Lia Ling. We have her for a year and thought everything was on track legally for us to keep her, we become a family, but then an adoption agent comes to take her back. I am a wreck.

I wake up, except I only think I’m awake. I’m in another dream but aware of the last dream, to the point of thinking of it as a dream and even describing it to others. My grandmother is in the dream living in Texas, except that she’s in Darla Shaw’s body. My grandmother is taking me to a wedding and I have no clothes. She takes me to storage space and once we walk inside it expands like a Hobbit home. It’s like a giant warehouse inside, filled with clothes. My grandmother tells me to pick whatever I want and we can come back when I need to. I think to myself about how rare it is for her to actually come through. I tell her about my dream with Lia Ling and how me and Nick had to adopt because he had Klinefelter’s. Later the dream fast-forwards. There’s someone who works a security guard in the complex where we live in this dream, and I don’t think much of him. I always thought he was a blithering fool with no real depth. He’s short with dusty hair. Nick’s grandparents have just arrived for a visit in this dream. Me and this man are outside after running into each other in the parking lot. I start telling him my previous dream from start to finish and get to the part about Nick’s grandparents visiting and start crying hysterically. I realize that part of the dream came true, that I dreamed of his grandparents the night before they arrived, and that it means other parts are true. I realize that he really does have Klinefelter’s, and we won’t be able to have children, and that adopting for whatever reason will be harder for us than others. I am distraught, crying to the point of screaming in the parking lot. The man tries to console me and says things that really leave him and his past exposed, but I can’t remember what they are. I realize I was wrong about him and then start walking away, still crying.

I woke up from this so sad that I went back to sleep just because I knew I had to write it down and couldn’t fathom the thought of sitting with it yet.

Dallas Pride

Dream:

I don’t remember much. I was in Bishop Arts and noticed a lot of LGBTQ people. I started to talking to someone and they said that after Cedar Springs, Bishop Arts is the second gayest part of Dallas. I didn’t know that, but it seemed to make a lot of sense in the dream. Suddenly, the streets filled with people. The city was throwing a second Pride parade at that very moment. Colors erupted everywhere. I think the the only reasons I had this dream are 1. because Pride was last weekend and 2. because I wrote a poem last night for a fabulous couple who were my favorite patrons of the night. I noticed a lot more gay couples last night in Bishop Arts than usual and it made me happy (in real life). I guess since I missed Pride in the awake time, the dream world decided to be kind and give me my own parade.

Today’s cards:

Frida decided to sit right on the arch of the cards while I was drawing, so after pulling those two I said, “I guess that’s it for today!” My personal guide and the Bright Mother. Beautiful day ahead! How funny that she should turn up on the day of a supermoon eclipse!

Small aside, the night before I recorded that in a dream my mother visited me. Yesterday she surprised me and showed up at my house! She lives over an hour away and has only been over a handful of times. It was nice to show her the dream that I had typed earlier yesterday morning where she was visiting 🙂

Spirit Boy and Cat Fight

Dream 1:

My mother is in my house and I suddenly notice a little boy in our papasan chair. He’s between 10-12, with his legs drawn up, just watching me. I see him and get the chills because I know he’s a spirit. He’s not wearing a shirt and has beads on his head. He dressed as if from Africa, but I’m not sure what part. I assume where my father’s people are from. I turn to my mother and whisper in her ear — “Do you see a boy in that chair?” She looks at me quizzically and shakes her head no. At some point my mother leaves the room and the boy and I are alone. I sit on the bed and he walks up to me. He says many things, but I can only remember the meat of our conversation. It went one of two ways — He either told me that he was one of my spirit guides, and his name is Ayine (Aye-yin-ae), or that he was my son, soon to come to me in the seen world, and I should name him Ayine. I feel very strongly that it was the second one, but I don’t see how that would be possible.

Dream 2:

All the windows in our house are open. A large, fuzzy, orange cat is in the back yard. He sees me see him and runs to the front. I have the door open and I rush to close it. He is the tormentor cat of the neighborhood. I must fight him from coming inside. He has a cat posse behind him. I then need to intercede between he and my own cat, Diego. They fight through the open window and I worry about their claws tearing down the screen. I close the window.

Today’s cards:

It’s interesting how Honesty and Ilbe were right beside each other in the deck before I pulled them out — they’re numbers 40 and 41. This isn’t the first time this has happened with them. Honesty could refer to my writing for others tonight, but I think he’s linked to G. Hobyah in being honest with myself and addressing my fears. I think Death signifies the end of my old ways. My Living Gandhi project is going to bring about many changes. Last night alone, I had to decline going out to drink with two different sets of people, and it felt good. In addition to ending things, Death signifies new beginnings. She’s right beside She of the Cruach — also representing nurturing and positive change. I think G. Hobyah tells me about lingering fears I may have about this new phase. People are going to fall away and I may feel less connected to the seen world of people. The Guardian at the Gate also represents a new phase of life. After passing through the gate, there’s no going back to old ways. Much of the reading could signify my wedding coming up next week. Ilbe brings back that which was thought lost. For so long I’ve been caught up in the physical world. Meditating and communing with Spirit was a big part of my life. This is its return.

Coyote and Dog

Dream: I’m bending down with my right knee and right hand on the ground. Suddenly, there’s a coyote in the space between my arm touching the ground. It’s standing facing away from me. Someone is yelling at me from the distance to watch out, or some form of warning, but I’m not scared at all. I can’t see the coyote’s face, because it’s behind me–but I look at it’s back that’s in front of me, the grey and black and brown in the fur. It’s beautiful and I stroke it. I don’t feel an inch of fear. I don’t worry what will happen when it turns around or how it suddenly arrived in my arms.

I’m not sure if the dream shifted and I’m missing pieces or if this is a completely different dream. I’m sitting in the corner of a building on top of many pillows, probably the height of a car. A friend (not in real life) is running around a block for exercise and I can see him pass me each round. Just before he gets to me, a large, black dog jumps one of the house’s fences, jumps it back in, and jumps back out to run beside him. As they approach, instead of running beside the man the dog runs straight over to me, happy tongue hanging out. As it gets closer, my friend calls out, “Be careful, that’s not my dog!” But again, I’m not scared at all. The dog jumps onto my pillows and I immediately reach out and hug it, pet it, talk to it lovingly. It’s excited and happy and soaks up the love. It looks like a mix between a black lab and Australian cattle dog, but with longer fur. It’s shiny black with strands of brown in its large head around the ears. I am ecstatic in the dream–so much so that when the alarm went off this morning at this part I was really upset.

coyote poem

he comes in dreams.
always out of place. never-
changing shape-shifter
shows true face when alone
with lost girl. never speaks.
never shows teeth. so silent
with those burning eyes.
when he chased me in awake-
time i was not ready to see him
in the flesh. afraid, i fled.
failed easy test. he forgives
and still tries to send message
i do not know how to get.
my power is blocked and i forgot
ways to release and receive.
he comes to help me unlock dormant
strength but does not instruct
how to use key. my hand reaches
for his and he lets it fall
to my lap, laughs–so proud
of his tricks. he will not gift
wisdom to those who cannot hear
his music. his song is of transition.
i try to listen but cannot translate
his silence into words. a piece of me
must be unearthed to see his howl
reach the moon. the urgency of
his message has no room for games
and yet when he ran beside me
in the park his eyes were all play.
he smiled at my fear. mr. paradox,
grows closer and more distant at once.
this morning while my body dreamed
in the sun he appeared in my arms.
large head stayed turned away.
my fingers strayed all across his back,
felt each brown/grey/white/black
strand beneath my hands breathe.
felt his heart beat into my chest.
he would not show those burning eyes.
they say he unmasks lies,
makes you fight to know the truth.
my greatest fear is that he’ll leave
before revealing why he came.

Snow and Zebras

1. I am sweeping snow from my backyard. Near the fence with the dogs it’s too thick and I give up and move on–in the back is very thin and it sweeps easier. As I move along the back to Matthew’s fence it gets very thin and sweeps easy. It’s not real snow–a movie was filmed in our back yard. Near the tree is a plastic peep hole. I suddenly become afraid of snakes and stop.

2. I’m in the house we shared with Raymond in my old bunk bed. Hussein and I are watching TV on the bottom bunk and a zebra walks in. I tell him to put down his head and we huddle close while it walks to the head of the bed and smells + licks our hair. Fast forward: I’m in a building and know the workers. The workers are hiding zoo animals for their protection. I’m not sure who they were hiding the animals from. One lady attached fake outer cabinets doors to a cabinet space that was totally open inside. She hid a water bird with other birds in the space.

Dogs and Dragons and Writing

I’ve been ::horrible:: at writing my dreams. Here’s to change…

I am in a home that’s not my home. It seems like a conglomeration of all the houses I have lived in. This first part of the dream looks like the PA house. Both my mother and Nick live there, as well as my bothers and sisters. Only my minimees and I are home in the beginning. I walk through the house and notice a giant German Shepard. I immediately turn around and go to the room where all the kids happen to be. They’re their younger selves, PA ages, and I’m as I am now. I tell them there’s a big dog in the house and we can’t leave the room. I wait until the dog is isolated in one part of the house and close the door giving it access to our side. Then, suddenly it’s locked in the garage. I check and see puppies come out of hidden spaces. Then they’re suckling on their mother, five of them. My mom arrives home and I tell her but she doesn’t believe me until she sees herself. When she looks into the garage three puppies have died and two remain. I can’t find the bodies. I convince her to let them in from the garage and we lock them in a small room between rooms, but eventually they roam free. I pet the mother. I cautiously take her for a walk using a plain red rope. I fear how she’ll react when I try to control her, but she walks down the street with no issue. The dream fast forwards and I’m at a party. I’m at the table of the house where I lived when I was seven. I’m telling two women that I have two cats. Then I tell them about the dog and puppies and how I’d love to keep them, except the landlord would have a fit. I tell them how the dogs just appeared in the house and need a new home and they obviously don’t believe me. For some reason I think they’ll believe the next thing: I tell them I’ll let them in on a secret–I also have two dragons. I don’t see them much, lately just in dreams. In my mind’s eye I can see one of them flying along the edge of a cliff with the sunset over the land. We get up from the table and now I’m aware that the two women think I’m absolutely crazy–but in the dream I REALLY DO have two pet dragons and have a psychic connection with them. We walk to the kitchen where I’m introduced to people I don’t care about. The kitchen is from the house where we lived with Raymond. Outside people are gathered in the grass and around the pool. The only other brown person at the party is a man who everyone wants me to meet and I have no desire to speak to. He exudes darkness and arrogance and I decline going outside. They think we’ll get along great because we’re both brown. In my mind’s eye I see him playing golf, complete with baseball cap and Polo shirt.

Dream 2: I’m in another woman’s body as her in the dream. Men are offering me a “partnership” with someone who’s supposed to make my writing career explode, but it boils down to me sleeping with the pretty man in suit in order to succeed. I tell them I’ll do things alone, even if it takes longer and is harder, and I walk away. I had short, blonde hair and heavyheavy liner + mascara.

Nap dream: I want to sunbathe in our backyard but holes in the fences destroy my privacy. Bobby is in Matthew’s backyard and someone is walking through the yard behind us. I decide against it and go inside. My brother-in-law is visiting except instead of it being Todd it’s Crystal’s husband. He tries to rape me. I try fighting him off but he’s too large, but just beofre he gets what he wants he hears the door open and runs downstairs. Up come a neighbor that I don’t have in real life–with the same intentions. I remember running through the room to get away, but not what happened.

Red Underworld on Marydale

–Anthony Stonehouse

I am in my living room looking out the far right window. To the left, after Matthew’s house, is a small wall bordering the yard and the sidewalk of the house two down. It’s just high enough for small children to push themselves up and sit with dangling legs. There are two. They have blue eyes against dark brown skin, and they terrify me. Somehow I know they are spirit children. Bad kind. I want to leave my house, but not until they have left. They wear backpacks like they’re waiting for the school bus. I get distracted for a few minutes and look back to see them gone. I go outside, and now they’re to my right running in the other direction, holding hands. They never look back at me. They cross the street and go into a backyard where the nice family lives, except it’s not that house in the dream.

I start walking to my car and then a dark blue, old Cadillac pulls up and the passenger door swings open. Inside is the guy from Beauty Bar who once took me on a date. He offers me a ride and I reluctantly take it. Instead of continuing down the street he turns into the backyard where the children went. It’s like backyards in Florida–you can just drive in. I am livid and pleading, “Please don’t go here, why are you going here, please let me out!” It’s like he’s under a spell and doesn’t register my terror. He is smiling and saying he’s heard cool things, it’ll be fun. I close my eyes as he curves around the left side of the house and start praying in Arabic. I have my eyes squinched hard and my hands over my ears so that I can’t let in sights or sounds, just prayer. At some point I open my eyes, still praying, and the earth has opened up. We are driving down a path that goes deep into the earth. It’s red and there’s fire. It’s like we were in Dante’s Inferno, except no Beatrice shows up. There is a Voodou queen in my mind’s eye and I know she sees us, but I don’t see her physically. In my mind she is sitting on a dark throne, leaning to the left like a spoiled child, the evil rolling off of her. She is smiling and either twirling her hair or using fingers to play with lips. Eventually the red and fire and metallic dust gives way to open road. It looks like we’re on a highway with open land all around, either Texas or Oklahoma. A storm is coming. Conditions are perfect for twisters.

The dream fast-fowards. I am wearing yellow shorts made out of the yellow skirt that’s in my closet. Suddenly I’m with my father and freaking out because I’m wearing shorts and he’ll see my legs and be mad, but when I look down it’s my long, elephant skirt and my shorts are underneath. I don’t question how I’m suddenly covered, but I’m grateful. We walk through a parking lot that leads to a mosque. It’s night time. We pass a cream Cadillac like my grandma’s old car, but very new. In the dream I think of her and see her car with some kind of inscription on the back telling the world it’s hers. But on this car is a man’s inscription, her partner’s car. He is heavy with bad Voodou. His magickal name either starts with E or C–I feel like Enc… is how it began.

This dream worries me for so many reasons. Yesterday on campus a large brown owl flew low, swooped down and passed me right in front of my chest. I had to stop to not collide. It flew from right to left. Owls mean death. And this was in broad daylight–an owl! I was struck by its beauty and with fear for what it means. And then I dream of the Underworld and voodoo? Two possibilities: Either Georgie has contacted his brothers in Florida and now their mother is working her stuff, or my stepdad has heard of my mother’s marriage and is having his own evil done.

Wedding invitations and Ellie

I don’t remember which dream happened first.

I am sending out wedding invitations. I send one to Andrew Teeter and his girlfriend in South Korea, who happen to be back in the states for a visit in the dream (or living?). He confronts me, very upset, because I spelled her name wrong, and instead of Bora Han I wrote Bora Van. Then I’m making invitations for two people who I don’t know in real life, but for reason I know they have AIDS. I can’t even remember their names.

I walk into Ellie’s bike shop and stand in front of the door. She’s standing at her desk and she orders everyone else to get out. I say, “We always said we’d be each other’s bridesmaids, right?” And then she walks over and we hug, both of us crying.

And so the wedding dreams begin!

Aliens, storms, and spirit boy

I have been horrible at recording my dreams, but recently they’ve been darker than usual, especially last night. I’ll try harder to write. What I remember:

Last night was terrifying. In the dream I wake up because pink lights are flashing outside the window of my room. The lights are many shades of pink and seeping in through the blinds. There are no sounds, but the lights aren’t like anything I’ve seen before. They have a unique quality in the air. They swirl around my dark room in patterns. I try to wake Nick to show him, but he won’t wake up. I am pushing and almost violent, now alarmed that I’m yelling and he won’t wake up. In a panic, I look outside the blinds, which are right in front of my side of the bed and beside the front door. The pink light is in the street right in front of our house, too bright to show it’s source. And walking up through the front yard, illuminated by the light, are two tall aliens. Tall and slender, with not quite the stereotypical pointed-oval head. More rectangular. I couldn’t make out facial features because of the light behind them. I can remember the feel of my heart in the dream. I immediately retreated back into bed and pulled the covers over our heads, hugging Nick tightly and trying to be still, just praying.

Another dream. A storm is coming, except it’s not a normal storm. It’s the end of the world. We can feel the moistness in the air and watch as the sky gets darker by the moment. There are clothes on the line and I’m so mad at Nick because I asked him to bring them in. I ask him to help me because I really don’t want them to get wet and need to be washed again even though I know the world is about to end. Then we start to hear the storm, except it’s not thunder, it sounds almost electrical. It sounds like an army of robotic buffalo are in the sky stampeding over the clouds. Lightening takes over and we run inside, except when we get inside it’s an apartment and I’m alone. I’m in a high apartment overlooking below, but I can’t remember what was below. It almost looks like where I lived with my uncle as kid–pink apartment, work-out den. Or it could have been Nana’s old place in Hollywood. I’m looking ourtside, and I see the storm in front, to the left. It’s so dark, but the darkness starts to shrink and compress, and then there’s nothing and it explodes out like the big bang, leaving only beautiful blue. I turn around and there are boxes. Suddenly I know my mother is packing and she’s taking Huseein with her. None of my other brother or sisters were in the dream. But there’s another boy standing who I’ve never seen. Hussein is a few years older than he is right now. He was wearing briefs and a white, sleeveless undershirt, but no pants. I am crying because they’re moving far away, and he is comforting me, as though HE is the older sibling. We are sitting on the floor with our backs against a bed, and on his other side is the other boy. In the dream I know this other child is a spirit, but I’m not scared. He felt familiar. Maybe he was my little brother who died in the womb. I hope he wasn’t there helping them move on with him. Hussein wasn’t much older than he is now.

Witches

In the dream I am not in my own body. I live the dream as someone else. I have white skin and dark brown, shoulder length hair. I don’t remember my name. None of my family in the dreams is my real family.

My mother and grandmother own a Victorian style house, beautiful, on acres beside an apartment complex. The apartment complex is beside a major street in the city and across this many-laned street is a shopping complex. I have my own apartment beside my mother’s house, but I use in the room she has kept for me because I want to be close to my family even having my own place.

She lets a woman in need stay with us. She is beautiful. Dark hair. She is a witch. She does a spell to make a baby. She bathed something, I can’t remember what object it was, but it was a round object she bathed in her own womanly fluids. She was discharging what looked like embryonic fluid, pink with clots, and this she collected between her legs in a bowl. She then poured the bowl over the object and it grew a head, and then a body—except it grew into another woman. Her woman daughter. I did not know this in the dream. I just thought my mom let another woman in need stay with us. And then I began to notice another woman in the house. Upstairs. Each time I’d pass a doorway there was a woman on her bed sitting up straight, with long, long black hair facing the wall. I never saw her face and I felt too uneasy to say anything to make her turn around. She wore a tight dress with zigzag stripes of many deep, dark colors.

Eventually I notice that my mom and grandmother have not been in the house for some time. Somehow I discover the women are all witches and working magick to be rid of us one-by-one. It seems they’ve turned my little sister to their side. When I announce that I’m taking my things and going back to my apartment, the one in charge, the first one to arrive, does not hide her pleasure. Then my sister asks if I can take her to the store with me, and puts jeans in a bag. The witch’s eyes flash and she becomes enraged, knowing that whatever magick they worked on my sister did not work and she’s trying to escape with me. The witch says I can only take my sister if I leave my laptop—the laptop I have in real life, knowing that I need it desperately. I say no, I need my laptop, and we try to leave. My sister decides she needs to use the restroom first and is enchanted into being a fool. She can’t operate the commode. Eventually she manages and we climb out the window. When we get to the parking lot of the apartment where my car is, she I have to fight to get her in. She starts walking into the street trying to show me something in the median—but really she’s acting crazy to avoid getting in the car with me. She’s under the spell of the witches and they’re trying to prevent her leaving. Cars swerve around her. I fight traffic and pull her back to the car, stuffing her inside. I start the car and it backs out of the parking space, but when I put in Drive it and try to steer it to the exit, it goes right back into the parking space. I fight for control of the car with the witch’s grandfather’s power, who is operating the parking security booth at the exit gate. I beg him with my face and words even though I’m too far for him to actually hear me. He feels bad for what his daughters are doing and waves us through the gate. I am determined to get to Deepwoods Apothecary so those witches can help me with a protection spell, because it’s been so long since I did a spell that I doubted my potency.