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trinkets

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by

rachelvb
in ,

I couldn’t get to sleep well last night. I was walking along a stone blue wall to dreams and just as I got there I felt myself falling off the side. My legs kicked me awake again. The hall light through the door, the alarms, the shuffling of feet.

But when I did dream is was about a man who fixed backs. My brother and a few others sat around a stark white office with strange mirrors at each small station. We were there after hours – I’m not sure why or what we were waiting for. And then Cynthia Nixon from Sex and the City and her husband (not any husband that I know of, plus she’s a lesbian) were drunk driving. And then I was with my mom at our old house in Napa but it felt like my grandparent’s house. Some random guy was coked out, high on something and kept making appearances for no other reason than to tell us he was tired and he was going back to bed.

I went to explore the garage and in it I found everything I could ever want to decorate my house with. All the things I needed, my style  – vintage, eclectic, colorful. 2 old cellos lay on shelves near the ceiling and as I pulled one down I found a 115 dollar bill from the 30s underneath it along with an old check. I wondered if I could still cash the check. The bill was slightly wet and as I peeled it from the wooden shelf it ripped a bit. Part of it still stuck, left behind.

I found my grandma’s old shoes. Fabulous shoes that didn’t fit, but I tried them on anyway. Old red chairs, day bed, decorations – I wanted all of them and knew exactly where they were going and where they should be placed.

And now awake, I feel furious at something I can’t get to. The cat fitting herself into annoying places she doesn’t fit on my legs. Something wants me angry – my thoughts drift to times in the past where I was hurt, mad. Things I haven’t thought of in months. I’m sorry, Tula. This is not working for me. I feel oddly alone with my nerves exposed.

Comments

8 responses to “trinkets”

  1. Marylinn Kelly Avatar
    Marylinn Kelly

    Sometimes that thing that wants us angry does not wish us well, it knows there are ways that anger keeps us from finding a peaceful center from which we can reach out in trust. Sometimes I think the anger or resentment or sense of lack rise so that we can move them on their way. They won’t leave without being acknowledged. I am no dream analyst, yet finding everything you wanted for your house feels so significant…the house of self, for example, and as our dreams are interior, I take that to mean that we already contain the answers, the gifts, they reveal. And I could be so entirely wrong about this…Waking and sleeping, we tell ourselves stories centered on symbols and their meaning is unique to each of us. I am sometimes distressed or disappointed when a dream ends, waking life does not always seem to measure up.

    Reply
  2. rachvb Avatar
    rachvb

    I know too well about things not leaving until acknowledged. As hard as it has been for me in the past few years to speak out at certain points in my life, the build up of it was even worse. A slow lesson, but a lesson all the same. You characterize feelings a lot and I admire that. You give them their own spaces in you, give them their own socks and shoes and hats and send them on their way. I seem to contain mine more. They seem to dig around like moles.
    I also believe we contain the answers to ourselves. We have all the things we need within us they just seem to present themselves at strange moments. I agree that symbols and their meanings differ from one person to the next. We must gather our feelings around them to discover what those symbols mean. I love dreaming. I absolutely love it. They are true poems to me. The images, the colors, the layers. I love to see what they are trying to tell me.

    Reply
  3. Claire Beynon Avatar
    Claire Beynon

    Dear Lovely Woman – it is always a joy and a privilege to walk into the room and find you two talking. Please may I take my shoes off and join you? I would appreciate the simplicity of ‘just being’ in your company, not having to speak necessarily, but listening and perhaps communicating nevertheless. Our dreams are poems, yes, and teachers, too. Our dialogue with them – our unconscious – is perhaps one of the most valuable ones of all? Love to you both, Claire xx

    Reply
    1. rachvb Avatar
      rachvb

      Claire,
      You are always welcome – with or without shoes! Sometimes all I ever want to do is listen and absorb. I live a lot of my life that way and sometimes it gives me so much more. there is so much to learn from listening and watching. And what better way to learn about yourself than to listen to your dreams. I have been watching them from a young age and find myself looking to them to help me through things. I sometimes tell myself before bed to remember, to watch. Some symbols in dreams start to become your symbols in waking life. Mine at the moment is birds, eggs, all that we merge, morph into.
      take care, Claire – I hope your waters are well!
      xo
      rachel

      Reply
  4. Claire Beynon Avatar
    Claire Beynon

    Dear Rachel
    Thanks for this. . . like you, I, too, have been tuning into my dreams since I was a very young girl. These days I seem not to be remembering them as I once used to. I wonder whether it’s because my waking life is so much like a ‘waking dream’ at the moment and because my sleep is fragmented. I seem to be being asked to deal with all the elements ordinarily ‘kept’ for dreaming, for the ‘less likely’, even the ‘no, surely this is not possible/not happening’…? Some days it feels all night terrors, irreality, drowning – not floating – and others the waters are peaceful, holding, benevolent. It makes me wonder what’s at work in the world right now, convinces me there’s truth in what’s being called ‘The Grand Irrationality’ and ‘The Great Awakening.’

    I have a web link for you and Marylinn that I think you will both find helpful and inspiring. It’s for an international discussion group addressing questions relating to the ‘future of spiritual practice.’ There’s a series of talks you can log into weekly (on Sundays I think) that speak directly into the subjects we are grappling with. . .

    http://ds1.downloadtech.net/cn1086/audio/17072925281008-001.mp3

    Much love, Claire x

    Reply
    1. rachvb Avatar
      rachvb

      Dear Claire,
      when dreams shift into waking life, I wonder if our minds turn off the actual dreams for a brief moment. There is only so much we can take – and dreams are so much thicker with feeling sometimes.
      I’m so sorry to hear some days are night terrors, drowning. Hold on the the floating days, the peaceful days. Those are the ones that will get you back to your dreaming.
      There is something strange in the world right now. For me, it’s the coming winter perhaps, the build up of feelings that haven’t come out yet, the departure of a very dear friend of mine who is moving away. There are sad changes coming – but I believe there will always be something beautiful within them.
      Thanks for the link! I’ll check up on it later at work 😉
      take care of yourself, Claire.
      Love,
      Rachel

      Reply
  5. Claire Beynon Avatar
    Claire Beynon

    Hi Rach – there is something strange in the world right now, I agree. But we are swimmers swimming, aren’t we! All will be well. Thanks for your encouragements. I send you mine, too, and wish you precious times with your dear friend who’s moving away (and who will forever stay with you, too.)
    L, C x

    Reply
  6. rachvb Avatar
    rachvb

    We sure are swimming! And thank you.
    And thanks for the link. I’m very curious about the next program about our hearts and the science between the feeling between the links between it all. I’ve always wondered how our hearts can carry so much. There was a very interesting part about being present in our lives. We can only know people as they are in each moment. I loved his idea about being so full from the inside it spills out into giving.
    “Everyone is a teacher and a student.”
    xo
    Rach

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