Feeding the Baby

Photo by D. Michael Know Knew Books, October 2009 Last night in a " dream " I found a bookstore where they were holding a steam punk convention. Everyone was dressed in beautiful velvets, brocades, and lace standing in between the book shelves chatting about fantasy and science fiction, my favorite genre reading materials. They were having fun, but I wanted to look at the books.  There were so many books! I was browsing and finding classics, old favorites, ones I had never known all piled and stuffed into these shelves. I pulled out a beautifully bound book with embossed print and elaborate papers. A man in a wheel chair came up to me and said, there is a plate on the front page and a doobie in the back. I flipped to the back of the book and sure enough there was a half smoked doobie pressed between the back cover and last page. Quite a bargain.

First, my back is much better. I spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday on the floor but this morning it paid off! I feel great. Last night I had so many marvelous  dreams  but the best one was the Tiger. I was walking down the street when I saw up ahead a rather mangy looking lion and an old toothless tiger.  I thought, "they seem tame and no one is freaking out but I don't want to walk by them they might bite me."  So I ducked into a Vietnamese restaurant and walked up to the bar and asked if I get get a glass of wine.  "Sure!" they said.  So I sat down on a bar stool and put my purse down and waited for the pour. It was generous and I was starting to feel comfortable when I felt a heavy weight on my shoulders. It was the tiger! The tiger had come up from behind and put his front paws around my neck in a hug.  It was so comfortable. The hug was heavy but not oppressive and the weight and fur were warm and soft. I could feel the...

In my  dream  I was going back to my room in a big old house. I came in and it looked like mine. Kind of rumpled and dusty with a yellow light from the old kind of light bulbs.  Dusk was creeping in and I went to the back of the room to close the windows. It was hard to get the windows secure they kept slipping away from me and as I looked out back I felt the menace.  The back yard was a field of dried out fox tails surrounded by a low shambling wood picket fence. The neighbors houses were close by and in disrepair. I really wanted to lock them out. Got the doors secure and turned and started walking to the front of the room when I heard a noise. I turned around and there was a man in the room walking toward me.I tried to scream and only a little sound came out.  I tried harder and started to make some noise. Then Dennis shook me awake. He said I was moaning in my sleep and was very hard to wake up.

Last night I dreamed that my Mom, Judy, bought a used bookstore. Now this bookstore was located in a vast marketplace of secondary vendors. It was very hard scrabble with cardboard buildings and odd vendors selling used clothing, arts, crafts and food. It might have been a little like the Black Oaks Renaissance fair if it was set in today and the products offered were the remains of the past. Mom's bookstore was one of the better buildings. It was made from wood and had windows, doors, and such. There was a stair to the second floor, but when I tried to go up it I discovered it was a fake. There was no second floor. Used books were sold and they were so awesome. I remember finding large stacks of my favorite childhood books. I was placing them out on the floor to make sure they sold well. There was a horrible man in my  dream  and this marketplace was not some place that the police went to. He was gross and demeaning. I hated having to deal with him because he though...

Horrible  dreams . I'm not going to tell you what was happening to me in the  dream , it's that bad. I was aware that I was  dreaming  though and I called out, "Help!" "Help me Mommy!"  In my head I knew that calling out in my  dreams  often wakes Dennis up and he in turn wakes me up. But this time I didn't wake him up and he didn't wake me up. It gives me shivers. Then I dreamed I was hanging out in a huge R.V. with all these different people. The only one I recognized was Mary K. my "dotted line" supervisor from work. She was driving the R.V. and taking us to a spot she really liked.  At the start of the trip things were cool but as the trip dragged on and on and on the waste baskets filled up too much and the sinks started to back up and the people spread out their messes on the floor. There were little kids and they were getting so cranky and their parents were being irresponsible and not taking care of them.  At the e...

Last night I dreamed my Uncle Bill came to visit me. He brought a picture of me as a child and some information about the time he flew to my elementary school in a jet and took all the kids for a ride. I was just blown away. I kept saying, it really happened? I thought it was a  dream !  I looked terrible in the picture.

I dreamed I was commuting home from Stanford. There were four people in the car and I was sitting with a young man talking about political theory. I was explaining to him how the continuum of far right to far left would lead either to clusters of people out on the ends or clusters in toward the middle. I told him that the problem we had now was that with the clusters so far out toward the ends there was no room for compromise and what we needed to do was move people inward to the more moderate middle. He was so intrigued and we had a great connection. As we continued on our commute it turned into a bike ride across the bridge between Ivy St and Olivewood Ave. I went up to Grandma's house and into the kitchen. I was standing at the sink and Grandpa was cooking up fried chicken at the stove (in the cast iron skillet) while grandma puttered around and I notice the young man had followed me into the house. I was so confused about why he had followed me in but excited to continu...

I had a great dream last night. I went to this little shack in Riverside that was in the old part of town.  Someone I knew lived there but was away so I stepped in.  Then people started arriving. First it was a little boy and I was going to leave but the mother said he came here specially to be with me so I stayed with him and he sat right next to me and we drew pictures and looked out the windows, I felt intensely happy. I said this shack is really small but it has great views. Then the shack started moving and rolling down the hill till it came to rest at the seashore. There was a convention at the house for feminists. They were planning an action and all the men were being herded into the back rooms. I was going over the book that was being published to go with the action with the little boy but then I had to stop because even a little boy couldn't be let into the plans.  I felt very proud that the women were getting together celebrating the pro...

Photo by Dennis. Rainbow

I had a very unusual  dream . I was in a little village at the base of a mountain walking around doing stuff when I decided to climb up the mountain. Up I went and near the top I found two giants sleeping. They were handsome young men giants with blond hair and I woke one of them up by accident. No problem! He came down the mountain and at dusk he was in the village square chatting with people and watching the action on the stage. Very peaceful giant and looking at him I figured he was only about 8 feet tall so not that giant after all.  

Dennis and I both had odd  dreams  last night.  Dennis dreamt as he was waking up that he was in a house slogging through knee deep water knowing something was very wrong. Then he woke up. I dreamed that I was committing suicide, twice. The first time I ate a package of suicide drugs but came back to life. The second time people were chasing me trying to stop me but I was focused and single minded rushing to mix the drugs up and eat them before people could stop me.

We were sitting in a fourth floor conference room and I was staring out the floor to ceiling windows at a beautiful balcony. Two crows (pointed tails right?) landed on the railing. They were huge and the sky was crowded with gray clouds. The crows began to groom each other's head and neck areas with their beaks. It was so intimate and delicate absolutely lovely. Photo by June Hunter at http://www.junehunter.com/collections/crow-portrait-series-fine-art-photo-prints  Two more crows landed. The class clown was huge, bigger than all of them with a black shiny beak that looked like a knife. He hopped on up to the window and started peering in, craning his head to see me over the seat of the chair that was backed up to the window. He just kept hopping around out there and peeking up at me.  I touched the guy next to me on the leg and when he looked at me I pointed to the crow. We both watched while the crow gently probed at the intersection of the glass and the steel ...

Photo by the Poet Charity 2016. A disappearing hourglass quilt and child made of light. Last night I dreamt that everyone was admiring my disappearing hourglass quilt. I found a group of ladies trying to piece one and making a big mess of it (in the cowper street carport, the site of so many of my anxiety  dreams .) so I offered to show them how. A large group came with me and I took them into a classroom. I was so excited to be giving a lecture. I went to the front and checked over the blackboards and whiteboards to find a space where I could show them how it is done. But there was writing everywhere. When I found a spot then the white board pens didn't mark. Finally I got both things going and started to speak when a large well dressed middle aged white lady started lecturing loudly next to me. I got very frustrated and flustered and all that. Temper tantrums and arguing but as usual I lost so I slunk away defeated.  I was in a line and other women were talkin...

I was visiting the house on Brockton and Chris and Seth were living there with lots of other people. I had to go pick Seth up from work at 1 am and I was so worried about driving in the dark. Someone showed me a map of his work site and I thought I might be able to make it there. The alternate pickup location was a bar called the Envelope. There was a little black boy and his mama in the front room. And he and I were singing together but I was worrying about not being able to keep the pitch. His mama wanted to take him trick or treating but there was so much noise and commotion out front she didn't want to take him out into it so we were coming up with alternate trick or treating ideas like having him stand in the hallway and knock and then we could open the door and give him Candy. He was a musical prodigy. But quite a bit was anxiety over the mess I had made and trying to hide it and when that wasn't possible begging forgiveness and trying to clean the mess up. I was ...

Dreams  last night were me in Menlo Park trying to get home and there are fires everywhere. Fires on the mountains and down in the city making it very smoky and hard to see. In my  dream  I am struggling to find my where I parked my car so I can get the hell out of town. 

I dreamed I was wandering around this beautiful gold and white landscape thinking to myself, "Maybe I am dead and this is heaven. Heaven's not so bad."  I told Dennis my  dream  and he said, "You got into heaven?" 

Should be a beautiful day today because for the first time in a week I slept well and dreamt weirdly. Think serial murderer who we knew when he was young.  My Sr. Research Associate Bill said let's go visit him and offer him our support. So he drives us over to a place in Riverside that is a mansion on top of a hill.   We go on up with a bag of used books to the door and someone lets us in. I'm waiting by the kitchen while Bill goes downstairs to find the murderer.  I'm fidgeting and uncomfortable because I think this is a terrible idea. I barely remember the guy. I tell the mom and dad, who are working in the kitchen, that I'm going to go wait outside but they don't want me to and then the murderer appears.  He has a Michael Jackson nose is the thing I can't stop thinking. Actually he also had Michael Jackson hair. His vibe is so extremely creepy that I feel like I made a big mistake coming here.  He welcomes me coolly and denies knowin...

The dream was this: I was visiting grandma on Ivy street. She wasn't looking very good. Getting very old and forgetful. There were so many people at her house and I didn't recognize many of them. It seemed like they were freeloading. Just hanging out and eating her food but not contributing. Grandma and Grandpa at the Ivy Street house I remember thinking how dirty it was and I decided to clean up in the kitchen. I started by collecting all the plastic bags, glass bottles and jars, cardboard, and rotten food into piles for recycling. Then I'd haul some of it out to the yard. People would come into the kitchen to criticize my work but never to help.  The cupboards under the counter were packed full of this stuff and when I cleared them out enough I saw through the back of the cupboards into my mother's old room. There was a tiny lady laying on the bed. I didn't care if she was sleeping I step through to the room and left the door open to kitchen.  ...

I know this guy who was once mistreated by some people. This mistreatment was never addressed and he continued to harbor a grudge against them. Any sign that they had "feet of clay" caused him to rejoice. Any good that befell them caused him to grumble and complain. He never missed an opportunity to cause them difficulty or discomfort. He always let others know how much he didn't like them. And that kind of hate  is a  twisted   knife turning in your hand dangerous to hold dangerous to use I was talking to a man about the way I feel when I am angry. Sometimes I feel like I am riding a huge wave. I feel righteous and I find an angry eloquence that decimates my enemies. I am so hugely angry that I can't control or stop myself. It frightens me, and at the same time thrills me. People used to come to my office to listen to me on the phone with vendors who didn't deliver what they promised. The thing what frightened me was how much I enjoyed that feeling an...

Speaking of which, I know a really good poet, she taught a workshop here at our old money university. Her thoughts on poetry and life were energizing. Yeah, what the world needs is more poetry. Here is one of her poems Save Me Joe Louis When I was small no one stopped the fights. A man could beat you till you died, the crowd leaning in, you on your knees, maybe somewhere someone says,  No , but it's like spoons dropping in kitchens: enough to make someone look up, not enough to get them moving. The ref's just glad it isn't him trying to stand, shading his face like he's coming out of the movies into winter sun, shock of the world made real again — brutal, to be sure, but America is like that, unrelenting, you get what you ask for in the ring or on the kitchen floor. Someone always wants you to give up, shake hands, wipe the blood away and talk of lighter things. And you do because you've been fighting long enough to know there's no one...

Somewhere behind the hard place Unmapped, unseen a green Sigh of the orchard's blossoms opening in joy.  -- Posted by dovie devine to  Feeding the  Baby  at 4/19/2006 07:12:00 AM

I had a fantastic dream last night. After much travail the boys and I came home to a new village. I stopped my worn out station wagon in a park near a stone bridge that went over a shady creek. The passenger in my car was a wonderful woman and we were talking, very deeply engaged when we saw a man standing by the creek. He waved and she stood up and went to him. I blushed because I thought he was waving to me and that maybe I loved him, but she was his wife and it was all o.k. I turned around and there was a small sturdy woman in greasy coveralls. She had straight dark hair and brown eyes and a face that was plain and radiant with spirit. She was tan, her nose was straight and her mouth was thin, but her eyes were wide open and really looking at me.  She seemed wise and calm. She said that she had fixed my car. There had been a  red  patch on the electrical system put in by some chain garage that was an inadequate even dangerous repair, but she had seen it and fixed...

So the dream was about me wandering home to this encampment outdoors in a forest where I was trying to find a place to sleep. There were these funny beds, kind of like gurneys, with high sides and weird sheets.  I was helping another woman get a man settled into a bed. She was saying about how whatever you do will come back to you, and I said, "like if I find a dollar and keep it later someone will steal one from me, but if I give it back then I will get one back?"  She says, "yes like that," like karma.  Then we were bundling this guy up into a snug bed that pulls up like rubber and covers him all around then into the slot he goes. "How long is the trip?" I ask the lady and she says, "9 months."  I woke up and I thought, "strange dream", then I thought, "oh yeah! being born". Like I was helping out taking the dead souls and putting them back into bodies for  birth . 

My dream was watery. By Markus Bernet - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57367  First I was at a hotel trying to take a shower in a common shower room and it was so crowded I gave up.  Then I went to the hotel desk and asked for the key to my room. They didn't even ask my name! Just handed it over and I went upstairs. As I walked down the corridor I came upon a little stand selling tea and bagels and I really wanted some but they looked too plastic. So I walked on and saw more and more little stands but they were full of junk food and ice cream. Finally I found a stand selling popcorn and I thought i could buy some to take back to the room for dennis. The pop corn guy listened to my request and immediately started a patter to up sell me. He kept showing me different shaped containers and saying for only a few dollars more my popcorn could come in one of these. When I pointed out that the containers looked different ...

Last night I dreamed that I went to a movie at the Fox Theatre in Riverside. An usher came to us during the movie and whispered that I had an urgent phone call in the lobby. She was carrying a bouquet of balloons with my name on it. Black and purple.  I went to the lobby and a girl handed me a telegram form. That was also black and purple and carbon copy like.  I read it and it was from someone who attended the Center for Turbulence Research summer program. They wanted me to urgently stop what I was doing and help them get registered. I looked for the date and found it was from 1992. They held the telegram until I next visited the theatre. 

i was the servant in the home of the queen. She was unexpectedly cruel to me and I was very sad. One night we heard a loud noise and ran outside to see a bright light falling from the sky. What was it? At first I imagined it was a star falling but then as it neared I could see it was the outline of an old woman, like a constellation. By Unknown - This image is available from the National Library of WalesYou can view this image in its original context on the NLW Catalogue, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47147712  It hit the ground in a sandy spot and buried itself deep in the ground. The earth shuddered and this was the end of all things. I ran to the house and, because I was a servant in the house, even as the world ended, I packed only what was second best or of no use. I took my sleeping bag and vegetables that were wilted. I took some water and extra warm clothes. The queen inspected my bag and then dismissed me. I ran to the trailer park. It was...

I walked down the hill towards the sea and saw the long-haired man sitting in his V.W. van, stoned out of his mind. I walked over to him and said, "hi. What are you doing?" He said, "watching the crazy clouds." I looked out to sea and saw a tornado forming. Tornado Over Sea   by:   (=___PoZzItIf___=) I yelled at him, "Tornado!" and got no reaction so I said, "I'll drive."  I tried to get into the van but it slipped away from me and try as I might, I couldn't get in. I struggled desperate to escape but couldn't find a way.  Finally the long-haired man said, "I'll drive." and though I doubted he was sober enough to do that I also knew I wouldn't be able to do it either. So he drove, SLOWLY up the hill and I looked back and saw the tornado gaining on us coming right up the hill behind us. I was urging him to hurry, but nothing I said made any difference. He just would not move. After I wok...

An appropriately ominous photo of Perkins library by Cindi https://www.flickr.com/photos/trucolorsfly/ I dreamt I was at Stanford but it looked much more Gothic. Hoover tower was a Gothic tower with spines and gargoyles. It was dark, gloomy and rainy.  A bolt of something from the sky hits a tall pole which falls over in a scattering of sparks and slides down hill toward us. I look up and another bolt strikes the tower and it begins to crumble down on to me. I'm paralyzed with fear and can't even call for help or get up from my knees. By F. F. Solesio (editor) (http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10513772t) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I dreamt that something profoundly important to all of the world and especially the humans had happened.  I don't remember what it was. But everyone was out and talking to one another in a way that was open, peaceful, and friendly. I was in my old house.  By Jeffrey Beall - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17042648 This house has like 4 stories and is very old and dusty but it is beautiful. I dream about this house often, but I don't think I have ever seen it in waking life. The stairs going up are steep and dark and they lead to long straight hallways on all floors. There are doors along both sides of the hallways leading to square rooms. Inside each room is a tiny world absolutely complete down to the last detail. Very specific and authentic to it's time. They are all rooms of one sort or another but each one is done up to be a perfect, though dusty, replica of times gone by. It's like a museum but random an...