dream stories

resting in faith

Posted on December 13, 2012 by lbk

“Hush,” the Ferryman says.

I am cocooned in my red blanket, wrapped up tight.

“Hush.”

I cease my struggle.

I am resting on the riverbank beside a small fire. The Ferryman sits by me. My Provider is cooking something, smiling a small smile, perfectly content with how things are. Resting in faith.

Out in the water the River King moans and writhes and gnashes his teeth. He is in a place I cannot join him. I must trust that he will rise again, that he will find his way.

Behind me on the crest of the plain the Buffalo Man has returned, drawn to the scent of my resting. He squats, patiently waiting. I see from his posture that this might take a while. I close my eyes.

There is a boat coming, bringing new hope and possibility, vigor. It’s not yet in sight but it will come, nosing around the bend. It will come.

“Don’t worry,” the Ferryman says, “I won’t let it pass you by.”

OOO

Posted in keeping watch | Tagged buffalo man | 1 Comment

I am hunkered down on a mossy rock above a small creek. Below me the water flows swift and cold and dark. I am watching it, knees tucked up under my chin, rocking from heel to toe. After some time I understand that I am not alone. There is someone come for me, slipping out from the roots of the massive tree across the creek. She moves like shadow, breathes like memory.

“Are you a spirit of the tree?”

“Yes.”

“Or of the water?”

“Yes.”

“Both?”

“And the mud too. And the way the light falls.”

She is of this place. The all of it. I see that she is holding my little frog heart in the palm of her hand. I can’t remember ever seeing anyone else hold him. He is happy with her, he is safe.

I am pinched with thirst. She dips a cup into the stream and hands it to me. I am a tangle of brush, starred with an occasional unpicked berry. “How do I get out of this?” feeling thorny and unproductive.

“Why do you want to go?”

“I don’t want to go. I just want to be here better.” I’d rather be soft and muddy than twiggy and brittle.

“Do you hear the water?”

“Yes.” Small chuckle of constant movement.

“Rest in that.”

And so I do, and it is good. Eventually, all effort to be other than I am, drops away. In all that time, she never leaves me. Her name is Lily and she smells of the joy of the earth where it meets water. She is dark and weightless and tender.

“Lily, Lily how do I get back here when I need to?”

“You don’t have to get back. There’s no getting back. You are always already here.”

She’s right, I know. I know she’s right. “Sometimes I forget.”

“And then you remember,” she says, soft and certain as the next easy breath.

OOO

Posted in It's not about making an effort. It's deeper than effort. Stop trying and just listen. | Leave a comment

nothing that can’t be mended

Posted on November 30, 2012 by lbk

I am a load of rock, cluster of weights that round and fall and settle against one another. I lay them out on the ground, cairn shaped. “This is me,” I say, and step away.

I climb, empty handed, into the fountain. It is dry, the Wellspring gone walking. I fit my back to the curve of the wall, tuck my knees up close. I wait. My little frog heart is near, but does not approach. I wait. The Wellspring finds me there, hands like rain, rivers of kisses, glad of me, welcoming. My hair lifts in the rising water, everything hidden slips free.

I am clean and light. I get up. Daylight catches on the wet of me like jewels on skin, alight. I am home.

NH stands where I can see him. I see the beauty, and the wear, a dryness about his eyes, tips of his hair gone ragged and dusty. I trace the old scar at his shoulder, rest my temple on the rise and fall over his heart. He fans his hands across my back, holding me. The longer we stand there, knowing only this, the more vibrant we become.

My Princess comes for me, urging me into the day. “Don’t you have another name?” I ask. “I feel silly calling you Princess.”

“You can call me Princess Brainiac,” she says, “if you want to,” and I laugh. She takes my hand and we walk out together. She leads me on a path I cannot see, rising where the land falls, circling through intangibles. I step in faith. She takes me to her tower. She takes me home.

The tower rises white and narrow out of a grove of yellow aspen. From the top she can see everything. It’s a good place to work. As we climb, the trees serenade us. The tower fills with light that spills out into the air like wings.

Far far below, from the rock cairn of my days away, small white flowers rise and open.

Posted in long gone walking | 2 Comments

a bold act of surrender

Posted on November 4, 2012 by lbk

We were sitting on a park bench kissing and telling each other over and again the story of how we met.

I woke with the pledge: I will kiss you everyday, so we won’t forget.

She was beautiful, young and dark haired, her face strong and delicate at the same time. We had met at a party, in a crowd, thrown together by the currents. It came to me that I might kiss her, this stranger beside me in the crowd. And so, amazingly, I did. And when I did, everything came clear, all the closed doors opened and we knew we were not separate beings, we were of each other, lost and now found. She was my one, my muse, my calling, my way of being in the world.

Nothing I had done, planned or executed had brought us into proximity. It was chance, chaos, a gift of god. If we lost one another again, how would we return to this? How would we find our way back with no map?

The answer came as this: The way to union is internal, a remembering, a listening, an acting on faith.

I must recollect my joy, I must remember in myself this state of grace. The key is in the kiss, this act of bold surrender.

Every day now, every day I ask myself: Where’s the kiss?

OOO

Posted in finding the way home without a map | Leave a comment

bindings

Posted on October 31, 2012 by lbk

I am a kernel of stillness in the swirl. I go back to the Ferryman. He is fishing me out of the river in bits and pieces, dropping the parts into the bottom of the boat, like so many hunks of meat. “What happened?” I ask.

“You exploded.”

“Yes. I see, but how? How did it happen?”

“Don’t you remember?”

All I remember is a point of light, a pinprick spark and only darkness for answer. I remember the tightness of pressure and then nothing.

“Maybe the how of it’s not important,” he says, preparing to dive again.

“Are you angry with me?” such a mess I’ve made. Again.

“Well, it’s not my favorite part of this job, but it is part of my job and I’m doing it, see? And I will do, whenever it’s necessary. No, I’m not angry with you darlin. I’m not the one bleeding in the bottom of the boat though, am I?” He gives his head a small sad shake before diving back in to troll the river bottom for any remaining scraps of me.

I see the grandmother making her way up the river bank with her sewing bundle. She tsks at the mess of me and settles in to begin her mending. “Grandmother please,” I stay her before she begins, “this time please would you sew in a center of gravity for me? Something that might help hold me together in high winds.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” she says and chuckles to herself as if she knew all along that it was just a matter of time before I worked it out.

OOO

Posted in I almost skipped my visit to the Ferryman | 2 Comments

a far place

Posted on October 26, 2012 by lbk

I have come to a far place. The light is harsh and the ground is hard and dry. I do not know who might help me when I find I can’t go on. I go on.

I hold to those kindnesses that encourage the body as ripplings of mind, the way the leaves talk under the moon, the way the window streaks the light across the floor. Old old pleasures. There is comfort at the very skin-edge of things. I try to remember.

So much goes by so fast.

Even in speed there must be skin. When all the landscape blurs to a wash of darkness and light, still there is some point of intersection, some exposure to this here now. There is this: the River King’s beard, potent as moonlight, the creak of things that bear my weight, the stair, the chair, the bed.

The River King has sustained an injury, fallen into a rising darkness, ravenous and dire. He lists, he stills. All the currents gather in his belly. He refuses comfort. He quits the game. The River King has turned to stone.

All movement, all hope, rests in me. I am taking us where we need to be. Wherever that is. Forward.

They say you cannot assume the suffering of another. I know that. But there is an us-ness to the equation too, a partnership, the work of making things real. When the River King keens, I bleed.

I would like to ask him to make himself easy to carry. But I do not. I do. But he can’t hear me. He hears me. But he can’t answer.

We have come to a far place. Nothing is recognizable. I go on.

OOO

Posted in in sickness and in health | Leave a comment

however we move it’s called dance

Posted on September 25, 2012 by lbk

I go to the Wellspring full of glee. I can’t stop telling her of all the wonderful things I’ve seen and done and heard. She laughs and listens. We eat with our fingers from a shared bowl. All the while I am being dressed, my old ragged clothes removed, my hair combed and braided. I find myself in tight dark yielding clothes, nothing to impede my movement. It’s going to be a crowded, busy day, I don’t want to catch on anything.

The Sisters of the Light Hands gather around a small fire. I am gnawing the bones of something I have just devoured. I hadn’t realized how ravenous I was. I come out of my feeding frenzy feeling sheepish. I think to apologize for my appetites but looking around I realize that all the Sisters have been feasting. We are all equally greasy cheeked and grinning. We sigh and fall back onto the ground, sated and happy, with our arms spread as if lying flat on your back required balance. We maybe sleep a bit. As we are sleeping, we let go of what we have been carrying that no longer serves. The weight of it all sinks down into the earth. Our bodies grow looser and looser until our spirits slip out through our sleeping mouths.

Our spirits have big feet and broad hips. However we move it is called dance.

Giddy with grace, we race up the hill to meet the day. As we run we merge until we are all one, laughing.

Bear tackles me outside the cave of days, knocks me flat and steps on me. “This is serious,” he reminds me. He doesn’t approve of my speed and giggles. He draws a claw down my chest, opening me to the heart. “Don’t forget this.” My heart is molten. He pours honey over it to soothe it. It becomes the golden bowl. “Remember this,” he says again. “Remember this.”

More soberly, and breathing easy, I rise and go through the bright fissure into a tumbled rock field. There is living ground under the rubble. In some places I can reach through and touch it. There is nourishment in the touch of it. I squat on the rocks and consider. There was a magnificent structure here once, fallen now. There are trees farther out and the promise of a road, but here where I am requires excavating.

I begin to move the rocks. I know they are meant for building and I long to build, but I don’t know how. As I continue to work, picking up rocks and moving them where they want to go, I discover that the building evolves of its own accord. I am making it happen, I am the engine, but I am not the engineer.

I continue my devotions. Without going anywhere, where I am going comes to me. Through a beautiful arched gateway I see the splashing of the fountain.

OOO

Posted in I hadn't realized how ravenous I was | Leave a comment

wait for me

Posted on September 19, 2012 by lbk

I am all in pieces and covered in mud.

The Ferryman excavates and gathers me up. He washes me clean, face and hair, takes the pieces of me to the grandmother, head and arms, legs and feet. He lays the pieces gently down on the red blanket. The grandmother takes me up into her lap and begins to sew me back together. As she sews she sings quietly.

Behind us, inland, the Buffalo Man lies down and closes his eyes. I do not know the meaning of this. It disturbs me to see him prone and still. Is this surrender? Defeat? Abandon? Have I lost him? I don’t know.

Little Bit is on my chest, pounding me with her little fists. “I told you,” she cries. “I told you, but you didn’t listen.”

“What did you tell me?”

“I told you to wait for me.”

Such a small voice in all the tumult. How will I ever learn to listen?

The grandmother shifts me in her lap and continues stitching.

OOO

Posted in gone forth without readiness | 1 Comment

melding & mending

Posted on September 15, 2012 by lbk

There has been a lot of talk of power around me recently… recognizing your power, giving it away, retrieving it, power held and power lost, SuperPowers. I don’t really understand this notion of power. I go asking.

I want to know my power, to recognize it.

I make my way to the Wellspring. Every step sinks me into the earth. I sink in, wrench myself out, swing my foot forward with a new weight, skin of earth and rock. I flare my hands in distress. “I can’t keep from sinking in.”

“Why resist?” the Wellspring asks.

Why indeed. And just like that, I give in, sink down into the ground. The bulk of me is swallowed, but my consciousness stays above, all unbodied. I reach up and grab my awareness and pull it down too, into the dark rock, slow pressures of ground. I remember then that I am mountain. I exist like that, a vast presence and solid, knowing, wordless. Sweet as a long exhale, I abide.

After a time I think I would like to go and meet the spirit of this day. I lift up out of the ground halfway up the climb to the cave of days. The bear is there with the Grandmother riding. I have some trouble keeping my feet from sinking in as I go. I steady myself with my hand on the bear’s shoulder. I bend over and blow on my feet to free them. It works and I straighten up grinning. That feels like a pretty neat trick. We walk on. When we get to the cave I find my hand has melted into the bear, we are fused, hand and shoulder. The Grandmother cackles and flaps her hand over the merger. She thinks it’s hilarious. Night Hawk comes and rests his hand over mine to call it out of the bear. He wraps me in my red blanket and I slip free.

“Everyone stand back.” I flare my hands again in warning. It’s a little freaky. I’m a little freaked out. It seems I meld into everything I touch.

Night Hawk, from a little distance, explains that the blanket will help protect me from spilling out. His dark cloak, the cloak of expansion works its relief differently. Night Hawk’s cloak keeps me safe by opening infinite space around me, so no matter how unfurled I get, I don’t spill into anything else. My red blanket is more of a binding, a membrane of muscle that helps me to distinguish this from that.

But there’s something else.

Not till I am settled back into my own skin again do I see it. And then it’s a great big lightbulb moment. This is my power. Melding with what I encounter. (And living to tell.)

Ok, so it’s messy and complicated, but it is strong. And it is mine.

Now that I see it, I stop sinking into everything willy-nilly. “I got it, I got it. Thank you. That’s, hmm. That’s really something.”

Feeling refreshed and vigorous and actually quite self-contained, I step through the fissure at the back of the cave and into the day.

A flood. I am under water. All is tumult.

A hand reaches in and pulls me out, sets me down. Who was that? I see no one. I am on a log in the river, the trunk of an old tree wedged in rocks, mid-stream, and leaning out over the current. The wood is dark and slick and saturated with moisture. There is water on all sides, the tree gives no access to the shore.

High above, in the bare branches of a tall shore tree, a dark bird perches with his wings folded close. It’s maybe an owl. Or an eagle. Or a vulture. I cannot see him clearly, against the bright of the sky, except that he is dark and large and powerful, and that he is watching over me.

Under the protection of the silent bird, I lie belly down on the trunk of my tree and watch the water flow beneath me. I let my hand dip into the water. The red of my blanket bleeds through my fingers into the water, ribboning out with the current, on and across until it reaches the far bank just at the feet of a bright, shimmering woman, white, like a cloud, her delicate shoe leaving a delicate imprint in the mud.

She is my princess. Oh! I have a princess. A princess of purity and light. Who keeps getting locked up in towers.

“I’m not a victim,” she declares. “I choose what I do. The tower is not a prison. It is a powerful tool if you know how to use it. Like a sheath or shield. It’s important to be able to filter out the noise of the world when you need to. There is work that requires solitude.”

She is so sparkly and etherial there. I feel myself, dark and solid on my wet perch, cocooned in the muscle of my sturdy red blanket. “Are we friends?” I wonder.

“We are inseparable.” No question. Inseparable.

OOO

Posted in not like I thought | Leave a comment

Little Bit, shadow of the crane

Posted on September 11, 2012 by lbk

Days of recuperation have not brought the resilience I’d hoped. The work week dawns and I balk at the gate. This won’t do. I go looking for something to rally me.

I find Little Bit tucked up under an eave in the attic, pressed up sideways to the window to get a view of the stars. “There’s so much room up there,” she explains. “It’s a comfort to me.”

There is something faint and fading about her, I’m afraid she’s slipping away from me.

“Come on,” I take her hand, fling open the window and go out, pulling her through after me, out into the air, up onto the roof. We clamber laughing up the tiles to the ridgeline. I settle in against a chimney, straddling the peak. Little Bit leans back against me, I fold my arms around her.

We watch the sky. We watch the moon rise into the black. “Some people love the moon best of all, don’t they?”

“Some people do,” I agree.

“And the moon, she loves people back.”

“Yes. I believe she does.”

Little Bit gets up then and walks the ridgeline. We are both dressed in black, black skirts, black stockings, black shoes. She looks like a parisian dancer, walking that line, like a circus performer, lifted up by some deep confidence. “I believe from here, in this light, I could fly,” she declares.

“Let’s not test that theory,” I laugh, not ready to commit everything to that confidence.

Little Bit reaches the next chimney and climbs up, perching on the top of it. “I could be a stork or a crane, one of those birds with long legs, long necks, long beaks and a wingspan broad as houses.” She opens her arms.

“I don’t believe I ever saw a black crane.”

“I could be a crane’s shadow, skimming the rooftops. I could be the shadow of a crane.”

“You could.”

“Did I mention I was tired?”

“You did.”

“Because I am.”

“I know,” I say. “Come here, Little Bit, let me hold you awhile. Rest here. I’ll hold you safe.”

Settled back into the cradle of my lap, she breathes her council into my chest. “I know that you’ve been feeling pressed.”

“Yes.”

”It’s important to make as much room as it takes. Don’t accept the given expectation of speed and the need for more, always more. Take the time it takes.”

“I just want to sleep,” I confess.

“That’s ok,” she whispers, “sleep.”

“Sounds like depression, doesn’t it?”

“It’s not depression. A lot has happened. You’re processing, digesting. You are as full as uncles at thanksgiving. It’s ok to take your time. Take the time it takes. You’ll know when you’re ready.”

“And then?”

“And then,” she murmurs, almost asleep, “the light will be in your bones and it will raise you up and you will remember.”

“Remember what, Little Bit?”

“Lift,” she says. Lift.

OOO

Posted in dreaming | 2 Comments