gathering feathers, forked & split, plucking out

The past week has been full of feather-collecting.

First:
Was in a run-down tree house in an over-grown backyard.

The space had light filtering through the dusty windows, spilling onto the warped wooden interior & tinting everything a warm ocher. Ancient wooden furniture and tattered papers littered the dirty floor. It appeared no one had been there for quite some time.


I exited the building, and as I mounted the wooden ladder and began my descent a great blue-gray eagle swooped down, its long wing feathers grazing my arms. I turned to watch and saw that he was in pursuit of a blue jay, its shrill calls obnoxious and piercing.


The eagle opened his great beak and I saw his tongue was forked. He flew gracefully into range and snapped his jaws shut on the jay's torso, severing it perfectly in half.

I finished my descent & proceeded to gather the feathers of the dead bird as the eagle watched from the branches of a near-by oak.


Second:
Was standing at the fence that bordered the property of my high school and the adjacent church's back parking lot. (I used to park there, just off of school grounds.) I was looking down at the mess of leaves and branches that collected along the fence and spotted a bright blue feather.


When I bent to pick it up, I found an entire blue jay wing in the leaves.

I began to pluck the flight feathers one-by-one, inspecting each closely before moving on to the next. The feathers gradually turned from blue with black stripes to red with solid black markings. Towards the end of the wing (the side closer to the body), the feathers were from an entirely different bird. I know I have dreamed of these very particularly-marked feathers before, but do not know what bird they are from (see: "Honoring the Owl"). The last feather remaining was growing in backwards. When I pulled it out, I saw that the black surface was dotted with hundreds of tiny red eyes.

I began rummaging through the leaves to find the rest of the bird. At some point, I found a severed head buried under the leaves.

The face was most definitely that of a man (I could feel the stubble on his face), his skin a sickly gray. His flesh was still very pliable, and I parted his lips to inspect his teeth. Each tooth had small buds on the ends, and when I scraped away the thin layer of flesh covering the buds, feathers emerged.


I gathered these feathers and left.

taming the horse

was walking through a wooded area much like mima's mississippi. while following the paths, i was told that the animals wouldn't run away if i was calm and present in myself. small birds crossed my path, as well as a pair of porcupines which danced around me in a clearing.



as they danced, their bodies transformed into toucans, their long beaks awkward and clacking.



i walked away after they dispersed and came to a clearing that ended in a ravine. when i looked across the divide, there was a very large animals with black and white markings.



at first i thought it could be a cow, but it was so wild. the thought of a great dane crossed my mind, but before i could figure it out, the beast leapt across the ravine and galloped to me, it's head lowered in a threatening way.

i could see he was a horse. a VERY large horse. i became aware of the forest around me, filled with many wild horses. this was a very important horse among them. he spoke to me, however i don't remember what he said. he was testing me.

he leaned down and bit down onto my neck. i was overcome with the smell of the earth and his musty sweat. i instincively returned the gesture, my mouth full of his skin and fur. i could see his coat covered in dust and fleas. i contemplated each individual speck for a very long time, his flesh between my teeth & his smell in my sinuses.

when the embrace ended, he knelt down and told me to get onto his back. i climbed on with a little difficulty, his size so monstrous even with him crouched. as soon as i was on, he stood quickly and broke into a gallop. i held tight to his overgrown and tangle mane, the gallop hard and wild.

we rode for a long time through the forest. once i started getting used to the rhythm of his steps, we came to the path that lead back home. my mother stood at those crossed paths, her will overpowering that of the horse. he stopped, and she told me to climb off and come home.

as i climbed off, the horse and i shared a gaze. while he still was wild, something in him broke. he turned and galloped back into the woods.

nests, giants, the starlings stayed with us

I was in a large one story house that sprawled out in all directions. There were many rooms, but one stood out the most. It had a very high ceiling and the walls were made of cliffs. On some of the cliffs nested shore birds, whose clattered at each other and stained the rock face with shit.



On the top of one cliff sat a giant gazing down at me. I felt I was not supposed to climb these walls, so I walked on down the cavernous hallways.



Suddenly, the person who was sleeping next to me appeared in the dream. We walked to a door that led out into a green courtyard. There were groups of teenagers throwing a frisbee and avoiding the small furry animals crawling all around the ground. I know some of them were squirrels & rats, but I think there were larger ones like badgers.



As I stepped outside, I looked into the trees that crowded around the skyline. Every branch was heavy with starlings, their golden markings shimmering. As my friend stepped out behind me, the birds hunched down as if to spring into flight. I turned to my friend and said, "Keep your spirit still."



The birds remained in the trees as we looked on.

seeing the holy man

I found myself outside of an old sandstone building being eroded by an almost-desert clime. It felt very old and the buckskin colored landscape was highlighted by the occasional aloe plant or other small succulents.



I was preparing to see a holy man to ask him a question (which I can't remember awake). I waited in line in order to stand before a great stone basin. The basin was eroded like the building, and it was covered in lichen and moss. I took a pale blue robin's egg and cracked it into my mouth. I manipulated the egg's contents with my tongue, first spitting the yolk then the white into the basin. From this, I had prepared myself.



When I came to the holy man, he had a stout-looking mask on in the form of a bison's head. I presented him with my question, and he transformed into this giant spider-goddess. Her body was slender and wispy with lace-like hairs creating fractal patterns around her form. She began to weave an answer in words and in images in delicate thread produced from her body (as spiders are apt to do!).

honoring the owl, a salt & feather fetish, blue jay screams again

Was in Nanu's backyard, by the tennis court at dusk. There was a may-pole with two white snowy owls circling it. I climbed the pole to find the owls were mechanical. I knew Hazel had put them there. They were playing a song I knew well, but cannot recall awake.

I climbed down and saw shadows of birds circling with the mech-owls. When I looked up, there were about 6 real owls, some of them barred, some screech, some barn. I then realized that Hazel had put the mech-owls there to honor the spirit of the owl, and the owls had accepted. I showed this to Paul & he wept, recognizing something deep & holy.

One of the owls left the pole and flew to the ground beside some bushes. He plucked two feathers from his wings and flew off. I went to pick up the feathers and saw one standing up-right in a pile of crystalized salt with leaves arranged around it. The feather was smaller than an owl's with black and red markings. It had transformed.

I noticed an immature robin in the bushes who had been wounded by the owl. I picked him up, but he hopped off and tried to fly away. I walked off & came to a branch with a vividly colored blue jay. The jay fanned out her feathers and screeched at me over and over again. I felt enraged at her.

I then climbed up to a rooftop and found myself surrounded by old European-style relief carvings on the side of adjacent buildings. I had a camera with a zoom lense, & I was peering through the viewfinder at the carvings, focusing and unfocusing.

electrical mischarge, wading with my son

Paul's face was sunburned-- walking through White Station, stopped in a stairway to apply aloe. Very painful, he squirmed.

Found myself at my old house in the backyard. Bird's nest on the chimney, thought it was full of baby crows, then owls. Saw mamma Canadian goose come to feed.

A gigantic snake the length of the house came from the bushes. He wrapped himself around my father, preparing to eat. My mother was on the balcony with a long-distance stun gun. She had to hit the snake squarely on the head, then Dad had to discharge electricity from his body at the right time for the snake to uncoil. Mom's aim was perfect, but Dad discharged too soon. It killed him. Mom dragged off his body to perform CPR, but I knew it was too late.

I walked behind the house to find the yard submerged in water. I went into the lake & saw a large platypus/shrimp/mosquito creature feeding on plankton through a finely fringed mouth. My son was there with me. He was about 6 years old, but his face kept changing every time I looked at him. He was deeply comforting to me, and extremely wise. An old soul.

As we watched the creature feed, a gigantic carp the size of a school bus rose from the depths. Its scales were a transluscent, ghostly paleness. I felt its fin brush against my leg.


It turned and tried to swallow me. I rode its waves to the shore and hid underneath an azalea bush in full, white bloom.

The carp had two back legs and walked out of the lake, lumbering around and sniffing for me. It did not persue my son, who had settled in next to me, calming me down and telling me to be very still. When the carp was above me, he sniffed for a long time, finally saying, "No human, just blooms and leaves here."

My son handed me a card with 12 illustrations of the faces of ants. Each was the same face, but with slightly different colorations. He told me that these ants would play a role in the decline of human civilization. I then remembered seeing the same card earlier in the dream.

easing on death, foggy lakes, blue jay woman, and the woodpecker’s call

Was in a castle in the middle of a forest. I was part of a class that was on a field trip. I felt disconnected to all the people there.

I went into a courtyard where there was a woman standing next to a zebra. The zebra's stomach had a massive gash across it and its entrails were spilling out. She was trying to kick the people around her, and was in an acute state of pain & panic. I approached her, expecting her to kick me. Instead, she nuzzled me, and I stayed next to her and comforted her as she died. I tried to keep everyone else away to ease her pain.



I then walked through the castle to the back, where there was a series of wooden walkways built over a huge, misty lake. As I walked along the path, I kept seeing these mosquito-scorpions, their long hair and stingers raised in a delicate display. I thought they might bite or sting me, but they stayed where they were on the railing as I watched.




I then wandered through the castle again to a dining room, where many of my classmates were. I sat alone. There was a girl about my age with black hair and huge tits sitting about two tables away. She started calling me a bitch and generally being miserable towards me. I was truly hurt at first, but then I started hassling her back. She had a folding fan in her hands made of blue jay feathers.




I walked back outside and into the forest. In the sky was a flock of pileated woodpeckers. I thought about all the times I had heard their calls but never actually saw them. I was overjoyed.

fetal light-clot

I suddenly realized I was three months pregnant and in unbearable pain. The pain was so severe I thought it would kill me and my unborn child.

I went to the hospital and the doctors and nurses laid me on the table. I was writhing and screaming with pain. As they prepared their instruments for an ultrasound, I left my body and could see the fetus inside of me.



At first it was unclear, as if I was seeing it unfocused and in black and white. I could see something blocking its throat, and I thought it was a blood clot. The pain I thought would kill me was actually the pain of my unborn child.




Soon, the image became clearer, and I could see it was actually an orb of light that was blocking its airways. It was absolutely terrifying, as if I was watching helplessly as a part of myself choked to death. Slowly, the light dislodged itself and began to make its was down the fetus's esophagus.

birds show themselves, cicadas emerge

Was trying to catch a plane to some other country (Germany?), but I found myself at this house full of people I knew in high school, but hadn't seen in a very long time. I kept feeling like I needed to catch up, and kept missing my departure time.

I stepped outside to leave and found myself standing at the base of a mountain. I looked into the sky and two very large crows flew into a pine tree. Followed by bleeding-heart doves, shoebills, sparrows, woodpeckers. I was so happy! Further in the hills, a bear stumbled by.


I walked away and found myself at the door to my dead grandmother's house. The cicadas had emerged, and the sound was overwhelming. They were everywhere, in every stage of breeding & dying. Pokey, my parents' dachshund, was there to pick up the dying ones and eat them. I could hear their muffled cries in his jaws.



I remembered a trick I learned on a nature program: if you snap your fingers, the male (loud) cicadas will think it's a female and come to you. I snapped, and there was a male in the air who dipped down toward me. However, there was a HUGE spiderweb (which was very long like a Japanses scroll) between us, and the cicada was caught.

I didn't see the spider who wove it, but I knew it had to be a truly magnificent one. I saw a very colorful moth the size of a crow in the web, too. The markings looked Aztec. Very vivid.

I saw more of these moths very high in the air. They drifted down slowly down towards me among the cicadas.

washing with blood, bleeding it out

I've had two dreams that involve blood recently.



The first took place in the same apartment building as a previously documented dream (see: "finding the missing piece"). I was helping friends move out. They were supposed to be gone and the landlord was not happy. He worked around us, throwing whatever he could grab on top of a pile of dead leaves in the middle of the livingroom.



While this was going on, I was helping the way I knew how-- by cleaning. I had a bucket of water and a brush with stiff bristles. I dipped the brush and started scrubbing a pale wooden dresser. The water was mixed with blood, and everything I cleaned was left stained.

The landlord lit the pile of leaves and furniture on fire, and I ran from the room to the back porch (this again is a setting from a previous -different- dream [see: "duck feathers"]). The porch was covered in the bodies of dead and dying dachshunds, as well as lots of maggots and dirt. I jumped into the lake just beyond the porch. This is all I remember.

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The dream from last night left me feeling a little more disturbed. I was wandering around the sight of yet ANOTHER dream I've blogged about (see: "goat love"). There were pathways criss-crossing across hillsides covered in bushes & trees. There were small animals skittering around, but I never got a good look at them.

I became aware of a pain on my lip and forehead. I then changed my perspective and viewed myself face-on. I had a very large and swollen pustule on my lip that ended in what looked like an anus. There was also a hole in my forehead (although I did not want to look at that one too closely). Both were leaking blood onto my shirt.

When I took off my shirt, I examined my breasts. My nipples were also bleeding. The blood stained the earth below me.




I then had an urgent need to find a train to get me out of this place.

wolfspeak, cottonmouths, and wild turkeys

Two nights ago, I dreamed I was in a rural area where a large beast lived. He had the face and tail of a wolf, but the bulk of a bear. I was warned to stay away from him because he was too powerful.

I ran into him and found that I could communicate using the nuanced body language of the wolf. This included showing my teeth, sticking my tongue out, arching my back, and moving my ears. In my mind, there was a voice translating his movements. First, he stuck his tongue out and barred his teeth saying, 'I trust you.'



Eventually, his language moved from his face to his body, when he flipped over on his back and said, "I love you" and "I will never forget you." I thought I was misinterpreting, but then I looked and saw he had an erection. We had sex, which felt like some kind of ancient ritual. I could feel his power being given to me.

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So, last night I dreamed I was in Mississippi with many of my cousins. We were tromping around the woods. I was trying to hide the fact I was smoking pot. But then I heard a voice say, 'you cannot shelter them forever.'

My uncle showed up in a wisp of pot smoke, as if he was trying to protect his daughters while being guilty of smoking himself. We walked through the woods and into the creek. The water was cool and clear, but much deeper and swifter than I remembered. I swam to an island in the middle, and two cottonmouth snakes were resting there.



One slithered off, but the other stayed. I wanted to protect my cousins (again), so I picked up the snake. It wasn't happy, but did not strike. I flung it into the water, and it swam away.

We swam to a large stone bridge and climbed to the top. I found myself nearly naked, standing in Harvard Square in Cambridge. I walked around looking for batteries for awhile, and then turned to make the walk back to my grandmother's house.

I walked through a wooden gate on the way back, and my great-uncle Ed's spirit appeared to me (which is odd because he is alive). He told me that he is connected to me and could hear me even in New York. He told me he is my guardian. He said that sometimes things are scary, but looking closely can reveal the truth. A wild turkey ran between us making a terrible noise, which scared the shit out of me but then made me laugh once I knew what it was. He smiled at me.




Then I was a rat in the subways of New York. I was running around making people laugh while on a mission to plant as many trees in the cracks of the concrete as possible. I was using human waste as a fertilizer.

duck feathers and the hawk's cry

Was on a wooden deck at a lakefront. There was a rundown Somerville-style house behind the deck, which I was in the process of moving into. I walked through the house and there was graffiti scrawled all over the walls and it was generally quite filthy. I was thinking about how much of a pain it will be to clean up the place.

Kurt Cobain was there, as well as other people I identified as dead. He handed me a half-dead mandarin duck and asked me to butcher it for dinner.



I took it to the kitchen, which was much like the downstairs bar area of my old house. I placed it on the counter, and his eyes were rolling around in their sockets in pain. I could not bring myself to decapitate him, even if it meant putting him out of his misery. I asked Kurt to do it, and he did with gusto.

I began to butcher the duck, but as I sliced into his body, blood began pouring out. When the blood hit the floor, it became a torrent of water. I took a broom and tried sweeping the flood into a drain that was underneath the fridge. The grate on the drain had a swastika on it.



The beautiful feathers of the duck littered the floor, and when I looked closely at them their striations turned into faces and eyes. I began to wake up, and heard a red-tailed hawk calling. I don't know if it was part of the dream or my old friend in Boston greeting me from the couch at 3 Mossland.

goat-love and bird dinosaurs

Was in a city in Norway in the summer. I was walking through the town with my father, mother, and Paul looking at all the consumerism. I walked through an outdoor craft fair, which was full of hand-made wonders. At the end of the booths, there was an open area that was lush & green. A young girl was there with a goat tethered to a leash. She was yanking on his neck & unknowingly causing him pain. She started trimming his hooves & cut them too close, drawing blood. I was afraid he would kick her in the face (because he was certainly thinking about it).



I walked further up a slope and there was a whole herd of goats that were mine! I was overjoyed. Andrew showed up & was commenting on how lovely my goats were. I was running around scratching them behind their horns and playing and having a blast!



Out of the brush two HUGE bird-dinosaurs slunk out. They were kind of like panthers in their mannerism and size, but their bodies were covered in black iridescent scales and feathers, and their feet were like crows'. Their backs were crested with long black feathers like a fin, but was parted like hair. They had very sharp teeth and moved surprisingly fast. At first I thought they would eat me, but then they went after my goats.

I don't remember what happened, but I found myself in the driveway of my grandmother's house. There was a goat boy there with me. He had the head & legs of a goat, but the rest of him was human. He was covered in the most beautiful rust-colored coat, which glowed. I will spare you the details, but my god he was one tender lovin' goatboy.