Dream: The Eclectic Birthday Bus Magic Cher Show

I slept a little later than usual, and woke up after a very convoluted dream.  The narrative was all over the place, and my sense is that the themes and events I can recall blended into each other.

Missing the Arcosanti Bus

I'm not sure when this sequence happened in the dream, but I think it was early on.  I was at Arcosanti.  There was a bus going into Phoenix that I was going to take to the airport.  Even though the driver knew (or should have known) that I was going, the bus left without me.  I was going to miss my plane.  Somehow, this wasn't as upsetting as I thought it would be, and I think I tried getting to the airport -- I have a vague memory of a scene with a ticketing agent, but I don't recall much afterward.

Teaching Singing

I was in a large room, like a school cafeteria or a fair exhibit hall.  There was a bank of tall windows on one side of the room, but it was dark outside.  Shelves and cubbies ran below the window.  Institutional tiles on the floor.  There were a bunch of folks there -- I don't know if they were from the SCA, a Ren Faire, or a choir, but they were all artsy-theatre folks I knew.   The room was dark, the only source of light was from a bunch of candles. 

The group was not very organized, and folks' children running around gave what was supposed to be some sort of choir practice the air of a BBQ or potluck.  They wanted to know one of the old songs they'd used to sing, and I was teaching the soprano (and later the base) part to a song, like "Jog On," or" We Three Kings," or "Gabriel John," or "Good King Wenceslas" or something old-timey.   While we were practicing I heard some china break.  I went over the song again with the choir, which was kind of scattered, but I managed to get enough people singing to go through a verse or two....

...and then we all woke up in the dark.  "Who blew out the candles?" I asked.  I was sort of annoyed as I went around turning on some more lights.  In one of the cubbies, I found the shards of a red and white (?Santa?) mug.  "Oh," I said, kind of disappointed, but also kind of glad because I'd never liked that mug anyway.

Cher

We were in a large mansion owned by Cher.  Cher was a sorceress, in full Theda Bara Cleopatra garb, complete with metal cobra brassier.  It was a nice party, there might have been some dancing, but it was more like a cocktail party.

At one point in the dream, presumably after the party, Cher had rolled up her sleeves (I'm not quite sure what happened to her Theda Bara outfit, because those normally don't have sleeves), and was standing at the kitchen sink as she washed the dishes.  As she pulled dishes out of the initial rinse, if she didn't like the way they looked (like if they'd been chipped or if they were extra dirty), she breathed on them, which transformed them into ice dishes, and she tossed them over her shoulder (where they melted away).

Still later on in the dream (possibly after the events related in the next section), Cher flew in on great big white wings.  She landed, folded her wings behind her, and they swept into her long black hair.   She had a cobra or rattlesnake familiar, I'm not sure if he was a spirit and materialized like a ghost, or if he was a bracelet or tiara that animated, or if he started out as a live snake being worn like a belt or torc.  

In any case, the cobra grew into an animated mosaic path -- Cher stood at the tail's tip.  The snake's head lifted up off of the floor and looked back down its length at Cher and said, "Cinnamon, clove, and a touch of lime / now it is the loving time!"  (It's possible the snake had Vincent Price's voice.)  His head burst into a blue-green flame, and the flame traveled down his body and engulfed it.  Cher levitated into the air, and when the flame reached the snake's tail, it jumped up an engulfed Cher, too.   They both disappeared, and the flame contracted to where Cher had floated before it, too, disappeared.  

Birthday Bus

Mark and I had rented a bus for my birthday (which in real life is in two weeks).  My sense was that we'd rented it from a bus/RV garage in Eugene.  I think I mashed together the RV retailer in Junction City, the (years defunct) Marathon custom bus manufacturers in Coberg, and some random tire place on West 11th Ave.   I think I may have pulled the staff from the Eloy Airport Parachute Drop Zone.   

The weather was sunny and warm, and not December-like at all.  I was driving what was very obviously a Lane Transit District bus.  We would pick various friends and family members up, and party on the bus as we drove to various Birthday Destinations (maybe the party at Cher's house?).  

Near the end of the dream, I was driving and the bus was pretty full of partiers.  It was dark (magic of dream setting), and I had to stop the bus at a crossroad / railway crossing.  The setting was kind of like the Pacific Express Way, or when Harlow Road crosses train tracks to get to Highway 99.  I remember doing a U-turn across the train tracks, stopping the bus, and turning on the hazard blinkers while I got out ?to retrieve or place a fist sized rock from/at the side of the road?

Then it was off to the last destination "at Berttlestein."  (This is a road on the western edge of Eugene, that cuts across 11th).  The setting had turned back into a sunny day.  I was driving ?east on 5th? near the Eugene 5th Street Market when a woman said, "Oh we're here!"

I looked up.  I had overshot Berttleestien (which in the dream was a kind of mall? possibly near the "Oregon Electric Station" restaurant) and the bus was barreling toward the open garage of the bus rental place.  I had gotten up to change the bus's marquee to read "Berttlestein".  I was trying to get back to the driver's seat and hit the breaks, but there was a bar or a seat in my way.  The bus zoomed into its bay (think "Galaxy Quest," only in reverse).   The rental staff were frozen about the bay with horrified looks as the bus careened toward the end of the bay.  I hit the breaks.  The bus was going to smack into right side wall.  I overcompensated on the wheel.  The bus was still going too fast.  The bus was going to smash into a kiosk on the left.  I turned the wheel, but too late -- the driver's side view mirror snagged the kiosk, embedded itself into it, and the whole bus stopped.

Everyone got out.  There may have been events from other sections happening here.  There was some insurance follow-up; I'm not sure how much damage there was to the bus or the rental building.  At first the rental staff boss was furious, but no one died, and I guess people started thinking it was kind of funny. 

Easter Auguary

Easter Sunday, as the assembled family was eating hors d'oeuvres out on the back deck,...

a crow flew overhead, alighted on the telephone pole serving our house,

... and began eating a red striped garter snake.

 A second crow joined it ...

and received strips of the disemboweled snake from the first crow's beak to its own.









Because the birds were eating a snake on top of a telephone pole, the whole thing reminded me of a painting by Cristóbal de Villalpando, "Moses and the Brazen Serpent and the Transfiguration of Jesus."  The Brazen Serpent is from the Book of Numbers.  (There's a better picture of it at the MET, here: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/719315 )

• https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/719315
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And now, of course, I'm wanting to write a story with a title like "Transubstantiation of the Serpent," or "Communion of Crows," or start working on a Brazen Serpent for a Halloween Front Lawn Diorama.

Snake Scale Details

Cicero keeps bringing snakes into the yard.  I think this may be the same snake that I've rescued about three or four times now. 

What I like about this photo is that you can see (when you zoom in) how the scales change along the girth of the snake's body.  The ones along the top are long and narrow, while the hexagonal ones on the side are more circular, and the scales along the snake's bottom look like shields. 

Also, the yellow stripe along the snake's body has scales in it that are half-yellow, half-slate colored.

After I photographed this snake, I scooped it up and slid it into a crack in the ground (we have a lot of those because of the high clay content of the soil).  Cicero can't get at the snakes, but he can smell them, and I suspect he spends much of his day standing guard over the cracks, waiting for serpents to emerge.

Dream: Snapping Fire Turtle Sorceress

The recall on this dream is mixed up, but the elements go something like this.

An evil sorceress, basically Malificent al a Angeline Jolene, (or possibly Annie Lennox) was breeding cannibalistic snapping turtles who also liked to eat books.  This was part of her long-term plan to beed a giant sort of turtle-dragon, which she would enchant by feeding it magic books.   The fire-breathing, enchanted snapping turtle-dragon played a key role in her plans for conquest and revenge.

I'm not clear where she lived, because I'm pretty sure I dreamed at least twice.  For most of the dream she lived in the shadowy caverns and waterways underneath the castle of an old magician. Or else she lived in a largish house tucked away at the end of a golf course at a fancy resort.


I was the old magician's apprentice; sometimes (at the beginning of the dream) I was a youngish man, other times I was a twelve or thirteen year old girl (in the middle).  

Earlier in the dream (this happened as back-story) I had found an old underground cellar in the castle.  Underneath the rotting timbers an underground stream flowed, and I had dropped the leaves of an old, beat up book one by one into the stream.  The pages contained a spell, which enchanted the snapping turtles living there.

There was a tribe of Goblins or Gnomes living under the castle.  They weren't High Elves; more like indigenous natives or the Goblins out of Labyrinth (or Muppet Rats).  The Sorceress didn't rule over them, but they were afraid of her and usually did what she asked.


Interlude:

A fiery dragon-turtle had hemmed the Old Magician and me into the stone hall of the castle.  My sense is that the magic of the walls kept the flames out of the hall, but they licked along windows and archways.  The Sorceress appeared, and I rushed her (or the dragon).  The point of view switched to a bird's-eye view from the rafters of the hall.  Rushing in wasn't the smartest move, but it did distract folks long enough for the Magician to get the upper hand.


Interlude:

Now that the Sorceress had been defeated, I was directing the Gnomes to maintain the waterways underneath the castle.  In the darkness they rebuilt a course-way and reservoir in order to redirect the stream so it wouldn't stagnate in slow muddy underground swamps.

The lead Gnome (in a plucky, bumbling comic role) had stacked a bunch of stone bricks up, but the water had built up behind the dam and as he stood proudly in front of it in a ta-da moment, the water burst through.


Interlude:

I was talking to the Sorceress in an author speaks with the character way.  She was in lab with white table-tops cutting up live turtles and feeding them to other turtles, and putting hungry turtles in the same enclosures to encourage them to fight.  We had a behind-the-scenes conversation, which I don't recall much of; something about her plans.  I was pointedly not looking at the turtles.


In the second or third iteration of the dream....

As a young girl, I went to help the sorceress.  She seemed nice, and it was neat to go to her house.  When I got there, I forget what we did -- I think I was helping her take care of animals.  She said she had to leave somewhere, and we locked up her house and animal pens and then she followed the stream-way back up toward the Old Magician's stone castle.

She didn't wait for me, and I have the sense that she was speedily traveling over the curving creek, which I had to run along the bank.

I came across a river gazebo.  One of my girl friends and her nurse(?) were there, dressed in 19th century clothes.  It's possible she was a mermaid, because a mermaid with a glowing green tail was in the creek.

But the sorceress was beginning her conquest, and so river snakes were appearing everywhere.  Twenty at least infested the gazebo, and I had to stop and walk around them very carefully.  Insert Poisonous Snake Anxiety here.  This part of the dream ended with me trying to open the door to get out.



When I woke up, I tried to figure out what the snakes meant.  The whole dream has a very Jungian feel to it, with shadow selves and underground water.

I haven't had a dream like that since something like 1980, when I used to dream about a poisonous snake threatening to bite me in my Grandmother's basement.  I have dreamed about snakes within the last few years, but they've usually been singular or non-threatening.  The snakes in the latest dream felt like the anxiety scorpions I used to dream about when something was bothering me at Arcosanti; so it's possible something was bothering me (like my stomach).

Fire-breathing snapping turtles are new.

Synthesis and Progress

I've been trying to synthesize what Joanna Russ said about voice being "on the slant," and her imaginings of macho Kirk, the golden grain god and "egalitarian other alien" Spock, the dark Pan god as same-sex lovers; what Jo Eldride Carney says about stories about Queens reinforcing the narrative of patriarchy; and my dreams.


In my dreams deity expresses itself as queer and male which is A) able to balance spiritual love, romantic love, and sexual love; B) a mediator between immanent, nurturing, divine, erotic waters and culture; and, C) in touch with and informed by fiery erotic creative inspiration.  Looking at the dream imagery, I'd paraphrase this as the rhyton and the snake.

Hmmm.  Now all I have to do is write around these symbols in a way that is interesting, yet not preachy.  

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On the submission front, I'd been waiting and waiting for a market to get back to me, and was about to query them when I checked their web site. It turned out they'd rejected my story (based on their usual turn-around-time, probably two weeks ago), but the e-mail must have crossed somewhere. 

 On the writing front, the other night I passed a piece of 800 word flash through the table. This time around, walking over the Plank of Description, I fell not into the Deep Pool of Too Much Detail, but instead into the Trickle of Not Enough Information. Most everyone got bits and pieces of the story, one person figured it all out, and the person sitting next to me kept going "OH!" as the critique progressed and little bits of the puzzle were revealed.

And now, back to writing.

Snake Dream

I was going on a hike with Mark in the fields and hills between my parents' house.  There was a group of us, but other than Mark, I don't recall who.  I quickly became separated from everyone, and was in a kind of cul-de-sac of blackberries in a field near Bald Hill.

I could hear everyone up on the hill, and I managed to find a trail leading through a lower place in the brambles.  The bramble paths pointed at an old brown cottage one way, and back the way I'd come the other.  I picked my way through the brambles and stepped over a small brook.

The hill and the fields transitioned at this point, I think.  They became less green and Oregonian and more arid, and more like the sonorian desert with cliffs.  I was too busy wondering about the lizard I saw scrabbling up and down a sandy dune.  I had the sense that this was a big lizard because I could see it well at a distance.

I wanted to catch up with everyone, so I headed toward Bald Hill, where I'd heard them last.  I became concerned about rattlesnakes, because I knew they'd like to sun themselves on the rocky slope.  There's a break in my recall, but the next thing I can clearly recall, I was being chased by a rattlesnake and another, smaller snake.  I was running and they were wriggling after me.

I say that it was a rattlesnake, except that this snake was banded black, yellow, and red.  Its rattle wasn't quite like a regular rattlesnakes, it was black and charred looking, like the remains of a log after a fire.

Despite running away, the snakes caught up to me, and then then rattlesnake proceeded to wrap itself around my neck and shoulders and sort of hang out.  I might have been bitten on the hand, but it was more like a grazing bite.

The setting transformed to a busy city street.  It was daylight.  I still had the rattlesnake wrapped around my throat.  I met a writer friend, but she was an amalgam of three different Wordos.

"John," she said, "I saw you from a distance and I said to myself, 'Is John wearing a rattlesnake around his neck?'  And you are!"

We had a small chat.  The rattlesnake might have changed color to something more like a rattlesnake's, and the rattle seemed less like a piece of burnt wood and more like the nestled buttons of a rattlesnake's tail.  I have a strong sense of the snake's coils.  Eventually the rattlesnake got bored or whatever, and shrugged itself off of me. 

I must have woken up or something because I was telling some folks about the dream and A.R. (also from the Wordos) looked at me like I'd just walked backwards on a high wire over a fire and said, "Well. You've certainly made your spiritual connections."


And then I woke up again.

I'm trying to figure out this dream, because I don't normally dream about snakes.  Usually after I cross a stream in my dreams, I encounter a stag or a panther or a raccoon or a white horse.  As a white person of English and Norwegian stock, I'm not grounded in Native American traditions, so I'm hesitant to break out the sage and say (in deep, serious, spiritual voice) Rattlesnake Is My Power Animal. 

But over the new moon and my birthday--both tomorrow--I think I'll be on the look-out for snakes and what they might be trying to tell me.