dream departure

In May of 2010, I went into the television studio of the Community Media Center of Marin to record a discussion, moderated by my friend and fellow Dreamer Eleanor Barrón-Druckrey, with two other artists who take inspiration from the world of dreams – Mamacoatl Chantiko and Diana Marto. Stu Rabinowitsh produced and edited the piece, and we are all grateful to him for the wonderful opportunity, and for all his hard work. The video’s first public screening took place at the ROOM Art Gallery in San Rafael, California on September 17, 2010.

Dreams, Sacred Gifts, and Artists as Mystics can be viewed in a higher resolution on Vimeo.

The Black Monk

I am confined, along with 2 other male companions, by bad guys in a detention area. We are lying on narrow tables in the large, brightly lit room. The bad guys have already killed one of us. I see him lying on his side on a nearby table, looking very peaceful, more like he is sleeping than dead. His appearance is quite striking. He looks like a black monk. Every detail of his costume, skin, hair and features is a deep, satiny black, like waxed ebony, and his dress and aspect is that of a monk.

Two of us are still alive, lying on our backs on the narrow tables. The head bad guy walks over to my remaining companion and informs him that he is next to die. He stands over him and aims a tremendous blow, resembling a karate chop, at his solar plexus. My companion, thinking fast, deflects the blow with his arm, leaps to his feet and runs out of the building into the surrounding city. When he does so, I run out after him thinking I need to help him, but I fail to catch up with him. I am tracking him visually, but in a blink, I lose sight of him and do not see him again.

Interpretation: At first, I didn’t know what to make of this dream, other than I’ve felt threatened by a reoccurrence of my depression lately, in the context of preparing to appear on TV, but Alex had a more interesting idea: The bad guy could be a healer in disguise, about to strike the solar plexus, the power center. So these “bad guys” are trying to awaken my power, and I feel threatened by this, and want to escape. Part of me wants to stay small, remain in my comfort zone, and not grow into new levels of awakeness and therefore involvement, which is Responsibility, a word my parents ruined for me, to the point where I rejected it wholesale. They were in denial about my PTSD and depression, and continually blamed me for my failure to thrive. Small wonder I got sick of hearing about Responsibility. Now, as I seek to take full responsibility for my creative gift, the old demons make another appearance as healers.

The image of an animal totem representing a Native American medicine man comes to me on “Dream Radio.” His name is mentioned, and I hear him described as “3rd most powerful,” in other words, not the biggest medicine. I make a papier maché figure of his totem, and show it to some people, saying I could do my art like this; listening to the “Radio” and making images. The image is a big black dog, like a black Labrador Retriever with a worn red collar, carrying a black crow in its mouth. The crow is hanging from a hook which the dog holds in its mouth.

I woke up from this dream, and began making my morning tea. A big black crow was walking in my front yard, and flew up in front of my window. It was a magical feeling. Some interpretation follows the image:

Original Entry for Hanging Crow

This was my first month in the Glen Ellen cabin. It was in this house that I descended into the full depth of my depression, before I moved to Lagunitas, and my father died. In this context, the black Lab could be seen as the functional part of me, carrying the black crow hanging from the hook – the depressed self. The illustration shows that, after I made tea, and began writing, as was my custom, I failed to remember the medicine man’s name, even though it is pretty obviously Hanging Crow. But there is much more here: The helpful presence of the spirit world is striking, and a way to approach my art-making is suggested.

Attending school abroad, I arrive home, entering a grubby and featureless street-level rental in a dismal, hectic town. My room mate, a thoroughly uninteresting guy I met only recently, and know little about, approaches me and wants to talk. He jumps right in, “It’s not that I don’t like you, but I’m moving out.” I don’t say much, but am thinking we just got settled, and it will be difficult to find a replacement to rent his ugly little room. Furthermore, I can’t afford to keep the place by myself, even if I wanted to, which I don’t.

The scene changes, and, back in the USA, I come home to a modest little house in brighter, more open surroundings. Walking up to the house, I see my room mate, an interesting and likable oriental guy with a sunny quickness about him. Normally, I would walk right by him, pursuing my thoughts, abstracted, but a glimmer of awareness tells me to honor his presence, and I greet him warmly. His response is gratifying, and I feel a sense of connection, almost unexpectedly, as if I’d forgotten how good it is to feel this way.

He is framed in the opened garage door, and his domain begins around the corner to the right. I realize I have never even been in his room, and enter, feeling curious and welcome. Inside, I am immediately drawn to an enormous slanted window to my right, like the classic Paris rooftop artist’s studio. After my 2 right turns, the window faces the direction I just came from, but looks out on a wholly different view. Although the house is set in a gentle green countryside, with a few low houses and scattered trees, the view from this window is of a tall, dense & somber city, curiously silent. The window’s sill is about chest high, while the top might be 16 feet in the air. It is perhaps 25 feet wide. It is divided into a grid of old-fashioned panes, a real artist’s window; seemingly looking out on another dimension, because it certainly wasn’t visible as I approached the house.

Directly facing the window, about a block away, is a tall, old, and very beautiful building, whose curving elegance speaks of of a bygone era, the 18th century perhaps, but it is dark, and all its windows are broken. I get the feeling that this room has a lot of privacy, even with all these windows looking down on it. Certainly, there is nobody in the dark building, and the other buildings in sight turn mostly blank faces, or are placed so that it is highly unlikely that anyone is looking in on us. It is a unique sensation, being able to see so much without being observed. I reflect that, had I not followed the urge to greet my room mate, I would not have seen any of this. I love this window, and its strange view.   

I enter a large, tall room upstairs where where a big, high-energy art show is on display. It is my stuff from 30 years ago, and I can see every detail; every familiar passage of dark, passionate pieces I made long ago on the dream plane. They are as real as anything in waking life. It all still exists! I see wall-sized drawings made with fat sticks of graphite, surfaces slathered in graphite at top speed without hesitation, nothing held back. Later, talking with people there, I say, “Working big is good for an artist.”