The bridge becomes a fire, the fire becomes a bridge

From my Romanian Journal

Plaiul Foii, Bucegi Mountains, Romania


Wednesday, October 1

BEARS, WITH OR WITHOUT DOGS

Our charming host at the villa in a fold of the wild Bucegi mountains where I am leading a four day adventure in Active Dreaming greets me with a thimble of palinka. He guides me upstairs and says, "Choose any room you want." I put my bag down in a spacious room with a terrace overlooking the mountains. "I wouldn't choose this side of the house if you like it quiet," he cautions.
     Really? In the last twenty miles of the drive on a bumpy dirt road we passed only a few cars and an equal number of horse-drawn carts.   
    "It's the dogs," my host explains. "Sometimes they bark all night because the bears come close on this side of the house."   
    "What about the other side?"   
    "There are bears, but no dogs."   
    I decide I'll settle for the side with bears but no dogs to bark at them. Later I go to meet the bear-sized dogs that are our border guards.

Thursday, October 2

LIFE RHYMES, ARCHANGELS TOO

1. When I first taught in the Bucegi mountains, I found myself here on the day of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, who are celebrated together in these parts. I attended part of an Orthodox service in their honor at the church of the Caraiman monastery (founded because of a dream) opposite the villa where we gathered that time.

2. Yesterday, before leaving Bucharest, I visited the church of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel in Mircea Eliade's old neighborhood, on Strada Mantuleasa. The church was closed or open (depending on your point of view) because of a funeral.

3. The last two people to arrive for my current workshop, at a new site in the same mountains, were friends named Michael and Gabriel.

~

The first dream title shared when I opened the workshop was:

The ancestors are here and they tell me, "We come to warm our hands at the fire in you."

How could it start better than this?

Friday, October 3

I watch a cat drink from the running stream in front of the house. Strange, wild and beautiful.

Stranger still is the change in the bridge. Yesterday it had gates and railings. Today these have gone. I am told  they will be used on the fires. This may be evidence of the shift to a parallel universe. It is certainly confirmation that I am living in a synchronicity poem.

ANGELS IN SOAP BUBBLES

"I am back in the playground where I played hopscotch and hide-and-seek when I was a little girl. I see soap bubbles coming down. Each one contains a little angel with a message for me, about healing and forgiveness. When the angels speak, I know how to resolve a conflict with a friend, and how to reclaim my health."

- my favorite dream from this morning's dream sharing in my Romanian workshop. Far too good for analysis. We turned it into theater. Wonderful to watch adults playing hopscotch again, and to see those angels coming down, each in the arms of a human soap bubble, and working their magic. Yes, we'll be blowing bubbles as soon as we lay in a supply.

~

We ask to have a fire built for a ritual of cleansing in the evening. The wood used is from the bridge. The bridge becomes a fire, the fire becomes a bridge.

Saturday, October 4

GIFT OF THE RED CAT

Her intention was simply to remember dreams, because they had gone missing. She woke in the middle of the night and said, "Sh-t, I've got nothing." Then she saw that her red cat was on the bed, which wasn't possible in physical reality because the cat was at her home hundreds of miles away. The cat tried to say in human words, "You're dreaming."

Immediately she was transported into a wild jungle full of animal life. Strangely, the animals were contributing their gifts to "bags" projected by the plants. From one of these bags, endowed with the powers of many animals, and of the plant devas, a new human form emerged, full of spirit and understanding.

- I was privileged to hear this dream at the breakfast table this morning. Again, we wasted no time in analysis. We agreed that the dreamer would supply her red cat with suitable treats when she goes home, carry a cat talisman, and accept the cat as an oneiropomp, a guide into dreaming. Then we embodied the energy of the dream - to the delight of the whole circle - in dream theater.

~

At last we have soap bubbles. We give them to the young woman who dreamed that angels came down in bubbles. She leaps gleefully around the room, waving the wand. And it is raining angels.

All photos (c) Robert Moss