Night of the Blue Bird

Sometimes all we need from our dreams is one simple image, bringing clarity and direction. In the midst of leading a soul recovery training in France, I set the intention of dreaming on behalf of the group. 

     In the middle of the night, my upstairs room in an old stone house at the Hameau de l’Etoile was filled with blue light. In the spectrum of blues, I would say that the color was azure. Amazed, I found the source of this light in a great blue bird suspended in mid air. The light shone from within it, as if from the heart of a crystal. In that light, I knew that all would be well and that great gifts would come to those who had made the journey to this little village of hope, in the Midi.

    The quality of this blue light reminded me of figures who have appeared to me in other visions of the night, especially one I call simply the Blue Lady, who has attended and prepared me for grand adventures between the worlds. I thought, also, of the blue-skinned deities of Egypt and India. My bird visitor had a crest on its head, bringing an unassertive sense of royalty and grace.

    I carried the wonderful energy of this vision with me as I went down for coffee in the refectory in the morning. “Good morning to your waking soul,” a member of my training greeted me, with a line from Robbie Burns. I shared my simple dream image by the hearth, and we fanned the ashes from the fire ceremony we had shared the previous night into new life. 

Art: Marc Chagall, "The Blue Bird" (1952)

Studying French with the Bear, Tapped by the Hoopoe

St Martin de Londres, Hérault. 

Notes from my travel journal in southern France.

Highway tarot

My friend was telling a wild and complex story very fast on the road from Montpellier to Nîmes. I asked her to slow down; anyone who talks faster than me is talking too fast. At that instant an illuminated highway sign appeared right in front of us:

ANIMAL ERRANT
RALENTISSEZ

meaning

STRAY ANIMAL
SLOW DOWN

I had to interrupt her verbal stream and insist that she looked at the sigin ahead before she could actually see it. She slowed down a bit, but pretty soon the velocity of her narration, and of the car, was back to hyperspeed.
    Maybe this is why, on the outskirts of Nîmes, we ran into a police roadblock that forced traffic to take a detour. Still aiming for the city center, we came to another roadblock and another detour. It took us an extra half hour, most of it spent stationary in a "stopper" (bouchon, or traffic jam). Ignore the signs, and there can be consequences.

The Empire Never Ended

The Roman temple in Nîmes that they call the Maison Carrée, white and very clean under a gray sky, looks today like it was just transported from another dimension. I think of Philip K. Dick's private fantasy that "the empire never ended".    
    I stand under a statue of the goddess of Nîmes. She towers over a fountain under a sky of high scudding clouds. She is crowned with a miniature version of the Maison Carrée. I recall great Artemis of Ephesus, she of the many breasts (or figs or - most likely - bull's testicles) who wears a whole city on her head, and I am sobered by the memory of what can happen to a man when he offends a goddess. I am very careful around the pagan Lady of Nîmes.
    I circumambulate the Roman arena, where bull fights still take place, but I do not go in, even though they have an exhibition on Cleopatra. Last time I went into the arena, I was saddened and oppressed by deep empathy with the bulls who fought and died here, originally to enact a sacred cosmology, later as entertainment for sanguinary fans. My feelings do not prevent me from eating an excellent steak de taureau at a charming restaurant with yellow chairs on a little square near the arena

The George Yeats Plan for Learning French

My friend the dead Irish poet W.B.Yeats was not a great linguist, but his wife "George" most certainly was. She explained that her secret was that as a teen she immersed herself in French novels without looking at a dictionary, grasping unknown words through their context. I resolved to try this to improve my own faulty French but did not get round to that until a friend presented me with a copy of L'Ours est un Ecrivain comme les Autres. the French translation of William Kotzwinkle's "The Bear Went Over the Mountain".    
     The novel is about a bear who becomes a bestselling novelist by peddling a purloined manuscript. Dressed in stolen clothers, he is taken seriously by big-time NYC publishers and agents though his vocabulary is confined to words like "cake"(which they take to mean money) and "I smell you" (which they take to mean sex). The book is hilarious, and on the first day, with some free time, I couldn't put it down until I had read 80 pages in French, without a dictionary.    
     I noticed that after this literary immersion, I was far more confident in French conversation on the first day of my current workshop in southern France than is often the case. My grammar may still be awful, but my pleasure in making my mistakes is running high. Thank you, George, thank you, Mr Kotzwinkle, and especially, thank you, Bear.

Tapped by the Hoopoe

Half the members of my workshop at the Hameau de l'Etoile are men.This is extraordinary, and encouraging.
     Furthermore, we had a hoopoe bird tapping on the window five times this morning. In The Conference of the Birds, a great Persian tale of mystical ascent by the poet Farid ud-din Attar, it is the hoopoe that calls the birds together to embark on the quest for the King. In the quest, the birds who survive the journey fuse together as the Simorgh, the bird of heaven. I have the sense of walking on the mythic edge.
    My workshop is about becoming a kairomancer, a master of special moments, an everyday magician forever poised to recognize special moments of synchronicity and celebrate than and act on the opportunities they present. In such moments, we sometimes feel that powers from a deeper reality are tapping on the windows of our ordinary perception to encourage us to open to a larger life and the play of forces beyond our consensual hallucinations. I feel this as the hoopoe taps, and taps again and again, as I tell the group about its role in bringing the birds together to make the heaven bird.
    Chansons, I conclude. Let's sing.

Book of Shadows

Between you and the world
falls a screen
that holds the fingerprints of possibility.
Study them like a detective
and you find clues to the future
you can use to change it
or embrace it.

Look carefully and you may find
the screen is smudged
by old habits and regrets
and must be cleaned
before you can trust the patterns.

On some days, in many lives,
you don’t see that the screen is there.
That’s when the movies start playing
that you confuse with the world.
You can get stuck in a Book of Shadows
not knowing how to turn the pages.
You may be caught in the threads
 of an ancient tapestry
of a sleeping king and a red boar.

The trick is to touch the friction ridges
of fate gently, and harvest fine powder
to make the inks and paints
to create your own design for life.
Since the screen between you and the world
becomes your world
use it to make your reality.
The time is Now.

-          Hameau de l’Etoile, October 11, 2015

Photo: The view from my balcony in the Pigeonnier at the Hameau de l'Etoile on the morning I wrote this poem, which flowed directly from a dream.

When the panther has your scent

Hameau de l"Etoile, near Montpellier

At breakfast time today, a group of us were sitting comfortably with our bowls of cereal, our plates of cheese and fresh baguette, and our tea and coffee in front of the low burning fire in the great hearth, sharing dreams and other experiences from the night.
   One woman told me, "I have no dreams."
   "Then you must make up a story immediately," I told her.
   After only a moment's hesitation, she produced a fine adventure story involving a "corsair" seeking a treasure in a deep cave that turned out to resemble a child's marble. The story maker agreed to let her story be used as a script for improv theater in our morning session, and we are eager to see the plot development and many levels of meaning that may emerge as others bring their imaginations and body language into the role playing.
   Another woman in the group shared a fresh dream in which she was lugging an immense crate of hot water bottles - full of hot water - around a residential complex that she knows. Exhausted by carrying all this weight, she threw one of the hot water bottles down some stairs. Immediately a splendid panther appeared. She froze, realizing she was in the presence of a dangerous and possibly hungry predator, then turned sideways.
    She now realized that the turn was a wrong move. In presenting her flank, she had placed herself in the posture of a game animal, something the panther might treat as food. She turned back  to face the panther head-on, standing upright, willing herself not to show or emit fear.
    She felt the danger recede, and now a panther cub came up the stairs to stand with the full-grown big cat.
    She woke with a sense of great curiosity and high anticipation. In discussion, she revealed that she had met the panther in previous dreams, and that there has been an interesting progression. In earlier dreams, a panther had attacked her. Then she dreamed they were looking in each other's eyes. Now she is claiming her ground and the panther cub emerges. If it were my dream (I suggested) I would think that the panther in me is emerging. It is not yet full grown but it has room to grow. And it will help me to manage my energy and make sure that there is a fair energy exchange in what I do. I may be a compassionate and caring person, but the panther in my soul won't let me lug around all those hot water bottles, endlessly available to serve the needs of others.
     We saw how dreams often need to be read as a series. But of course dreams are not simply texts to be read, but powers to be embodied. Asked for an action plan to honor her visitation, the dreamer announced that she would climb a tree; she had already demonstrated she is good at this. i suggested it would be okay to leave claw marks. She also said she might now be willing to eat some meat, to feed the panther in her (not the human, who eschews meat).
    Her intention before sleep the previous night had been to access more of her creative spirit. What came was the panther, dangerous and beautiful. Once again we see how the big powers - the big stories - are hunting the right people to carry them.

At the Round Point

I have found the rond-point of the old Roman city of Nîmes. Rond-point is the French term for a traffic circle or roundabout, but this is more than a part of the road system. It is the point where everything comes together. Here there is no confusion. From here, the patterns of life and of history can be read clearly.
    The discovery is repeated in other cities. The scene shifts to London, and again I am at a Round Point, a central circle. Here the archives are opened. Priceless documents from the earliest times and from imperial history float upwards to become part of an electronic cloud of information available to the world.
    In a third location, no longer in Europe, young people gather at a third Round Point, bringing offerings of lilacs. The petals rise on a gentle breeze and thousands of butterflies dance above their heads.

Feelings: Strong and centered.

Reality: I visited Roman sites in Nîmes during recent travels in southern France, where I am leading new adventures in May. I am often in London and will be teaching there next spring. I'm not sure of the third locale; it may be Asian.
    You see rond-points of varying sizes everywhere in France. 
     I am fascinated by how much may be going on in this dream. For example, if you are driving in a traffic circle or roundabout in a country where people drive on the right (as in France or the US) you go counter-clockwise. In a country where people drive on the left (like the UK or Australia) you go clockwise.
     In a roundabout, you can reverse direction (in effect, do a U-turn) without departing from the flow of traffic.
     Then there's the practice of circumbulation in religious and spiritual traditions, and Jung's insistence that personal transformation ("individuation") is accomplished by the "circumabulation of the self."
     Viewed from above, a rond-point may resemble a mandala.

Action: Try to get to the central roundabout in every aspect of my work and my researches.

Note: This is an "old" dream that popped up from my journal for March, 2011. It gives me a fine feeling of becoming centered and ready for the roads of this world. So I am posting it to celebrate and share that energy.

New adventures in France: From Friday-Sunday, May 17-19, I am leading "Active Dreaming: The Essential Workshop" in a wonderful space on the Rue du Fauborg Saint Denis in Paris. Details here. From Monday-Wednesday, May 20-22, I am leading a three-day residential version of "Dancing with the Bear: Reclaiming the Arts of Dreamin Healing" at a dream location, the Hameau de l'Etoile near Montpellier. Details here. 

Photos: (top) At a carousel with a blue genie at a rond-point in Nîmes (bottom) a Provencal blue door at the Hameau de l'Etoile.