Dream - Space Needle Cirque du Soleil

Intense, strange dream last night (or this morning, technically) right before I woke up.

The beginnings of it are hazy. I know that I was exploring some tall building somewhere (I don't think I was myself, but some other character at this point), and one thing that sticks out vividly in my memory is getting into an elevator that, half-way down, went into free-fall. An automated female voice came on over the speakers to calmly inform the passengers (of which I was the only one at that point) to pry open the doors of the elevator as it began to turn and roll onto its back as it fell (so that the doors would be facing up) and be ready to jump upwards just as the elevator hit the bottom of the shaft. Supposedly, this would help minimize the impact somehow - but since I was in a free-falling elevator and had no real choice, I followed the instructions, and somehow it worked, almost as though the bottom of the shaft was cushioned to absorb the elevator box without it smashing apart, while some kind of forcefield was in place to catch and suspend me just as I jumped so that my momentum was slowed and I was able to sort of "swim" towards the opening that was about ten feet up from the bottom of the shaft.

I spent some more time wandering around in the dream, which is now half-forgotten. Somewhere along the way, I met up with other people and the dream became a Volunteer Naturalist training class with Penny and Anne leading us. Once again, I found myself inside the elevator, only this time with a group of people, when it went into free-fall and the same automated voice gave instructions. I had my doubts about how it would work with all of us trying to squeeze through the door and jump at the same time, but somehow it did.

I found myself then heading out of the tall building with everyone and at that point I could see from the outside that it was the Space Needle (although inside it was much more like an office building with multiple rooms and hallways on each floor and the elevator on the inside, not the outside, of the building). Instead of being at the City Center downtown surrounded by concrete and other buildings, the Space Needle was standing in the midst of a huge, grassy field that stretched out on all sides with trees lining the field off in the distance. Some of the SVNs were talking with Penny about the next bit of training for the class, and she was joking about how it would involve capturing, killing and dissecting an animal. I think everyone was a bit horrified at the thought - since these are folks who signed up to protect the wildlife in the parks, not hunt it - but several of the people were trying to put on a brave face for the sake of the training, since they signed a contract at the beginning saying they would complete the training and donate their time to teach afterwards. I made some brief joke, but then said in all seriousness I didn't plan to kill or dissect anything regardless of what I'd signed. I got the impression that that was the right response that Penny had been going for, but she didn't say anything right then.

It must have been our lunch break at that point, because we all wandered off into the field beneath the Space Needle to settle down for a break while Penny and Anne talked together and prepared for the next bit of the training. While we were gathered there in the grass, a show began on the lawn surrounding the Space Needle - like a Cirque du Soleil, except that the performers were giants. They were varying heights, with the shortest group of them being maybe ten feet tall, and the tallest being closer to fifty or sixty feet. They were dressed in all sorts of amazing, intricate costumes - predominating among a certain group of tall, skinny giants about 12 to 14 feet tall with outfits of silk scarves and long draped robes of oranges and reds, with painted faces - and they performed acrobatics and synchronized interpretive dance around the base of the Space Needle almost as though it were some sort of maypole. The performers were of all different skin colors, and one woman in particular with dark skin and the most beautiful dreadlocks seemed to be a kind of goddess-giant moving in an amazing dance of agility - you could see her muscles flexing and her sweat that made her skin glisten along with the glittery body paint she wore. Others around her were of all skin tones, but mostly tall and skinny (though not taller than she was), and there were... littler giants (?) of only about ten feet tall who were in usual human proportions like she was, except bigger.

They performed their acrobatics and dancing around the Space Needle for a while as more and more people gathered in a huge circle on the lawn to watch them, groups of us sitting in clumps here and there, not all of them for the SVN training, but strangers as well who'd been passing by and come to watch. The performers began bringing people in from the audience and the act transformed into a kind of spiritual healing session in which - what might be called "faery darts" but were more like "faery bullets" were shot through people, piercing them and supposedly severing the binds of illness or pain within them. One man eagerly volunteered and dragged his young son into the circle as well, having the boy stand behind him to be pierced by the same invisible arrow/bullet of energy. This struck me as dangerous and unwise, and I began to have a visceral negative reaction to what was going on. Another woman who got up to be healed (or was called up by name, as I think the performers had begun to do) had cataracts over her eyes - when they flung the dart/bullet at her, she collapsed unconscious to the ground. As she regained consciousness, her cataracts began to clear from her eyes, and they told her that what had been causing them was some kind of sickness in her brain that had migrated to the back, to the nape of her neck, where it was now bulging out in some kind of pussy blister or tumor that needed to be lanced and released. But she began to lose consciousness again, and again I felt like what was going on was not okay and wasn't actually helping anyone.

At that point, I noticed odd-shaped white objects in the sky above us, and when I looked closer, I realized they were spinning, open-air discs that were falling from the top of the Space Needle sort of like whirligigs or horizontal pinwheels, or seeds that were riding on the wind. At first, they looked beautiful and amazing - but as they got closer, I realized just how big they were and that they were not actually attached to anything by a cable or guide, so they really were in a free-fall and would land wherever the wind took them. I panicked at this point, seeing these massive wheels of metal whirling down towards where we were on the ground - but everyone else seemed to take it in stride, so I tried to quell my panic. Sure enough, the wheels not only did not crash into one another on their way down (for there were maybe ten or fifteen of them all together), but they all rolled and landed neatly in the grass without landing on either the performers or the audience gathered. As they landed and rolled to a stop, I saw that inside them were people (strapped in with their feet to the edges and their backs against the top of the disc, so that as the discs came to a stop, they were somewhat horizontal with their faces towards the ground) who'd use the whirligig discs as a kind of conveyance-slash-amusement park ride to get down from the top of the Space Needle.

At this point in the dream, I got up and switched where I was sitting, moving to the other side of the group where people I knew were talking. The energy there suddenly seemed to be lighter and the free-floating panic I'd been feeling about various things evaporated as someone made a joke that sent me laughing heartily at something. With the laughter came a great release of tension and I felt so happy to be there, hanging out with friends. Just as the dream was ending, I glanced up and saw A* sitting nearby on the other side of a few people - we made eye-contact briefly, and in that moment it was like I could see his thoughts going that he was both pleased to see me laughing but also confused and somewhat envious that I was off laughing with others, whereas he felt overly awkward and so was only ever very quiet around me. (In retrospect this reminds me of that Ani DiFranco song when she says, "I like you so much I talk to everyone but you.") In the dream, the feeling was certainly mutual and I too felt awkward around him to be able to joke and laugh freely - yet felt that giddy excitement at making eye-contact with him.

* I really need to stop watching this TV show, if A is going to be showing up randomly in my dreams. ::embarrassed::

Brigid Star Fire, An Imbolc Meditation

I began in a field, a green expanse full of flowers and bright sunlight unrolling on all sides. A figure danced in green and gold rippling, barely distinguishable at first from the wind shifting and dancing through the long grasses — yet as she moved closer, I was able to make her out. Eyes that flashed black and full of stars, a glimpse here and there in her turning and spiraling of a darkness, glinting cold and dark, then slipping, spinning back into green and gold. The mantle she wore spun out around her as she turned and danced, the colors of its threads flung out like sparks from a fire, leaping, or like flower petals of purple crocuses and myriad colored wildflowers — some falling to the ground to spring up as blossoms from scattered seeds, while others fluttered, took flight as a thousand butterflies flirting with the warm breeze.

So unlikely a scene, in the midst of this cold and bitterly long winter, that it took me a moment to adjust, to sink more deeply into the sense of place and allow myself to enter, to engage, the awakened land. The candle on my altar — the golden fire-in-the-water afloat among golden flecks of glitter in the blue bowl, the flame of transformation and forge fire that marked the opened center way — hissed and sparked as it consumed the offering of butter. On either side, the red candle of fire, poetry and inspiration and the blue candle of water, healing and integration burned steadily in their holders. But my eyes were closed, as I sunk deeper into trance. The green, gold meadow grew more intense in my mind's eye as I slipped down into my true center.

What is this dancing? I asked her, running to keep up as she laughed and twirled. What do you have to teach me, Brigid? Is spring here already? It seems so cold still. She seemed to ignore my half-frantic questions, challenging me with her movements to stay on my toes. Suddenly, she flopped down in the grass like a small girl, giggling, laying on her stomach propped up on her elbows, running her fingers through the grasses and flower blossoms. Her gold-flamed auburn hair fell around her face in braids, and the soles of her bare feet were slightly darkened with the dirt of the earth. I looked more closely at where her fingers were playing and dancing through the rich flora of the meadow. She plucked a white-fuzzed sphere of a dandelion and sat up, cross-legged, and held it up between us for me to examine. "Funny," she mused, "How the same flower that can be so golden and bright as the sun — turns to white, soft fluff carried on the wind when it goes to seed...." She took a deep breath and blew, closing her eyes for a moment as if making a wish. The we both watched as the seeds one by one let loose and drifted like snow across the wide field — some snagging in the nearby grasses and trembling there, others carried far and high until they were lost to our sight against the bright sky. "How much they look like tiny stars!" Brigid exclaimed, and she was on her feet again, running and dancing among the flowers. The field seemed suddenly full of dandelions, most of them golden yellow and bristling with sunshine. When Brigid found one ready to seed, a crystal fuzz-ball of intricate webbing in white, she'd flick it with her toe as she danced past, sending the seeds scattering to the wind.

But, I called out, what about my work? What work should I be doing? I have been so tired, it's so hard for me to work up the energy to stick to a discipline. You are the Goddess of the Forge, of the steady and unglamorous work of transformation! Don't you have any advice for me? She laughed with that laugh that always seems to mean, "You just don't get it, darling!" She continued dancing through the green, sun-bathed fields, calling out behind her, "The dandelion is not always sunny. Sometimes it must go to seed to survive, sometimes it must put down deep roots! Not every season is the season of discipline and work! Things change! I am not just a goddess of transformation — I am also the goddess of inspiration!" As if in response to these words, on my altar the red candle sparked and hissed, and its flame danced in its holder. "Now it's time for you to indulge in some joy, my darling!" Brigid announced, catching me up with her hands and swinging me around trying to urge me to dance. "Now is a time for the joy of inspiration — do what brings you joy, find again the playfulness in yourself. Now is not a time for work — I am sick of work — now is the time to play! As the spring comes and the days warm, play and be joyful! These are your duties now, to dance the spring in, to welcome it as it deserves!"

Her words kept coming, urging me to seek again the source of my joy, to sing my soul-song in playful notes, and set aside my worries about obligation and progress. Moved by her words, I joined her dancing, and together we spiraled and swirled and skipped through the grasses, singing and laughing beneath a high, bright sky. After a time, I asked her, Should I — I mean, you are my goddess. Should I take an oath to you, a formal vow? She scoffed kindly at my question. But others in our group have done so — and I have no doubt in my heart that I am devoted to you... Her dance slowed beside me so that she could gaze more deeply into my eyes. "For others," she said, "An oath is like the spiderweb that connects and weaves them together in my service — and it is on those strands that the jewels of transformation, devotion and inspiration collect like dew. But you — you are already too full of duties and responsibilities, shouldering too much of the world as an obligation. No, you do not need to make any more promises to me that you have not already made. What you need to learn.... is a little bit of joy and freedom!" And with that, we were spinning again, dancing. The red candle on the altar sparked and danced along.

And as the trance deepened, as I slipped in and out of the rhythm of the spiraling dance across the meadow, it seemed that suddenly she caught me up in an embrace full of passion and joy, kissing me deep on the mouth — her breath becoming my breath, sweet and warm with the scent of flowers and greenery in springtime. I opened my arms to embrace her, and found I was embracing nothing but breeze and sunlight, as my body shivered, transfused with a sudden warmth tingling in every cell. She had entered into my body, or merged, or blended — I found myself to now be wearing the lush green robe and mantle hemmed with golden knotwork ribbon weaving its patterns along each edge, and as I spun, it rippled out around me in long undulating waves that seemed the very expression of joy and creativity rooted deep within the earth. The dandelion seeds drifted white around me, and soon the field was full of them, wafting as thick as snow but warm and soft. I found the meadow had grown dark and the seeds drifted upwards to mingle with the stars against the darkness of the night sky. I seemed to hear her voice from within — yet from a great distance — "What you need to learn, child, is how to plant the seeds of joy in your heart and nurture them as they crave. What grows of these — leave that to me...."

Then slipping quickly back, the trance came to an end and I was sitting before my altar again, watching the three flames burning steady and silent in the still air. Dipping my finger in the butter again, I consecrated a fourth candle, a large white pillar in a red-and-orange stained glass hurricane jar. This was to be my flamekeeping candle for the coming year, lit and tended every twenty days during my shift. What promises you have from me are already enough, Brigid? I pray this is so, and that I may keep them dear....