Diary - Dreaming the Garuda

I've been under the weather on and off since getting back from our honeymoon, mostly because I've been pushing myself pretty hard with writing and other kinds of work and staying up later than is probably a good idea (also, the time zone shift back to EST was not as easy as the shift to Mountain Time going out, I think). Two evenings ago, I ended up having some sort of stomach/gas pains just as I was going to bed; they lasted through the night (so that I slept only fitfully) and most of the day yesterday, finally going away yesterday evening.

Last night, I had some intense and odd dreams. I don't remember much of them to begin with, but eventually the dream resolved into me going out to a club or party with friends, and needing to stop by a public bathroom where I began to vomit uncontrollably. The vomit wasn't the usual kind, but a kind of white foam that seemed to be generated near the back of my throat and would drain into my stomach from there, making me queazy, and also threatened to actually choke/suffocate me if I didn't continually spit it up into the toilet. Waking up from this dream was so disturbing and quick, that for a moment I thought I had actually vomited or spit up onto my pillow or that I was about to be sick. Luckily, I hadn't and I wasn't. As I lay there, the intensity of the feeling passed, but I remained somewhat queazy for a while.

Falling back asleep again, this time I dreamt that I was in a kind of rental/summer house. Looking outside from a downstairs room, I saw a hound in the backyard that was trying to escape through a wood fence. It had pried some of the wooden slats apart and was about half-way through, its front end outside the yard and its back legs still on the side towards the house where I could see them. Its one back leg looked all mangled and bloody - and I noticed what looked like a great beast crouched down right near the dog on this side of the fence. It had huge talons or claws and shaggy, feathery fur, and it seemed to be about to attack the dog or like it had just finished attacking it. I shouted out in distress and moved across the room to another window for a closer look, and by the time I looked again, the beast had disappeared - but the dog was on the other side of the fence, whole and healthy.

My yelling had disturbed some people in the house who came running and I told them what I'd seen. At first they didn't believe me... but then (as dreams do) some time seemed to pass and in the confusion it was decided that there was a dangerous beast around. (Sometime during this, I was singing and dancing to "In the Jungle", especially the "ooo-EEEE!" part.) I must have been thinking about what I'd seen during that time, because I reached the conclusion that the beast was not hurting but helping the dog and that, despite its monstrous appearance, it was a healing creature. I tried to tell the other people in the house this, saying its name (what kind of beast it was, not its personal name) was something like Celia or Selena or something. No one would listen. Later, I saw it charging away from a horse stable area out by the side of the house. It looked somewhat like a horse, except beastly and monstrous. Imagine a skeleton without any muscle on it, but with just skin draped over it like a thin silk bedsheet.... except the skin was shaggy with feathery fur that was tangled and matted and seemed worn or rotted away in some places. I saw it running towards me and shouted, and people came out, but it was clear that they couldn't see it. Again there was some confusion and someone was sick or injured in the midst of the people gathered outside. They all thought the beast had done it, but only I could see the beast standing just outside the press of people as though trying to get to the injured person (whom everyone was protecting), as though trying to help them.

Then the beast stood up on its hind legs and seemed to transform from a beast into a woman, except that as a woman she was incredibly tall and thin with elongated arms and legs. I could only really get an impression of her and it was impossible to tell if what I could see of her was her clothing or her skin/fur itself - her legs, though long, seemed to be covered with a thick shaggy coat of hair that bowed out around like M.C. Hammer pants almost, and her arms (at first extended out to her sides) had long sleeves that billowed down and looked like draped wings, like a bat's sort of, that folded in as she lowered her arms to her side. Her head was bowed the whole time, with shaggy, matted hair hanging down so that it hid her face entirely from view. She gave me the impression almost of being like a wild animal that could not come near so much noise and clamor and people, and yet to also have a consciousness or intent or instinct to try to help the injured person. There seemed to be a sadness all about her. (After I woke up, it made me think of something I'd once heard of somewhere where a healer would take a sickness from a person and their injury or illness would become a part of the healer instead, so that the healer's body was always diseased and disgusting - but the healer somehow could sustain the disease and so would not die.)

Again there was some confusion and time passing in the dream, and then it was night time and I wanted to go out to the beach under the moon. My parents were nervous about me going out at night, but I went anyway. I drove a minivan and had trouble with the brakes, which were connected to some huge contraption that half-blocked my view in the driver's seat. When attempting to adjust the contraption, it came apart in my hands. I drove for a while along a highway since I could no longer stop, and realized that it wasn't night at all - it was a bright and sunny afternoon, and the darkness had not been night falling but an enormous storm of black thunderclouds that had blotted out the sun. But the storm was passing over (without doing any damage) and leaving the day sunny and fine. It was around this time that I woke up.

When Jeff came in to see how I was in the morning, I was still feeling pretty queazy and drained. I told him about my dream, and when I got to the part about the M.C. Hammer pants, he interrupted me and said it reminded him of the Garuda, a mythological bird-man creature in Hindu and Buddhist mythology. He went and got a card from his Buddha Tarot deck that had the Garuda on it and showed it to me - the figure had bird's legs that billowed out with feathers before coming in again in skinny, scaled bird feet with talons. The rest, though, didn't look much like the figure I'd seen - but mainly because I hadn't been able to see much of the face of the beast except for a vague impression.

Out of curiosity, later I looked up the Garuda on wikipedia. The wikipedia page says that one of the earliest references to the Garuda was in the Vedas, under the name "Śyena" and that it was a mount for the god Vishnu. It was a being associated with healing and in particular with protection against poisons (especially snake poisons). In Buddhist mythology, the Garuda is described as having enormous wings, so large that when they flap they "create hurricane-like winds that darken the sky." The Garuda is much bigger than a man, but can make itself smaller or larger, and is able to take human form in order to have dealings with people. It can also appear or disappear at will.

Doing an image search on Google, most of them looked more similar to the image of Jeff's Buddha Tarot card - but I did find one here that is somewhat similar to it, being longer and taller, and even the face to some extent though I could only ever get glimpses or vague impressions of it - but in the dream, the creature was much more beastly and frightening-looking, which is something it does have in common with many of the other images of the Garuda I was able to find.



Not sure what to make of this dream exactly, but the images of the storm that came afterwards, the shape-shifting and appearing/disappearing of the beast and its association with healing - especially right after the earlier dream where I was vomiting up white foam of some kind - all seem to indicate some kind of correlation.

In any case, I am going to take things easy and try to rest for today. Or however long it takes for me to recover from this cold that's clinging on.

She That Is: A Meditation on Brigid Star Fire

I gather together the candles, the prayer beads, the scattered objects and tools I've consecrated to Her over the past few years, and I set them before me on the altar. Three candles burning. One flame flickering deep, half-hidden in a thick, white pillar mostly melted down, its edges sculpted in soft dips and peaks like slowly collapsing snow or the heights of a mountain. One pillar still like new, solid sculpted wax, churning the cool rusted copper of LED electricity, nestled in its hurricane vase of cracked orange and red glass. One small candle floating, a dull gold ring around a bright, steady flame, hovering suspended by clear water studded with glints and glitter in a dark, blue bowl rimmed with black.

What is She? Who is She? Celestial, ephemeral, pristine and pure, delicate, new, grace itself, fresh and bright. Earthy, dark and grounded, sweat and dirt and hot breath, the hard flex and tension of muscle, the rough power of fire and stone, the burning fluidity of molten ore. Primal, deep and ageless, utter stillness and distance, utter light in the darkness, spun out, flung out, fragmented, holographic, the whispering wholeness buried within each disparate glint of limit and form.

And the hammer, the anvil, the spark — the sweat and hot breath of the universe, the work and labor of the cosmos brought to bear on itself, the earthy Ground of Being lifted, deepened, expanded to fill a sky overwhelmed with the clamor of stars, each forged, each made new, pristine, a shining fragment of light. And the stars, the infinite suns, perfect spheres in a great dance of beauty, humming with song, swung in great arcs as though in one another's arms, spinning into newly created moments, new beginnings, like a child spinning around her center in a fresh spring meadow, arms flung out, effortless in grace and welcome.

And the hiss of the steam, the pulsing of groundwater, the twining thrust of energy rising in the mound, a serpent of stars in the dark earth. The tongue of flame licking dark and bright above the wellspring, the purity and intensity of all-consuming heat, soften, tempered by the fresh, cold waters.

She is too much. I cannot hold onto Her, I cannot see Her — I can only follow the winding, spiraling connections, dynamic and always changing, fluid, fleet. Sometimes She is overwhelming, even austere, so hot and great that Her fire burns cold. Sometimes She is all innocence and promise, coaxing and gentle and warm, caressing and playful. Sometimes She is so intimate I cannot tell Her from my own passion, the drive that spurs me, the energy that courses through my blood and lashes out in righteous anger or sharp, clever words like a long blade. Sometimes, She is absence, void, the emptiness of death or grief, the keening of wind whistling through the hollow, the barely glimpsed sliver of light reflecting off the rainfall in the dusk, wane, distant, not enough.

Who is She? I don't know. I cannot describe Her outside of poetry, and poetry cannot do Her justice. She is creativity at the heart of existence, tempered and expressed in culture and art, the resistance and pressure of material forms that force us into relationship and engagement, and the release from those heavy forms afforded by inspiration and the spark of light and insight that lifts us up beyond ourselves, seems to defy even gravity itself. She is my Goddess, my Sun, my Center, my Light, my Starscape, my Tongue, my Draught, my Forge...

Meditations on Brigid: Goddess of Healing

Brigid, Goddess of Healing, I trust you completely in hoping you will forgive me for my fatigue tonight and my wish to retire to bed early. For now — what aspect of yourself do you wish to reveal to me for further contemplation and exploration during my dreams and in my waking hours this weekend?

Justice (XI): A symbol of balance, equilibrium and harmony, the scales balanced, the connections interweaving the inner and outer worlds, the conscious with the unconscious, are laid open to be weighed and reckoned. The sword of discernment and honest, objective analysis allows us to see ourselves in the light of truth, revealing our failures and flaws and enabling us to compensate for them, balance them (or perhaps seek forgiveness for them). The patterns of interconnection and choice lead us to this point, this moment of truth, when we see in the full light of day how our past actions have led to our current situation, and how these actions ripple outward to affect others.

Justice rests not in guilt and punishment, but in the true of relationship and balance. In this way, it becomes an expression of healing and harmony, the redress of wrongs to restore right relationship. Truth reveals the patterns of things, and critical analysis and a willingness to see ourselves from others' perspectives open to us the potential to heal old wounds and soften the scars of misunderstanding or poor judgement. Physical health, too, demands a kind of dispassionate justice towards our bodies, treating them with respect and care, seeking a harmonious and balanced relationship with the physical world not solely ruled by our cravings and desires.

Praise to you, Brigid, Goddess of Healing and Harmony, wise sword-bearer, blade sharpened with the breath of your truth and insight, cutting away the bonds of disease and imbalance that restrict and unbalance us. My gratitude for your beautiful, loving presence in my life.

Awen.