Clay fountains

On the night of the 16th, it was very foggy, cool and otherworldly outside. I found the darkest spot I could find and sat for some deep breathing. With the woodstove going all the time, I'm a bit dried out even though we do keep a pot of water on it all the time. With my eyes closed I found a steady breath and drifted into a dream I had long ago. It was another dream about the old black woman that holds court at the abandoned overpass. This time as I wait at the edge of the woods for permission to come over, she briefly glanced my way and with a disappointed look on her face waived me off. She gave me the get lost look and I remember being embarrassed in front of all the other ladies that were there as I left. I wondered what I had done. Now with 10 years of time past, I know I do things of my own ego and go directly against what is asked of me because sometimes I just don't want to do it or just don't have the energy or emotional maturity to follow through.

I've been struggling with ego lately, so the reminder of that dream was timely. When I write, I try to write from the heart with the intention of helping people and sometimes I receive what I think is overly-harsh criticism. It sucks the air from my lungs and takes it out from under my wings. After an attack on something so personal, it feels like a stone on my chest making it harder to breathe. Then the house designs I've been working on for two years were also torn down and criticized by a close friend. I don't think I was expecting too much of anything from sharing these creations, but I certainly didn't expect to be treated this way. I'm getting used to letters and emails to some in my family being ignored, but that happened again recently too. So with all this happening at the same time, I've felt like just giving up.

After sharing these experiences of the last month with a couple of friends, I got some wonderful advice. The first was to be a fish net and just let it all flow through me. Not holding my hands out to receive it, but keeping my hands down and just letting it be what it is. Then the next advice was to have no expectations when I create or share something. Basically do it without any ideas of how it will be received, just do it. My hurt feelings all stem from ego I guess in that I had hoped they would be liked. The funny thing is, the writing and designs were liked by others, but I let the few bad comments outshine the positive ones. The reminder of the dream helped in that I know that even though I'm working on being a real human, things aren't always going to be rosy with butterfly wings. I will not always be accepted. Sometimes people can be ugly and harsh, but it isn't that way forever.

After more deep breathing and brain drift, I saw a dusty, dry shelf/basin come out of my chest. It was shaped to hold water with a ledge around the edge. The shelf was shaped in the general form of the breasts. Where the nipples would be there were two spouts where water should fall over to another lower level. It was an unused fountain. In it a rusty colored, acidic sludge, sitting stagnant in the slight recess formed by the ledge tilting slightly backwards. In this stagnant water sat large and small black rocks of debris scattered all about. Up the sides of the basin where water once flowed was an ancient looking ring of white calcified deposits and residue covering most of the inside of the basin. The residue was thick and impenetrable. Some rocks partially blocked the exit of the spout that would restrict any water from flowing that did come. The landscape all around was bleak and barren. The outside of the fountain was cracked, dry and clay baked.

Then I looked up at my third eye, which seems easy enough but I still find it rather hard to do for more than a few seconds at a time. Fresh water started dripping in to the shallow recess of the basin and mixed with the rusty colored sludge. Then the water stream increased a bit and became steady. The rocks started moving towards the spill overs and plugging the exit. The more the basin filled, pressure started compressing all the black rocks. They started tumbling and the blackness on their surface started flaking off and being washed away. At the tip of both spouts, a large black rock started becoming a diamond, shaped slightly like a pyramid to fit the shape of the basin and the exit of the spout. The other smaller stones began revealing themselves as all sorts of beautiful precious stones of every color. The stones were becoming smooth and highly polished.

Water started flowing more and more freely around the stones the diamond - now only slightly blocking the exit. The water was spilling into a similar basin below that jutted a little farther out and was coming out of my belly with it's own single centered spout leading to a place I could not yet see. The water dissolved all the deposits up the sides and began flowing completely clear, revealing porous clay. With the residue gone, the clay basin started absorbing some of the water making it softer and a darker, richer shade. On the outside of the basin it was damp to the touch now. With the clay basin now soft, the stones started settling into their rich stream bed. With the stones being lower into the clay, now the exit was completely free of blocks. The stones sparkled in their clay bed through the shimmering, free flowing water and the diamond added dynamic light and rainbows. Unexpectedly a loud audible sound came out of my mouth that I didn't intentionally make. I watched the water flow into my belly basin that was also going through the same transformation.

Then seeds from plants entered my holographic, barely visible mouth (that till that time I hadn't even noticed) and merged with the falling stream of water. The seeds sunk into the clay between the stones. On the exterior of the basin, flowers and plants of all sorts began to grow and bloom from the seeds. They weren't as visible as the basins were, their colors had an odd darkness to them and they were slightly holographic or transparent. Like a reflection in glass. Their colors were irridecent and were in outlines of lazer blues, greens, pinks, purples and oranges. Dark green ivy dripped and hung from both basins and created a cool, dark, lush shadowy place full of life.

Then angles or fairies and little transparent hummingbirds and butterflies began attending the flowers and hovered near by. In the level of the belly, water flowed freely through the center spout and fell into space.

When I came out of this waking dream, the feeling I had was that this represented the changes my body is going through after being transformed from a vessel made of dried white vitamins, pills, tablets and junk food to one made of the wholeness of Mother Earth. It was a wonderful waking dream and is another example of why I would love to have talent in drawing.

EDIT: removed the dream that was posted. Couldn't get it out of my mind and it bothered me that it was here. Hopefully I can forget it and I'm sorry I even posted it. Last night I dreamed I was a fish swimming right into a big bunch of briars that went into my mouth. If my mouth had been closed, I wouldn't have been full of prickly thorns. That'll teach me.