(10/19/04) information for the monk

(Dream entered in daytime paper journal only. No time/place info given for entry.)

Dream 1

I was before a door at some nice house with a garden. I had some sheet of paper, some pad of paper, or some small electronic device that stored information. I was here to give up this information to a monk and to become the monk's student.

I knocked on the door and then knelt down with my head all the way to the ground, i.e.

A monk in a yellow (?) robe opened the door. He was kind of surprised because I was so close to the door. I think he had a hard time getting out. I stood up and backed away from the door.

This was the back door, I think. I may have stood by a car. But now I was either by the front door or else another man had come around from the front door. He was like Bill in Kill Bill except he had darker skin and brown hair. He asked me for the information. But I wouldn't give it to him.

Somehow we both were in the house by means of the front door. I don't know why I was there with him. Two black women in dressy casual outfits stood against the wall to my right as I faced the door. The man stood to the left of the door, which was near the right corner.

The concern had possibly strayed from the information. Now the man began insulting the two ladies, implying they were sluts. The girls didn't react too overtly. They kind of just stood there and looked down or over a little. They didn't seem too bothered. But I thought I should stand up for them anyway. The man was trying to dissolve my personal boundaries and prove me a coward. I told him to leave the girls alone.

He came at me with a few fighting moves which I somehow avoided. He said something like, "You're no match for me. Don't give me shit for doing what I want to do."

I yelled something insulting at him. he turned around and said something like "So you need a reason to leave me alone? Here, I'll throw you a few."

He whirled toward me in a smooth fury of spinning kicks and punches. Somehow I defended myself against each blow, deflecting the blows instead of avoiding them. The man stopped, to see if I was afraid yet. I wasn't afraid. I was calmly pleased. But I suddenly became convinced I couldn't do again what I had just done and that I certainly could not throw out my blows myself. I was convinced I would fuck up pretty soon.

(10/2/05) allegiance to the tree; star wars old and new

(Entered in paper journal at 8:30 AM at Ozzie's coffee shop on Garfield Street and 5th Avenue in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I was in a forest, sitting across from a monk or wizard. I was pledging my allegiance to a certain tree, the tree being a symbol for a certain clan. But I only had allegiance to the tree because I liked the tree.

There was another tree I also liked. I had to stop myself from liking the other tree, which was a somehow shameful tree to like. But when I would visualize the one tree so I could describe my allegiance to it, I kept seeing the other tree.

The look of the trees was somehow the same. They both looked like beech trees with serrated leafs which by this time of year were a pale gold-tan. But only one tree was opposite-branched, and only one tree had some special mark at the edges of its leafs. I might even have said the name of the tree out loud, only to be told it wasn't the name but the description that counted.

Dream 2

I was in a living room, probably with my friend R and his girlfriend L. We were watching a Star Wars movie.

We all walked away. The current movie may have ended. We were at a bar or counter that bounded the far end of the living room from the kitchen. My friend R's dog came running up.

We were talking about which movie to watch. I was going to leave because they were going to play one of the movies in the new series (i.e. the prequels), which I didn't want to see. But then it turned out they were going to play one of the movies I wanted to see. But I still wasn't sure I would stay.

I held a vase in my hands. It was porcelain and had a diamondy shape.

(1/12/06) columba and his monks; zero body fat fight; pizza space

(Entered in paper journal at 7:06 AM at Starbucks at 56th Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

I was in a cave, on a boat with a few other people -- monks. The boat we were on was small but beautiful and in some way great.

I said/thought/narrated that the men on the boat thought too much of their own goodness in the construction of their boat and that they had forgotten not just how much God had to do with the strength and beauty of the forces this boat may or may not meet, but also how much God had to do with the construction of this boat. I hoped the men would show reverence to got before we floated out of the cave.

But now the current or some strong breeze pulled (?) or drew us out  the crumbly, wide, limestone mouth of the cave and into the bright, sunny day. the sail went up the boat was small -- small as a rowboat, maybe. But its sail went up and was enormous.

We sailed on a small river though a canyon of baked- and pale-tan stone walls. The whole sight was beautiful. The boat was pristine in its crafting, and the sail was breathtaking. The canyon was sparkling with beauty.

The stream/river is confusing. It seemed really small, perhaps only ankle-deep. But as we passed more monks getting boats into the river from a sandy bank, I saw that one of the monks of the monks was almost waist-deep in the water.

The monk was balding, with wispy, red hair and a red beard. He had peacefull, deep, blue eyes, like he had gained an enormous maturity through struggle or challenge or renunciation and yet didn't delude himself that his maturity and tranquility would be challenged yet again.

I thought to myself something like, I'm finally seeing it! I'm seeing Columba and his monks! And know I know what their boats looked like, and what they looked like!

Dream 2

I may have been standing in front of a stone church, remarking something about its character of depth around the door. But now I was in the woods. I had something like a bright green, plastic funnel with a handle on it.

I had grey rocks about the size of my fist. I would throw a rock up, catch it in the funnel (which would usually crumple flimsily around the rock), and immediately reflex into throwing the rock. I think I would often miss the rock. I may have caught the rock and thrown it a couple times.

I kept thinking of how people didn't play this game correctly, and how, though failing, I was now trying to learn the game correctly.

I threw a rock. When I caught it, the rock -- ? -- and the green funnel flew off toward a tall boulder outcropping. It flew back toward me. I ran to catch it. I may even have jumped high or flown.

I blanked out as I made a perfect catch. I landed and considered the fact that I had blanked out. I figured if I hadn't blanked out I wouldn't have made the perfect catch.

Now some people (including me?) were speaking unseen. They mentioned Andre Agassi, who now stood by an oak-shrub stand as "he" were a hologram-illustration. He bounced back and forth and had a tennis racket in his hand.

The voices talked about a game when Agassi played so well his opponent got angry and started to fight him physically. One of the speakers, either I or my friend R, said, "Agassi just took it easy, just stood there waiting, until the man came at him. Then he slowly raised his racket" (he'd only used it once before dropping it and using his fists) "and -- ploink!"

Now I saw R and some woman. They stood on either side of a big, blonde man who rested against something, a rock or a tree, that was surrounded by shoots. This was now the man in our discussion. he only wore boxer briefs. I thought he looked a little fat, not muscular, like I would have guessed a tennis player would look, though his mass was definitely shaped, if not toned.

R wanted to make me feel bad. He said to the woman, "How much body fat do you think this guy has?"

The woman said, "Almost none."

R looked at me as if to say, Sure beats you. Then he said, "Me, too. I have almost no body fat."

We were now in a living room that was huge, but like in an apartment, sort of cheap and frail. I sat on a couch. R and the woman kept talking about how fit they were.

I stretched out my legs as R walked past me. I tripped R a little, but he caught himself. I feel like he tripped against my bent knees, not outstretched legs. He walked past me and into a tiny hallway between two rooms.

I feared he was plotting a payback. So I ran after him. I was going to humiliate myself to make up to him. But instead I grabbed him from behind to turn him around and fight him. Somehow we locked ourselves back to back with our arms. R had lifted me and was spinning me around. Now he may have been holding me chest to chest and we were just playing and laughing.

I thought, R really is strong. That's cool. But somehow I managed to throw him on the couch. He lay on his left side. I sat at the right end of the couch.

(Entry continued at 6:08 PM at Flying Saucer Cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream 3

A man who may have looked like Christopher Walken helped some woman and her children. At some point I became that man, though I may also (briefly) have been the woman.

We stood in a kitchen. The woman's child/children sat at a small table. The woman had fixed us all a dinner in celebration that I had helped her. But the woman had no money right now, and I felt her worrying that if she showed the food, she'd show that she actually had money. But now that she'd started she couldn't stop.

The woman went to a wooden breadbox (?) and pulled out some object wrapped in a cloth. She unwrapped the object (which may have been a vase or a stone (marble?) ball) and held up the cloth. The cloth was magenta, shimmery like soft velvet, with a cream border of flourishing, sculpture-like design. In the center was a 17th-century-style urn, cream-colored, maybe adorned with vines or flowers.

Now the woman and her children sat at the table. All through the dream it was like my view was obscured (by the man?) on my right side. But now it was really bad.

The family ate something. The scene "restarted" from the eating. The family ate pizza. The woman had the tip of a slice in her mouth, with an arc of cheese dripping down between her mouth and the rest of the pizza. Her pizza had mushrooms and tomatoes, very fresh and soft.

The woman said something like, "Don't you want some pizza?"

I now saw the front of a church, maybe as if in a drawing, a well of buttressing (?) sticking out on each side of the front door. I thought something like it was good I or someone had drawn or gone through the effort of memorizing this interesting building, because it expressed something very complex and hard to remember about space.

I was writing in my dream book. I saw a very beautiful "abstract" drawing of a tree like something in the music room of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's House for an Art Lover. I may have been adding to the drawing. It seemed like the tree's wires/branches were twirling more and more, each with its head of different colored circles, like the "tree" were a flourishing flower.