I dreamed I was in a committee meeting, talking about how to get back to New Orleans from Houston, with a few stops along the way. One part of the group traveling was going to drive I-10, but then go south on Hwy 37, then East on Hwy 101 (are these even roads in LA?) to make a particular stop. 101 would take them through a sandy, hilly, wooded region, with lots of metal truss bridges over small creeks. The other group was going to take I-10 all the way to New Orleans, then take Hwy 64 down to 101 to meet the first group, but they’d drop me off just before crossing over to the West Bank.
I ended up in a wide region of abandoned warehouses along the river between the French Quarter and Uptown, with no CBD or actual Warehouse District in between. There were fields of parched grass along the levee, and rusted metal culverts running into concrete banks along the river.
There I was supposed to face some sort of monster or challenge with magical powers, and I could see my own human abilities in my mind like a translucent orange and white gingham mesh, the tiny squares each a human asset or a power or a small advantage. Everything I did to try to improve my chances resulted in an exactly equal increase in the magical capabilities of my opponent, visible in my mind like an olive green gingham matrix exactly overlaying my own orange one. Then I woke up.
Thursday, April 19, 2018
Saturday, April 7, 2018
Epic ~ 4/7/2018
I dreamed I was spending Thanksgiving in a small town in west Texas. They were known for putting on a little Shakespearean festival every year at that time. What they didn't advertise was that Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint always showed up to join in the actors. So I got to watch the Harry Potter stars perform in Macbeth and Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night and Hamlet. It was absolutely grand.
Then, as I was packing up at the end of the weekend to leave, I fell through some sort of crack in time and space, and found myself in a dense, ancient forest. The buildings were still there, but instead of being desert dry and dusty, they were covered by vines and ivy. One courtyard was now a meadow, sparkling with dewy grass. Tiny baby rabbits, only about two inches tall, hopped and scampered around, toppling dandelions ten times their size and cheerfully munching them down to nothing, like rabbits do. I went out into the courtyard meadow very slowly. I lowered myself to the grass. Slowly, slowly, slowly I reached out a hand. Some of the rabbits skittered away, but on stayed, and stretched its tiny, whiskery nose up to sniff my hand. I scratched its little head with the very tip of my finger, and gently lifted it up to my cheek. It snuggled against me, softer than soft, and we became friends.
Suddenly there were sounds of people tromping all around, and all the other rabbits whisked away, and my friend ducked into a pocket in my shirt. A Bronze Age people were on the march through the forest, returning to their homeland after a long foraging trip, and they had stopped at the ruined buildings to shelter for the night. They were as startled to see me, someone completely alone, and they were suspicious at first, but then the Lion tribe said if I wanted to join them, it would take me in as a lowest ranked member, and give me a chance to prove myself.
The daughter of their leader agreed to tutor me on their ways and my new duties. There would be long marches, and unexpected and unexplained tests. I would go through the same trials their young people faced when they came of age. She told me as much as was allowed, but she emphasized that the first rule was to keep up with the march. Anybody was allowed to stop and rest any time they wanted, but while the tribes were on the move, wherever you found yourself in the ranks at the end of the day was your new rank in your tribe. The tribes marched in a ranked order, too, and if you found yourself behind members of a lower ranked tribe three nights in a row, you'd have to join that tribe, if they'd have you, and you'd start at the bottom of their ranks the next day.
Since only Lion tribe was currently willing to have me, falling too far behind would pretty much get me kicked out and abandoned by the whole people. So the next morning, I shouldered my pack, and I marched. The headman's daughter, Jessica, was kind enough to start at the bottom of her tribe, so I could follow behind her. The first day was grueling, and I willed myself to only stop when she stopped. She didn't stop much. But toward the end of the day, I think she took pity on me, and since we were ahead of at least half of her tribe, she took a few breaks just for me. This was very kind of her, really, because no one had made any guarantees that she wouldn't lose her own high rank if she fell behind on the march because of me.
I woke up on the second day aching in every bone and muscle of my body, and I was pretty sure I'd fall really far behind as soon as we started. I told Jessica that she was absolutely not allowed to wait for me if I did. Her father, the leader, overheard me insisting on this, and was pleased at how considerate and concerned for her standing I was, even at the risk of my own. So he insisted in turn that I be part of my first trial that morning. In this trial, all of the young people would be left behind, and couldn't start out for an extra hour. But whatever rank they achieved by the end of that day, they would retain for three days, regardless of where they finished in the marches those days.
They left us in a large clearing, lit with torches since the woods were too dense to let in much sun. As we waited with a few elders, there to mark the time, I noticed the warm golden torchlight glinting off of metal near the edge of the clearing. I went to investigate, and found a small pile of machinery bits. They weren't overgrown, and looked too shiny and well maintained to be abandoned, and I thought they might be part of a surprise testing, so I knelt down to start going through them.
A few of the more curious young people joined me, though a lot of them took the opportunity to just rest a little longer. I found that some of the pieces seemed to fit together. When I tried to assemble them, they snapped right into place. I began hunting out more pieces and fitting them together, along with the others, but when the elders called our hour of waiting was up, everyone else grabbed their bags and plunged into the woods after the tribes as fast as they could.
But the machinery seemed important to me, so I stayed behind and kept fitting pieces together. As I did, I learned that these people were much more technologically advanced than they appeared to be from day to day, because what I was assembling was definitely a vehicle, something between a motorcycle and a four-wheeler. It was light and maneuverable, but hard to topple. I'm not even sure what fuel it ran on, but as soon as I snapped the last part into place, the motor started up, and I began to fly through the woods, following the glimmering torches far ahead.
In five minutes, I'd passed the young people who had been left behind. In ten more minutes, I could see the lights of the last tribe. But I heard a call behind me, and went back. The young people had found a set of rails and some cars, and they asked if I thought I could pull them along. I said I'd try, and found I could. We all agreed that if the tracks started going the wrong way, taking us farther away from the tribes, we'd give up. But they ran through a cutting that seemed to parallel the tribes' march, so I pulled us all along, and at the end of the day, we had outpaced all the tribes, and actually had to back track a bit to set up our camp in front of the leaders of the first tribe.
It turned out that I had won the contest of patience and curiosity, by taking the time, and the risk to find a better way. The young people who had found the tracks and called me back had won the contest of exploration and discovery. And I had won the contest of generosity by going back and bringing them all with me.
For the next three days, we all began the march first, no matter where we'd been when it ended the night before. I did my best to stay with the leaders as long as I could, and to try to get to know these highest ranked members of all the tribes. I didn't expect that any tribe other than Lion would have me, even if I kept up, but I wanted to learn what these people valued, how they lived when they weren't on the march, and if staying with them would even be better than trying to live alone.
I had started out with them the weakest and strangest person in the tribes, but as we marched I grew stronger, and as I proved myself to them, they became more open to my crazy suggestions about adding some deliberate agricultural pursuits to their hunting and gathering lifestyle. I learned that while they lacked that technology, they were otherwise every bit as advanced in other ways as the motorcycle had shown me. But while they valued the acuity and knowledge that went into designing and operating machinery, they mistrusted complete reliance on it, which is why they walked instead, and hunted with bows and arrows instead of guns.
I marched with them until we reached their homeland, high in the mountains. There were stunning towers of white marble, speaking and music halls with lushly cushioned seats in amphitheater tiers around the stage, sparkling waterfalls driving simple mechanisms, and brilliantly clear air. I was fully accepted as a member of Lion tribe. My time marching up with the Sun tribe had acquainted me with the son of their headwoman, and we had fallen in love, but there were a lot of people still opposed to me being considered one of them, much less marrying into their most esteemed family, so we were still working all of that out when I woke up.
Then, as I was packing up at the end of the weekend to leave, I fell through some sort of crack in time and space, and found myself in a dense, ancient forest. The buildings were still there, but instead of being desert dry and dusty, they were covered by vines and ivy. One courtyard was now a meadow, sparkling with dewy grass. Tiny baby rabbits, only about two inches tall, hopped and scampered around, toppling dandelions ten times their size and cheerfully munching them down to nothing, like rabbits do. I went out into the courtyard meadow very slowly. I lowered myself to the grass. Slowly, slowly, slowly I reached out a hand. Some of the rabbits skittered away, but on stayed, and stretched its tiny, whiskery nose up to sniff my hand. I scratched its little head with the very tip of my finger, and gently lifted it up to my cheek. It snuggled against me, softer than soft, and we became friends.
Suddenly there were sounds of people tromping all around, and all the other rabbits whisked away, and my friend ducked into a pocket in my shirt. A Bronze Age people were on the march through the forest, returning to their homeland after a long foraging trip, and they had stopped at the ruined buildings to shelter for the night. They were as startled to see me, someone completely alone, and they were suspicious at first, but then the Lion tribe said if I wanted to join them, it would take me in as a lowest ranked member, and give me a chance to prove myself.
The daughter of their leader agreed to tutor me on their ways and my new duties. There would be long marches, and unexpected and unexplained tests. I would go through the same trials their young people faced when they came of age. She told me as much as was allowed, but she emphasized that the first rule was to keep up with the march. Anybody was allowed to stop and rest any time they wanted, but while the tribes were on the move, wherever you found yourself in the ranks at the end of the day was your new rank in your tribe. The tribes marched in a ranked order, too, and if you found yourself behind members of a lower ranked tribe three nights in a row, you'd have to join that tribe, if they'd have you, and you'd start at the bottom of their ranks the next day.
Since only Lion tribe was currently willing to have me, falling too far behind would pretty much get me kicked out and abandoned by the whole people. So the next morning, I shouldered my pack, and I marched. The headman's daughter, Jessica, was kind enough to start at the bottom of her tribe, so I could follow behind her. The first day was grueling, and I willed myself to only stop when she stopped. She didn't stop much. But toward the end of the day, I think she took pity on me, and since we were ahead of at least half of her tribe, she took a few breaks just for me. This was very kind of her, really, because no one had made any guarantees that she wouldn't lose her own high rank if she fell behind on the march because of me.
I woke up on the second day aching in every bone and muscle of my body, and I was pretty sure I'd fall really far behind as soon as we started. I told Jessica that she was absolutely not allowed to wait for me if I did. Her father, the leader, overheard me insisting on this, and was pleased at how considerate and concerned for her standing I was, even at the risk of my own. So he insisted in turn that I be part of my first trial that morning. In this trial, all of the young people would be left behind, and couldn't start out for an extra hour. But whatever rank they achieved by the end of that day, they would retain for three days, regardless of where they finished in the marches those days.
They left us in a large clearing, lit with torches since the woods were too dense to let in much sun. As we waited with a few elders, there to mark the time, I noticed the warm golden torchlight glinting off of metal near the edge of the clearing. I went to investigate, and found a small pile of machinery bits. They weren't overgrown, and looked too shiny and well maintained to be abandoned, and I thought they might be part of a surprise testing, so I knelt down to start going through them.
A few of the more curious young people joined me, though a lot of them took the opportunity to just rest a little longer. I found that some of the pieces seemed to fit together. When I tried to assemble them, they snapped right into place. I began hunting out more pieces and fitting them together, along with the others, but when the elders called our hour of waiting was up, everyone else grabbed their bags and plunged into the woods after the tribes as fast as they could.
But the machinery seemed important to me, so I stayed behind and kept fitting pieces together. As I did, I learned that these people were much more technologically advanced than they appeared to be from day to day, because what I was assembling was definitely a vehicle, something between a motorcycle and a four-wheeler. It was light and maneuverable, but hard to topple. I'm not even sure what fuel it ran on, but as soon as I snapped the last part into place, the motor started up, and I began to fly through the woods, following the glimmering torches far ahead.
In five minutes, I'd passed the young people who had been left behind. In ten more minutes, I could see the lights of the last tribe. But I heard a call behind me, and went back. The young people had found a set of rails and some cars, and they asked if I thought I could pull them along. I said I'd try, and found I could. We all agreed that if the tracks started going the wrong way, taking us farther away from the tribes, we'd give up. But they ran through a cutting that seemed to parallel the tribes' march, so I pulled us all along, and at the end of the day, we had outpaced all the tribes, and actually had to back track a bit to set up our camp in front of the leaders of the first tribe.
It turned out that I had won the contest of patience and curiosity, by taking the time, and the risk to find a better way. The young people who had found the tracks and called me back had won the contest of exploration and discovery. And I had won the contest of generosity by going back and bringing them all with me.
For the next three days, we all began the march first, no matter where we'd been when it ended the night before. I did my best to stay with the leaders as long as I could, and to try to get to know these highest ranked members of all the tribes. I didn't expect that any tribe other than Lion would have me, even if I kept up, but I wanted to learn what these people valued, how they lived when they weren't on the march, and if staying with them would even be better than trying to live alone.
I had started out with them the weakest and strangest person in the tribes, but as we marched I grew stronger, and as I proved myself to them, they became more open to my crazy suggestions about adding some deliberate agricultural pursuits to their hunting and gathering lifestyle. I learned that while they lacked that technology, they were otherwise every bit as advanced in other ways as the motorcycle had shown me. But while they valued the acuity and knowledge that went into designing and operating machinery, they mistrusted complete reliance on it, which is why they walked instead, and hunted with bows and arrows instead of guns.
I marched with them until we reached their homeland, high in the mountains. There were stunning towers of white marble, speaking and music halls with lushly cushioned seats in amphitheater tiers around the stage, sparkling waterfalls driving simple mechanisms, and brilliantly clear air. I was fully accepted as a member of Lion tribe. My time marching up with the Sun tribe had acquainted me with the son of their headwoman, and we had fallen in love, but there were a lot of people still opposed to me being considered one of them, much less marrying into their most esteemed family, so we were still working all of that out when I woke up.
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