Friday, June 3, 2022
5:30 a.m. A long involved dream using some of the characters from NCIS. I could have given a precis perhaps if I had come to this directly. It had to do with yarning, I think – telling yarns.
And why should I have a part of an old Leonard Cohen song running through my head? [Only, it turns out, it wasn’t Leonard Cohen at all, it was Bob Dylan, “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” according to Duckduckgo.]
Sweet Melinda
The peasants call her the goddess of gloom
She speaks good English
And she invites you up into her room
And you’re so kind
And careful not to go to her too soon
And she takes your voice
And leaves you howling at the moon.
Come to think of it, an earlier dream. I got in the elevator, intending to go down a floor, but it had only an up button, so I pressed it. This was like the elevator in the press room at the Virginian-Pilot. I was looking to get a copy of the day’s paper, because although I had started working there again, the boy that delivered our papers to us hadn’t gotten the word, I guess: I hadn’t had a paper and I hadn’t noticed, either, until my boss pointed it out. This was odd that I wouldn’t have noticed, particularly in that I had a big piece in it, prominently featured. There was a lot more to that dream, but it’s gone.
Looking back at last night’s page, I see I had written, “I think I should ask for a dream to clarify my responsibilities, opportunities, and opportune conduct.” Maybe I got it.
Guys? (Setting switches.)
This was in a larger context that you have yet to set out.
Well, let’s see. After yesterday’s session, I set out to list sacred sites I have touched, but could remember only nine, and of these, there was one whose name – world-famous – I couldn’t recall. I kept trying to call it Lindisfarne, but of course I knew it was not that. The name didn’t surface for nearly seven hours, when, talking to Nancy about it, I could feel it well up as, in effect, “There was a book written about it, The Magic of” and there was the name, Findhorn. Although it took so long for the name to surface, I never doubted that it would, and I knew not to push for it.
At 9 p.m. I made a note to remember the strange connection between pain and a painful memory, which I will get to here, I imagine, and finally I threw the I Ching for the first time in years, as a result of Paul Blakey’s email. After all that, I made a request for a dream.
So you see, your life and your conversations become more intertwined than before.
I would have said I was mixing irrelevant material in with your messages.
That’s because your idea of what you were doing didn’t quite line up with what you were doing in fact. Another way to put it is, you were living a separation between inner and outer that is itself misleading, and only reinforces the mistaken idea that inner and outer are different, rather than two aspects of the same reality. You know better now intellectually; it is only natural that the knowing should seep in to all areas of your inner and outer life.
Hmm. Is that the connection among these things?
Let’s look at it. First, your finger.
Back in 1964, when I was working in a soup factory, I gashed my left index finger, deeply, painfully. In fact, when I remember it, I still wince, almost shudder, at the memory of the jagged metal ripping into my skin. I suppose the nerves must not have been damaged too badly, because they reported plenty loudly, and do still. The other day I woke up with my finger throbbing, as if it were 1964 again, and the memory of the accident followed the throbbing. I don’t know what that was all about.
You remember your father asking, worried, if you might be accident-prone.
That’s right, and that means I had just had a different kind of accident before that. Oh, I had forgotten, I did, and it was involving the same machinery. I had gotten a cut on my upper lip that required several stitches. There’s still a faint scar there. But I’d forgotten about it.
So you forgot the one and remember – embody – the other. Any idea why?
None, except the finger was a lot more painful than the lip. I don’t think either injury had consequences.
Actually, they did. The second injury cemented in your mind your father’s worried question. You didn’t agree or disagree, but you noticed the question.
I think you are hinting that this nudged me toward thinking about inner and outer connection.
Not thinking, you were a long way from that, but the burr was placed under your saddle. Most things that profoundly alter your life’s course – anyone’s life’s course – are subtle, soon forgotten, often not recognized at all. Little things add up, and your life’s guidance uses what comes.
Okay. And the rest of it?
Martha MacBurnie, Lori Miranda, and Paul Blakey all send emails relating to inner and outer. The first two ask you to discuss with us aspects of dreaming, and the third suggests another way to use I Ching, and suggests you consult #18. Again, connecting inner and outer – or, to put it more closely – they recognize the connection that always exists. And then you threw the coins. The question and the hexagram?
“What is my proper work now?”
Number 24, Return, with the top three lines changing, yielding number 25, Innocence (The Unexpected)
And so to your requested dreaming.
- The earlier dream evokes your earlier status as a newspaper pundit. You enter an elevator intending to descend, but it leads only upward one floor, or rather, one story. You were looking to find a printed version of what you had written, but look at this more carefully. You had gotten printed, so the recognition was there; but you hadn’t gotten your own personal copy, so you couldn’t see it. And you went looking for it as your acknowledged right. In fact, it should have arrived as a matter of course.
Interesting. Yes, I see that.
- After that came the dream of NCIS characters – Jimmy particularly trying to tell his story – yarning together. The very word “yarning” puts you in mind of Herman Melville. That is, they took turns telling tales from their experience for the edification of their friends and fellow workers, their teammates. Jimmy is the least self-confident character, the youngest in appearance and in demeanor, but he is a fully qualified doctor. The contrast is integral to the character.
[It occurs to me, transcribing this, the NCIS characters are investigators. I’d missed that.] There was more to that dream, though.
What is most important was remembered.
- Then there is the song you heard as you began your day.
A song about a prostitute, and I’ve never really understood what it has to do with the rest of the song (which I can’t remember at the moment).
Look at just the part you hear. That’s what’s active now. What does it say to you?
I suppose, it’s easy to be seduced by illusion, and think you’re in control, and find out you’re way out of your league.
That isn’t what everyone would conclude, but it is what it says to you.
- Finally, the practice at letting memories surface in their own way, you not doubting or pressing.
Hmm. I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
So you can. And they do come when you call them.
Presumably, “and so can every man.”
You have never deceived yourself into thinking that this was all about you only. Yes, specifically about you; equally, about everybody who resonates. It’s always that way.
Well, we didn’t get to the emails, but I suppose this is preliminary. At any rate, we’ve gone 65 minutes, to my surprise.
Call it “Joining inner and outer,” perhaps, or “Inner and outer interacting.”
Or something. Our thanks for all this, as always.