A Strange Landscape

I cannot really call this a dream... but close enough. More like a vision in an altered state... but I feel like it's a kind of followup to the Wolf Dream and Looking for Coyote Dreams.

Dream(?) Feb 1, 2001

Actually... I'm not sure that I could rightfully describe this as a dream... because I was awake, though not in normal consciousness, the whole time. If it's easier for you to think of this as a dream... be my guest . It felt like a sort of followup to my Coyote-dream of January 29, 2001, and the Wolf-Dream of April, 2000.

I was lying in bed... thinking about trying to continue the dream of a couple night past... and while I was sitting there, relaxed, with my eyes open even, I started to _see_ little bits and fragments of a landscape. I wasn't asleep, I was just kinda tranced out... so I focused on making it more "real". I knew, at first that if I moved, or even blinked, it would all go away. So I focused on it, until the vision solidified.

First there was a great pillar of rock above me. It grew higher and higher, and the area around became clearer and clearer, until I knew I could just get up out of bed and walk into it. Finally, I did just that. I left my mortal shell behind and went walking in this weird place. There was something about it that was _similar_ to the realness that I once saw around Wolf. But not quite the same. It was as though there were yet a veil between me and that reality.

And this reality was somewhat volatile... the landscape developed before my eyes. It seemed that the longer I stood still, the larger the area became, so that the things I wished to investigate, which started out right by me, were now far away. And it seemed as though I was moving from the past, to the present. Things looked like they were aging and changing. At first, all I would have had to do was go right up the rock spire. But now, I had to walk around a ridge of rock that had risen from the sea.

When I first noticed I was near the sea, I said "Of course! How perfect! Here is the ocean, who I have missed so much!". Now I had to go around this ridge that had risen along the coast, to get around it so I could walk towards my destination. There was a spot where I had to go through the water a little... but here, instead of being clear and clean, the water was kinda mucky and dirty. I kept looking around to keep my bearings, making my way towards the first spire of rock I'd seen. Past the dirty water beach, I could see more groves of palm and palmetto trees (there were tropical plants everywhere!)... and just around an outcropping of rock... there was some kind of junky van or trailer! I was rather annoyed and disheartened to see that. It became apparent that there were people living nearby now. Around this time, the landscape became harder to hold onto, and I found myself back in my body.

Looking for Coyote

This one was kinda odd. But overall left me with a good feeling. An unfinished feeling... cannot wait to see what develops.

Dream Jan 29-31 2001

In this dream, I was off seeking my the part of Coyote that is external to me. I was wandering far and wide, and I came to a kinda seedy neighborhood, but one which looked familiar.

I was thirsty, so I stopped to get a drink at a place that was sort of like a small indoor flea market, with a snack bar. I kept having the feeling that I'd been there before. In one far corner, I noticed a set of double doors, and I realized that I'd been in this place many years before, as a child, while on a trip with my mother. I knew that at that time, there was a huge comic book shop beyond the doors.

I decided to take a little bit of time off my quest and see if the comic shop was still there... but when I went to where the doors were a moment before, they'd vanished... there was just blank wall. I knew this was odd... and I knew that I was on a weird spirit quest where normal rules did nto necessarily apply, so I closed my eyes, and deliberately knew that when I opened them, the door would be there. I opened my eyes, and there was a small door there leading into the next area. I went through, and recognized the comic shop from the past.

My first reaction was to say, aloud "Cool!", but then I quickly realized that there were no comics on the shelves... there were just empty shelves, the spaces between which were occupied by a bunch of people doing street drugs. I was kind of horrified, and decided to leave, I felt kind of distressed that the place I remembered fondly form my childhood was now just an empty crack den.

Then I noticed the child. He looked like he was about 10 or 12, just a skinny little black kid, and I realized someone had just given him a bunch of pills, as a "free sample" or something. So I grabbed the kid away from the dealers, and dragged him into the public bathroom. I told him "No, you cannot do this to yourself", and he responded something to the effect that he'd already swallowed the pills and it was too late. I told him that it was not too late, and to throw them up into the toilet, which he did. He just heaved and heaved, and all this nasty bile came up. He was really sick, and got vomit on himself. I told him not to worry, I'd help him get cleaned up and get him someplace safe.

I hadn't looked around the bathroom though... it was a huge public restroom, like the kind in truck stops, that even have showers... but _everything_ was covered with vomit and filth from all the people that were using the place as a drug hangout. Everything was splattered with that sickly yellowish, bilious vomit that people get when they use a lot of bad crap and don't eat. There was no way to get the kid clean there, it was all filthy and contaminated, so I told him not to worry, we'd find someplace else.

So, I went out, carrying him under my arm. As I walked down the street, the area somehow transformed.. I was no longer in the inner city... I was in a semirural area. Everything still looked kind of poor... but wholesome somehow. At some point, the kid stopped being a little human boy, and became a big housecat. There were some hippy types around (the friendly "peace" types, as opposed to the unwashed "dropout" types). Some of the buildings were reworked trailers, campers or even tents. I went up to one trailer that seemed to kind of be at the end of the line, intending to ask if I could borrow their bathroom to get the kid cleaned up.

Under a tree, I noticed a figure sitting, with his back to me. I realized at a glance, that it was the part of me, the part of Coyote that I started out looking for. The cat/kid, when I looked down, had somehow miraculously gotten clean. Not wanting to miss out on catching up with myself (erk!) I put the cat down, assuming that he could fend for himself and would be okay there.

I rushed over to Coyote, and grabbed him/me around the waist from behind. I was just elated at finding him/myself, and started scritching him.

And then I woke up.

My Mountain Dream

I had this Dream on the 21st of December, 1997. The images from this Dream have haunted and inspired me ever since.

In the dream, I'd climbed to the top of a mountain. I was dragging a huge net behind me... The net went all the way to the ocean far below. At the top of the mountain, the net still dragged far into the ocean.

I knew that the object of my endeavor was to get as much of the net up high, and down the other side of the mountain... I could see that the ocean water was being drawn with the strands of the net... The water was running in rivulets down the mountainside in places... Into lands it never would have reached. The air was getting damp from all the evaporation... I knew that so much water was being moved that the whole climate would change in those areas. I knew there would be storms and rain... and that things would grow in those lands as a result... some of them wonderful and desperately needed... and some of them horrible, and just as necessary. And It was so difficult... I realized that there was not so much water running off that net... not to speak of. Just what was dripping off the wet strands. And I worked harder so I could complete my work before the net dried out.

And there was another ocean on the other side of the mountain. Some of the water dripping from the net was running down that side of the mountain to the other ocean. And on the side from which I drew the net, the waters were following the water I'd dragged up. Water was running uphill after the water I'd already brought. It had almost reached me.. it was crashing and gurgling just a few paces below where I sat gathering the net. I was trying to edge that net around the mountainside, to get at places I'd missed and try to get more of it to the other side of the mountain. I knew if I could, that the water from the ocean on one side would be able to reach the ocean on the other side. It would work like a siphon, the water would run down the far side, and draw up far more water than I could drag with a wet bundle of net, no matter how large. And all the lands in between would be affected.

It was then that I noticed that the lands to either side of the mountain were vast... it was like I could see the whole continent from one place. Indeed, the top of the mountain, even though I could put one leg on one side and the other on the other side, held a vast land as well. But I was not any larger than normal. It was as though I sat at the edge of a huge expanse, but could still reach both sides. And the mountain of course was tall... but at the same time it was like there wasn't much distance between top and bottom.

Some of the ocean water that was running uphill was, as I mentioned crashing against some rocks nearby... I noticed some movement. There was a coyote in the spray thrown up on the "dry" side of the rocks. He would sit for a moment, then roll around for a bit... I realized after a moment that he was enjoying the spray from the ocean. This coyote, strangely enough, was black. Not completely black... not lightless or without markings, but mostly black, with some darker and lighter hairs... he appeared black to the eye, but not an unnatural black. Except that coyotes aren't that color. )

I kept on with my work, enjoying the company, kind of hoping he'd come over and visit with me. I'd mostly got the net and things arranged as I liked... I was nearly done. I have to note, that this work was very time consuming, and it wasn't easy... and I really had to pay attention to what I was doing to guide this huge unwieldy thing over all that terrain... but somehow, it was not tedious. It felt good to be doing it. It felt rewarding, and I enjoyed it.

Then I noticed, a little further down the mountain... on the side I'd drawn the net up from, that there was a dog. Not just any dog... this was one of those weird mastiffs that looks sort of like a hound... the dogs are white, but over the sides of their faces, over each eye there is a black or brown mask. I don't know if they have any of these dogs in the waking world anymore or not, but they were used to hunt foxes and wolves... I became worried that it would attack the coyote by me... sure enough, it was advancing up the mountainside towards us. The coyote just looked at me when I tried to run him off. I realized I'd have better luck running the dog off. So I went charging down the mountainside, yelling at the dog and it became frightened and ran away. It didn't run quite the direction I wanted it to, so I looked back to make sure the coyote was not in danger.

He wasn't... he was running in my direction. I called out to him, and tried to see if I could get him to come over to me... he changed direction more towards where I stood, but rushed past. I was able to reach out and touch him though - he ran right by my legs.

He was running towards another animal, which I thought at first was an injured wolf. The coyote ran around this animal a couple times, then took off. At first I thought he was going to attack the injured animal, but he just went around a couple times and ran into the distance.

I could then see that it was some kind of dog, but it was in such bad shape that it was hard to tell what kind of animal it was... it was missing a hind leg... the leg had been torn away by something, so that a stump of bone was sticking out. As it came closer to me, I saw that what I thought were markings at first were patches where it had been mauled so that pieces of skin and flesh were torn away. And all the skin on it's face was gone... it had no lips, no eyelids... but it could still sort of see. It was obviously in agony. And I remember trying to call on whatever power one has in dreams to put the poor thing out of it's misery... to just let it die. But it held on very tenaciously to life. It would not have an easy death. It staggered and swayed as it moved. I could not will it to die.

Another dog ran up... some kind of mutt... and it was clearly diseased. I could feel the sickness surrounding it. It moved jerkily, as if it was in the throes of some horrible illness. And it's eyes were glazed over and white... covered with cataracts, or perhaps the cells in the eyes were dead and rotten. I knew it could see, but barely.

Then the first mauled animal became some kind of deer. Or perhaps it had been all along.. it's outline was so distorted by mutilation that it had been hard to tell... it was still injured in the same way... and it came running at me, faster and faster.

This was all so horrible, and there was nothing I could do, so I went back up the mountain.

And the dream ended.

---

Update 5/3/98: The SE Alabama howl (which I attended) was held at Buck's Pocket State Park, between April 10 and 19, 1998. In the Ranger's office was a taxidermied coyote... a black coyote exactly like the one in this dream. so much for the idea that "coyotes aren't that color". The ranger there said that he'd never seen a coyote that color before, either. It was apparently shot by someone in Nearby Gadsden, AL, who missed a deer, and so instead shot this coyote, who he claimed was "chasing" the deer. I haven't figured out yet if this is just co-incidence, or what, if anything it could mean. Weird though.

There were weres from all over coming together... And the last day there was torrential rain that apparently caused flooding that necessitated the park's closing. This has made me wonder a little, as there was so much water in the dream. Then the bit with the deer.

My Wolf Dream

Another dream which had a profound, life-changing effect on me. Wolf came to me, and things have been different ever since.

I had this dream back in April of 2000. I've added a couple of notes, and removed some specific comments directed at the friends I initially e-mailed this to, but otherwise, it's the same document, warts and all. throughout the dream, I knew it was a dream... intellectually, but didn't really exert any real control over it.

This Dream felt important... I had to share it... at least some of it. One always should hold a little of a Dream back, to keep them sacred.

I was at a house that is often in my recent dreams... but I was preparing to leave. There was something coming that I wanted to avoid, somewhere in importance between federal agents breaking down the door, and moving out because a lease was up. (Note: later, after I had the dream, we ended up being forced to move in Early July, at the same time, I had to change jobs, and had a couple other disasters).

I was contemplating, very hard in this Dream (as I had been in waking life) where to go next. What to do. I had this feeling that something important lay ahead, but I could not "find the path".

There were LOTs of other people there... all friends... dear friends from my past, present, and I think the future. Among those present, Rors, t'shai, Howls, Chris Hales (a good friend), Timberwolf, Shadowfox, Trot, Guardian, Wontolla... and just too many more to count...

Anyway... I was walking around the edge of the yard of this house... and on one side of the property is a rather steep cliff face. Not the kind where you merely fall a while and go splat, either... but the kind that looks like it might be climbable... but where you are gonna bounce down many times, rapidly accelerating and getting mashed against rocks before you hit bottom.

I was standing on the edge of this cliff... earth crumbling under my feet, and suddenly had this feeling that it was time to go.... as if the crumbling cliff were my awaiting destiny, and I had to decide to go where it was showing me, however scary, or step away.

As I began to slide over the edge, everyone suddenly showed up... and someone... (I think Guardian), grabbed my hand to keep me from going over. I was very grateful that this loving friend was risking their life to try and save me... but saw that at any moment, I would fall, and take them with me. I knew that my destiny was before me and was unafraid (mostly), but didn't want anyone hurt with me. I called out for him to let me go... that it was my time.

He didn't want to at first, but suddenly seemed to be able to understand... he was still hesitant, and I was worried he'd fall, so I snarled to startle him into letting go, which he did.

I began to slide down the cliff face, trying to carefully retain my footing, going faster and faster. The lower I got, the steeper and more hazardous it got. Finally, I skidded to a halt, still unhurt, before a large drop. I could look back up and still see everyone looking over the edge to see if I was okay.

I looked over the drop, which looked like it MIGHT be survivable... maybe. I was wondering... "What does this mean? Why am I supposed to do this? I didn't die, at least not yet... what is the point of this dangerous journey?"

I heard a voice behind me... a deep and beautiful voice... resonant and unlike any human voice. The kind of voice you'd expect Aslan the lion to have had... the voice said "I can tell you why". It was the most beautiful, yet fierce and even terrible voice I've heard.

I turned around, and right there was an enormous and beautiful wolf. There was a faint sort of light or aura... but he was not ethereal... if anything he was MORE real than anything else. His face was even with mine, he was so huge. (NOTE: there was a sort of area surrounding Wolf, where everything seemed more real.. like there was a window from the Dream into someplace more real than even waking life).

I knew this was one of my Relations. And I knew this was a Power Being. I knew that everything around me was a dream, but that He was real. One of my first thoughts was "But I'm not a wolf person... I'm Coyote".

He seemed to tell me that didn't matter... I needed _him_ right now. He wanted to know if I knew what had to happen next, and I said "Yes, I do". He wanted to know if I was ready. I searched myself... there was still this tiny seed of doubt... but then I realized... if he is real... if Wolf is real, then the other things I know are real... and I realized I was afraid a tiny bit... but it was a vestigial fear... it didn't matter. My fear was small and powerless against me. Against Wolf. I knew it would be better if I had no reservation, no fear... but that my will would carry me through anyway... it would be good enough.

I knew he was there to help me. I had complete trust. In my life... I never trust anyone completely. Not even those I love best... there is always at least some tiny kernel of doubt. "What if they fail? what if they make a mistake, what if they don't know, what if they are weak in some way?" Or something. It's not that I don't love, trust or respect my loved ones.. it's just I never have unswerving, total, worry-free trust without reservation.

But with Wolf... I had that. I have never felt more free than at that moment where I knew that I could always trust Wolf. That he knew better than me at that moment, and would do right, and that I could have total, unselfish trust. I will carry that moment with me forever.

"I'm ready," I said. "Go ahead".

And he bunched up his muscles, and leaped... faster than thought. I felt his weight collide with me... almost in slow motion. I felt this huge warm, furry body against mine. I felt him close his fangs on my throat and shoulder. I felt the teeth go in, grind and crunch against bone... but there was nothing like pain... I knew that what was happening hurt... but it did not feel like pain.

His weight carried me over the edge. I knew that this was death. I knew this was not ending. I held on. I could see everyone up above, on the cliff's edge, watching.

There was no pain, or fear. Only trust, and love. Only rightness.

The darkness covered me. My consciousness fled. Even in the Dream.

And then I awoke... but it was a waking in the Dream.... I was at the top of the cliff again, in the house. I was being cared for by t'shai. I was a little confused... but I knew that things were right. That everything was right. Some fading echo of Wolf's voice told me that I might not understand what had just gone on yet... but soon all would be clear. That it might not be exactly as I expected, but I'd see before too long. And we began walking away from the house... down the road... several friends appeared from where they'd been waiting or doing things (I suspected that some stuff had happened to some of them in the meantime, but didn't know what), and we began walking together.

And when I woke... truly awoke... if there is such a thing as truly awakening... I felt peace.

I feel that this is somehow more important (at least in some ways) than any of the Dreams (capital 'D') I've had yet. Not a culmination.... but a marker of some important journey or beginning.

And I'm ready, in a way I've never been before, for whatever spirit holds for me.

I'm very independent. It's hard for me to let go... but I'm ready now for whatever leap is to come.

I trust again.

Stone Vision

I had a moment of insight or feeling, when thinking about what I think a soul is. This is how I ended up expressing it.

In the beginning, I was a raw stone.

Life and people chipped and shaped me,

Until I gleamed with facets and with scars.

In the stone was the shape of what I could be chipped into.

In the stone I was, was the shape of what my shapes could be.

As I was chipped and shaped, parts were cut away, or pounded into different configurations.

And yet, I am the same stone.

And as I rolled, and moved, and learned to choose my path from where I was tossed, I mecame different by my journey.

And yet, I am the same stone.

Many hands have shaped me. My own among them.

In different lives, I found I had different hands.

All the people I have met, and all the people I have been, they have worked the stone of my heart.

Sometimes, all that can be seen of what I was is by the shape of what is left behind.

Sometimes, my flaws can be seen, or are hidden, by the shaping.

A flaw is sometimes not corrected, but is smoothed over or cut away.

Sometimes, a hand, my own or that of another, works around a flaw that goes deep.

And where one hand does not do the job well, another hand makes the best of what is left.

As I become smaller, I also move towards the potential of what I could be.

My heart is still the same heart.

As I strike the stones of others, my shape determines how I shape them.

And as the light from other stones is reflected onto my facets, I reflect it from me also.

And the light I pass on is shaped by my shape, by my experiences, and by the heart still deep within me.

It is shaped not only by those places where it reflects from my surface, but also from places where it penetrates me.

Some of my facets are dark, some bright, some clear, some foggy.

But they pass on the pattern of light that is uniquely mine.

And someday, perhaps everything will be chipped away.

And there will be a place in the universe for the soul of a stone.

And I will not only be myself, I will also be the spirit of all stones.

My heart will be all hearts.

But I will still be me.

My soul is the place in the universe in which the stone that is myself will fit.

The Painting from the Dream

Some folks may have heard me mention this. I'm one of those flakes that thinks dreams can sometimes be important. Here's one that is unusual in that it seemed to impinge on waking life in some way. Read the story, and see a scan of the picture that someone painted of me... I posed for this picture. Funny thing is I was asleep and posed in a dream and never met the artist. Co-incidence? Maybe. Delusion? Perhaps.

I had a strange dream a while back. I didn't write it down at the time, but it was vivid enough that I have recalled details even after all this time.

In the dream, I was wearing, of all things a buckskin cloak (over jeans and a t-shirt). I was carrying a kind of weird stick... it was shaped like a rifle, sort of. Long, and with one end shaped like a rifle stock. I thought this was odd when I woke up... but later I saw the movie "Last of the Mohicans" and one of the characters therein used a club shaped that way.

I was walking along the perimiter of a place that I knew, in the dream, was a piece of rural property that I lived on with a bunch of other folks. Nearby were the bones of a bull that I knew had been slaughtered by some feral, furred thing, which I did not consider a threat, but rather something that belonged. I felt that this critter was sentient, but feral. I remember feeling briefly sorry for him, because I knew he was unable to live around anyone else because he was so angry.

To one side of me, were poles... with rope and old power cables and junk strung between them... like really tall fence posts with cord at the tops... no fence... they were simply a kind of boundary marker. It was fairly cold, and there was snow over everything.

Anyway... in the dream, I was very angry... I'd had a fight with someone at home. I was preoccupied, and was surprised to realize that I had come upon another person. I remember thinking.... "well... no-one should be out here and we've had trouble lately" and kind of hoped that if the person were hostile, that they would think that I was (and this is the really corny part) a hostile Injun with a gun (the stick/club) and leave. In the dream, the property I was on was located near a reservation.

Well.. as it turned out... the person was an artist... and behind them, I noticed, was an easel. We talked a bit... and the person talked me into letting him paint a picture of me. Which I thought was really silly... I explained that if they were into that southwestern "native american thing" that I wasn't a native american at all (I don't look the least bit like I am of that ethnicity... but amazingly some people - who have never MET a native american in their lives occasionally think I am, because I go by the name Coyote... I've always thought it was stupid). The artist said no... he wanted to paint _me_. I was a little surprised, but for some reason, I let him. Then the dream ended. I never asked the artist what his name was.

Now... as it happens... more than a year and a half passed. I'd told my ex-wife about the dream, but I don't think I mentioned it to anyone else. There wasn't much earth-shattering in it, so I didn't think about it afterwards. My ex-wife and I threw a yule party at the end of 1993.

A friend who I hadn't seen in a while came by. A friend who I had not known at the time of the dream. This friend told me "I have a really weird present for you... it's supposed to be a painting of an indian guy, but I think it's really a painting of you, don't ask me why".

I unwrapped it. And it was rather obviously, the painting that the artist from the dream was painting. It's somewhat crude, but many folks who have seen it ask if the person in the painting is supposed to be me. I was rather astounded, as the whole scene was so obviously the one from the dream.

The painting is of a person standing, holding a funny rifle-shaped club, next to the boundary markers, wearing a buckskin robe. Under the robe at the neck... if you look closely, you can see what appears to be a regular t-shirt collar... the tight round kind. Weird thing is this... At the time of the dream, and at the time I recieved the painting I had a beard. I still do. I always wear a beard. In the dream, I didn't have a beard, I was clean-faced (which I thought was odd upon waking). The figure in the painting is clean-shaven. There'd be no real reason for my friend to see that beardless painting and think it was me. Also, the figure in the painting appears to have a streak of thinning hair on his scalp... and my hair has begun to thin in the same place in a similar pattern. At the time of the dream, and the time the painting was given to me, there was no sign of this thinning hair.

I'd really like to meet the painter, Rob Brown, who did the painting in March, 1993.