Saturday, January 29, 2005

Touching Down I am a little girl of perhaps 6 years of age. I walk with a man--a father-provider, worried about the future and about providing for me materially--and a woman--a mother figure consumed with watching over and nurturing me at every moment. Another woman walks behind us, my "giantess" of other dreams, enormous but graceful, powerful wisewoman who informs or attempts to inform each of us. I comprise all four persons, but where early in the dream my awareness is mostly that of the giantess, by the end I am entirely with the child. We walk among a range of gently rounded green-furze-covered mountains. Clear-cut paths spiral roughly up the oblique slopes. Our group progresses along one of those spiral paths and is nearing the mountaintop. The valley below us is like a great bowl of brilliant white rolling clouds. The two parent figures are too preoccupied with their concerns to notice the beautiful phenomenon, but the child is transfixed. The parents' "job," as they see it, is to ensure the child reaches the top of that mountain. But the valley fog is rising, lifting itself up the slope; soon it will obscure the trail. The parents become hysterical, fearing we'll be immobilized. Just before the fog reaches our feet, however (the parents busy themselves arguing about which way to go), I--the child now--spread my arms wide (perhaps at the whispered instigation of the giantess) and am lifted kite-like into the air. I'm filled with inexpressible joy--although not surprise; it's more like satisfaction--in being above the gorgeous clouds, being free, weightless. Too soon, though, I soar beneath the ceiling of fog, under the gray skies over the flat green valley with its little houses and barns, and I lose buoyancy. Whatever had supported me withdraws, and I descend rapidly--without fear, and less as if to crash than in a rather-too-vertical controlled glide. The dream ends or I awaken just before touching down. [1985] 3:34:48 PM    comment []