Surfacing

 I recently had a dream where I am walking on the floor of a sea. I am neither worried, nor elated that I am walking under water. What does concern me is that there seems to be no sea life. There is no color, no fish. I am actually walking in a structure made of grey stone. It has no roof and no floor,  but it does not seem to be a ruin. I continue to walk through empty chambers and hallways. It is not a large building but the stone work is of high quality.  

As I continue to ponder the lack of sea life, I look up. A large pod of what I called whales are swimming above me. I cannot see details because the whales are quite far above me. As I remember this dream, I think the creatures look more like dolphins, but in the dream I know them as whales. I am grateful to see them, but I become concerned again because there does not seem to be any sea life.  I ask, "What are they eating?" There are quite a few of them.  They appear to be black; the sea is grey and very still.  They swim on.  I wake before the last whale passes. 

This morning I share the color red.  The first red offering is a painting by American Surrealist Kay Sage (1898-1963) . The painting is entitled, "Festa". This artist is a new discovery for me. When I first saw it, I felt such a surge of freedom.  Only later did I see that there is a spear-like object attached towards the bottom of what I will for now call a veil. 

The second is a photograph that I took a couple of weeks ago.  I have also recently had a dream of an old woman who was completely cloaked in black. In the dream I am in an office and I see her coming down the hall. I am not frightened. In the dream I know she is there to clean. I am at a desk sorting through files. I move to the foyer to make room for her to clean. For now I think of her as a Wisdom figure, so when I look at this photograph, I think that maybe she is being revealed. I continue to welcome her

The next image is a Frida Kahlo painting. According to the notes I have seen,  she completed this painting about 8 days before she passed.  "Long live life"  is the translation.  Poignant.  She was in physical pain most of her life.   

I was going to stop there, but I was finally able to get a good picture of a rose that grows not far from where we live.   

 

 I come back to a poem I recently received.  The image of the blackbirds seems to mirror the image of the whales in my dream.   

 

I continue to ponder red in our "curving and soaring world". 

 

I am 52 years old, and have spent
truly the better part
of my life out-of-doors
but yesterday I heard a new sound above my head
a rustling, ruffling quietness in the spring air

and when I turned my face upward
I saw a flock of blackbirds
rounding a curve I didn’t know was there
and the sound was simply all those wings
just feathers against air, against gravity
and such a beautiful winning
the whole flock taking a long, wide turn
as if of one body and one mind.

How do they do that?

Oh if we lived only in human society
with its cruelty and fear
its apathy and exhaustion
what a puny existence that would be

but instead we live and move and have our being
here, in this curving and soaring world
so that when, every now and then,
mercy and tenderness triumph in our lives
and when, even more rarely,

we manage to unite and move together
toward a common good,

and can think to ourselves:
ah yes, this is how it’s meant to be.

~ Julie Cadwallader Staub  

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