Tag Archives: Dreams

Dreaming of a Grove

26 Sunday Jun 2011

Posted by in Creative Process, Faery, Following Delight, Magic

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The Enchanted GroveI have a dream…

A dream of a place where people can gather and share and support each other in the path of enchantment, of Faery, of magic and spirit.

A place which holds space for play and the search for delight in the everyday.

A place where people can discuss serious thoughts about a-rational things, and playful thoughts about serious things.

A place for art and music and devotion and learning and healing and empowerment.

A place where your religion doesn’t matter, where magic as metaphor and magic as real is equally as precious because it is the experience and the enchantment it gives you that matters.

An Enchanted Grove.

I dream that one day this will be a physical place, a tangible space, or maybe even many spaces across the world…

For now, I’m planting the seeds of an online grove… there are a few feylings there already and soon I hope to open it up to more wandering wonderers.

I’m making my dreams come true…

Would you care to join me?

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Art class drop out

14 Wednesday Jul 2010

Posted by in Art Craft and Beauty, Creative Process

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When people walk into my room, they often comment on all my art on the wall. They don’t know how I believed I’d never make art like this.

I wear my world on my sleeve, so to speak. I remember hiding in the library at school, half the time I’d be reading stories or books about psychology or religion, the other half of the time I’d be drawing.

I almost failed GCSE art. I dropped out of Art A-level after a month.

I knew I loved making art, and yet I could barely pass the class.

For years I doubted my ability, lacking formal training, how could I really make art? How could I be an artist?!

And still I kept at it. In fits and starts, not so much an undeniable impulse but more like a slowly building pressure, only relieved by the soothing sound of colours stroking the page.

There is, simply, nothing like it.

Once I start, I never want the process to end at the same time as impatiently longing to see the finished picture.

I couldn’t jump through the hoops of formal training because, frankly, I just wanted to make art.

I dropped out of art class after a month.

I wanted the skills, but the formality was destroying me.

When I went to university to study Philosophy I secretly thought I’d left art, sadly, irrevocably, behind me. I could still draw, doodle, play, but I could never really be an artist.

But then I found myself painting, drawing, more and more… I painted my thoughts out for an essay, then wrote the essay based on the painting. Friends loved the art I made, asked me to make piece for them, which sit proudly on their walls.

Somehow, I’d dropped out, and tuned in.

Somehow, as an art-class drop-out, I found I could still be an artist.

I am grateful that I only gave up on my dream for a moment, and, in returning to myself, I find myself here… making art.

It makes me wonder what dreams the people around me have given up on, even if they haven’t realised it. It reminds me why the old cliché exists: it is never too late to do what you love, to be who you are, regardless of what the world might think.

Moment to Moment, My Dear…

15 Saturday May 2010

Posted by in Art Craft and Beauty, Magic

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Painting

That knot in my chest just gets tighter every moment...

Its hard to breathe past the dawning feeling that things just aren’t right…

I let it fill me and reach inside for a sense of direction…

Strokes of colour, like feathers, reach into the sky.

A sense of flight rises up from within...

I see I fear confinement, being tied down to one place…

I see I fear losing, losing you my dear, and losing me.

My longing for adventure,

outpouring of colour in space…

Patterns form, shift, swirl.

In the flow I move...

Heart-to-hand-to-joyful-line, forming patterns, shifting, swirling outwards and outwards…

The freedom of a snow-white page…

Kissed by colours, the emerging-moment fills me…

A powerful hand glows.

I am full of power...

I glow. I know. To paint is to be free.

I know. To trust is to be free.

I know, to spread my wings and leave to faith what happens afterwards…

I know, to live, moment to moment, in each moment, is to be free.

I Wish not to lose you, my dear, but I Will keep me.

Moment to moment, my wings spread wide.

My dear-one, sweet-one…

Will you fly by my side?

Trust me to Live.

Trust me to Fly.

And its your choice, my dear, your choice.

Moment to moment.

Your choice to Live too.

Your choice to Fly.

In Love, I hold out my hand.

In Love, I must do what I must.

In Love, moment to moment, in Trust.

The Cheshire Cat’s Smile

10 Saturday Apr 2010

Posted by in Reflections

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~ A Review

I walk home after the sky has moved from blue to purple, and above the rooftops I see the thin sliver of a Cheshire cat smile.

Two nights before my sweetie, a friend and I went to watch the new Alice in Wonderland film by Tim Burton in 3D. Its a rare treat to visit a cinema from the Valleys of Wales, so we were most excited!

It was beautiful, and a strange blend of Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass and The Jabberwocky. When the 3D technology has developed even a little further it will be a fantastic addition to the visual experience and I look forward to seeing how it may perhaps add to the storytelling. For the moment, it was pretty (despite my personal difficulties focussing, and preference for brighter colours, which were washed out by the special glasses). We all giggled at the spectacle of ourselves in the huge frames over our modest daily glasses we wear to see the world.

But I left the theatre feeling that here had been a spectacle, and little else.

It being Burton, there were plenty of treats, and a familiar cast of actors who pulled off their roles wonderfully. There were characters, long loved and often missed, reappearing in new guises. There were amazing details and vast vistas of beauty.

And yet it lacked something…

And under that sliver of moon I began to realise what.

In the story that captured our hearts so long ago, it wasn’t a narrative that we fell in love with, but the surrealness, the moment by moment twisting and turning of a world which whispered with wonder.

Now the fantastical has become so commonplace it cannot invoke the same degree of dreaming on its own, and forcing a loose narrative on pieces of art which have little truck with beginning, middle and end takes a little more away.

The story of Alice is not a narrative, but a dream, and that is why we love it.

Alice shows us how reality flows between the two worlds of dreaming and waking, and watching her adventures lets us walk away with a little piece of her ability to walk between these worlds. It felt to me like the new film tried to make this more obvious, and perhaps missed the point.

But it was still gorgeous, I will still watch it again, and I do still adore the Cheshire Cat and his smile…

I walk home after the sky has moved from blue to purple, and above the rooftops I see

the thin sliver of a Cheshire cat smile.

Two nights before my sweetie, a friend and I went to watch the new Alice in Wonderland

film by Tim Burton in 3D. Its a rare treat to visit a cinema from the Valleys of

Wales, so we were most excited!

It was beautiful, and a strange blend of Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the

Looking Glass and The Jabberwocky. When the 3D technology has developed even a little

further it will be a fantastic addition to the visual experience and I look forward to

seeing how it may perhaps add to the storytelling. For the moment, it was pretty

(despite my personal difficulties focussing, and preference for brighter colours,

which were washed out by the special glasses). We all giggled at the spectacle of

ourselves in the huge frames over our modest daily glasses we wear to see the world.

But I left the theatre feeling that here had been a spectacle, and little else.

It being Burton, there were plenty of treats, and a familiar cast of actors who pulled

off their roles wonderfully. There were characters, long loved and often missed,

reappearing in new guises. There were amazing details and vast vistas of beauty.

And yet it lacked something…

And under that sliver of moon I began to realise what.

In the story that captured our hearts so long ago, it wasn’t a narrative that we fell

in love with, but the surrealness, the moment by moment twisting and turning of a

world which whispered with wonder.

Now the fantastical has become so commonplace it cannot invoke the same degree of

dreaming on its own, and forcing a loose narrative on pieces of art which have little

truck with beginning, middle and end takes a little more away.

The story of Alice is not a narrative, but a dream, and that is why we love it.

Alice shows us how reality flows between the two worlds of dreaming and waking, and

watching her adventures lets us walk away with a little piece of her ability to walk

between these worlds. It felt to me like the new film tried to make this more obvious,

and perhaps missed the point.

But it was still gorgeous, I will still watch it again, and I do still adore the

Cheshire Cat and his smile…

On Growing Roses and Losing Spider Plants

23 Tuesday Feb 2010

Posted by in Following Delight, Herbology

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For a long time I thought I could never keep plants. I kept spider plants, renowned for being impossible to kill, and they all died. I bought hardy plants specifically for the conditions in my bedroom, and still they died.

I gave up.

And then the dreams began. For the past few years I have been daydreaming of growing a beautiful garden. A place where the flowers smell gorgeous and transform themselves into fruit when the autumn comes. A place where the greenery is lush and deep and soothing to the spirit. A place to rest and work and play, for visitors, friends, and my family.

And I despaired! How could I ever grow this magnificent place of wonder if I couldn’t even keep a spider plant alive!

Last February, at Imbolc, when snow covered the ground, a friend gave me a bright bunch of daffodils. The flowers were like sunshine in the cold, cheering, comforting, and inspiring. I loved it and toyed with the idea of always keeping cut flowers on my windowsill.

And again, the plants in my care died. But this time they were cut flowers, so I was expecting it. And this time I decided to try again, but, flowers are so much nicer, I thought, when they are alive and growing and not about to die a week later. I chose life, I chose flowers that would keep blooming, that would stay alive, that would not have been hacked from the ground…

I went to the florists and found two blooming roses, one red and one yellow.

And they came home with me, as I danced through the snow, determined to look after these small pieces of life and light and hope for the summer.

They almost died within days. And I did not give up.

By some miracle (known as knowledgeable friends) I was guided in repotting them and I instigated a solid routine of care appropriate to roses.

Over a year later, my roses are still blossoming with hopes of summer and memories of warmth. They have grown to three times the size and are healthier than I ever expected them to be.

My dream of a wondrous garden seems that much closer now and I am collecting seeds to make a window box of herbs and flowers this spring. It seems that, with a little bit of determination, even I can grow a rose garden!!!

There are many things I thought I could never do because I have not managed it so far… and yet, every time I see my roses I am reminded that just because I failed at something once, it doesn’t mean I can’t do it, just that I didn’t do it then.  In the past I have given up on things when I couldn’t do them first time round, when they didn’t come easily. Now I’ve learnt that often, I need to learn at least a little more than what can be picked up in the first few minutes before I can do something properly, and I have also learnt that this is ok. Oh, and, that I can keep beautiful plants!

5 Minute Post – Lucid Dreaming

03 Sunday Jan 2010

Posted by in Philosophy

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(Topic suggested in a comment by philosophe007, here. Feel free to comment with suggestions for more topics!)

5 minutes, 1 topic… get set: go!

Lucid Dreaming

I’ve tried lucid dreaming before, but I’ve always gotten locked into dreaming that I’m dreaming lucidly and should try and do one fo the cool things that can eb done in dreams, like fly, or be invisible, or something. But I always end up dreaming that I’ve become lucid, and then just dreaming that I can try and fly, without actually becoming conscious of whats going on… and then the dream shifts and it all changes.

There’re lots of questions I could ask about dreams: what if they’re really being awake, and being awake is asleep? What if dreams are another life we step into when we sleep? What if…? But none of these seem interesting to me anymore,* I’m rather more interested in how we dream. How is it that we build up these worlds so vividly, and can have coherent stories that we are completely immersed in, and yet they somehow have a different quality to them to waking life?

Technically I assume dreams are built up by the brain playing, but then why aren’t the images just random flashes of things, rather than actual narratives (albeit often fragmented)? Maybe because the impulses follow particular patterns through the brain, ok… but then why do dreams have a different quality to waking life, if its all just what happens when impulses fire?

Could it be that life actually is more than just impulses, that the quality is actually embodiment, say?

We are more than just neurons, and life is more than just what happens when impulses fire, more than the experiences we have because neurons have fired… life is embodied experience. (Perhaps.)

*Post-5-minute comment: these questions are less interesting to me now because I’ve spent several years in academic philosophy classes in which ‘we might all be dreaming’ is an all-to-often recurring thought experiment, and they don’t make sense. We not awake because ‘awake’ is classified as the bit we call being awake, ‘reality’ is the classification of the bit while we’re awake (although certain versions of ‘awake’ and ‘reality’ can be argued for other than the everyday ones) and we are, it seems to me, creatures that live and move and do, and part of that is being embodied. As we don’t take our bodies, which lie sleeping, into dreams with us (or do we?) then its only a part of us that go into that dream-life…  so the interesting questions there, I suppose, are about what makes us us, whether that can be disembodied and if we are still the same people we are when embodied if disembodied, or instead are in part the same, but are different? I mean, don’t we experience the world as embodied beings? And if we’re experienceing the world differently, then how can we be the same kind of being, and thus the same person? Identity, identity… the question of dreams brings these issues up.

(And so I cheat and this becomes a 10 minute post!)