Dreams vs. Visions — Inspiring the Muse


Dreams vs. Visions

Inspiring the Muse

 

Flying Dream Unicorn
Flying Unicorn Dream

I entreat the nine muses to come to me once Hypnos and Morpheus have sprinkled their poppies, my eyes close and I imbibe the potion for nightscapes.  Brothers Phantasus and Ikelos open the threshold for the Nine Muses to enter in.  Each Muse wears a ring with her attribute inscribed therein by Nyx Goddess of the Night.

  • Calliope was the muse of epic poetry.
  • Clio was the muse of history.
  • Erato was the muse of love poetry.
  • Euterpe was the muse of music.
  • Melpomene was the muse of tragedy.
  • Polyhymnia was the muse of sacred poetry.
  • Terpsichore was the muse of dance.
  • Thalia was the muse of comedy.

Nyx leads her daughters into my psyche causing my pen to trip lightly across the page at dawn.

Dreams have been defined as successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.  Dreams are populated by subconscious thoughts and wishes.  Often my dreams are a hodgepodge of things that happened during the course of the day, past childhood and my secret desires.  A good night’s sleep can help clear the stress and pressure of the day.  For me I often discover the answer to complex problems via dreams or receive reassurance and comfort from my parents.  Sleep can bring regeneration, healing and inspiration.  Insomnia is the antithesis of a peaceful night.  Insomnia is the antithesis of a peaceful night.

The dream space is physical as well as mental.  It can be a war or collaboration between the conscious and the unconscious mind.  As a child I would sit in class in daydream of where I wanted to be other than in the boring classroom.  As an adult my daydreams consist of where I want to go in life and formulating ways to get there.  I would call where the mind goes in the waking hours Vision and while asleep Dreams.  My Vision is the business, idea and service I’m giving birth to.  Dreams are just flights of fancy my mind takes to escape unattractive realities.  Vision is the mental outline, framework and building blocks of my pathway towards lifelong goals.

Can those dreams, thoughts and ideas exist after death?  Specifically do the dreams of the dead influence the living.  Can messages be given across time, space and eternity via one’s dreams?  If on my deathbed I had a dream in my heart and a vision in my soul and I kissed that person on the mouth would my soul transfer into that person’s soul?

Are parents or grandparents able to transmit their dreams, thoughts and ideas after death via DNA.  Also can children inherit or remember the memories of their parents and grandparents?  Is it possible for any person to recall the memories or their ancestors?  Supposition: Aunts & Uncles would be let out of the picture because they are offshoots, not a direct lineage.  Or like in Kindred the possibility of being pulled back in time to assist that ancestor with some pressing problem becomes alarmingly real.

At night does my spirit travel the astral plane searching for answers, solutions, explanations’ for my physical plane?  And what would happen if the silver umbilical attaching me to my body were cut?  How would I reconnect to myself?  Whether in the body or out of the body I know not, yet still receiving the revelation of God.  My quarks and leptons become baryons synthesize into hyper-force exploding into the universe.  Fermions and bosons are no longer constrained by the complexities of theories but burst into being.  Spun higher and higher faster and faster developing from antimatter into mater.  I become the superconductive dreamscape able to transcend all and become all.

In my mind during times of slumber my astral body goes to meet the beloved and is comforted in his arms.  Is the dream only a desired illusion?  Yet it feels so real, so for now I luxuriate in his touch and together we enter the dream space capsule.

It is an interesting hypothesis that memories could be extracted from another person’s mind, but dreams are not linear because the mind is a labyrinth.  The laws of physics do not apply within a dream.  Because there are many little rooms residing within each individuals psyche, dreams can be manipulated via brain injury or the use of sedative-hypnotics like Ambien.  Portals in the mind normal closed are open causing the user to sleepwalk and sleeptalk.  Hallucinations are an alter state of being that I never want to experience.  It is interesting to note that Ambien is used as a treatment for persons in a catatonic state.  Think “Awakenings” with actor Robin Williams only back in the 1920s the drug of use was dopamine.  Many cultures have a history of taking mind altering drugs to stimulate and/or induce visions but if you can’t control the vision you might be getting more than you bargained for.  Personally I want to be in control of all my visions.

If I was able to jump inside your subconscious in what landscape would I find myself?  Could I understand the scenery generated by your mind or would I just be a stranger in a bizarre and frightening environment trying to escape?  However my vision can resonate with your vision thereby creating a shared vision that empowers us both.

Dissonance as a Creative Art Form


Dissonance as a Creative Art Form

Koyaanisqatsi – Life out of Balance, Crazy Life, Life disintegrating.

Ah yes deliberate dissonance, discordant tones and harmonies that somehow weave themselves together to create a beautiful sensory tapestry.

I’ve seen this done in dance with Twyla Tharpe and in a recent performance by the Shen Wei Dance Artists at the Met and also in music with composer Philip Glass who can be a bit extreme.� I think that is also what appeals to me in photo collage, taking things that seem to have no relationship and making one or items that have a logical relationship and changing the way the viewer sees them.

Dissonance strikes its own particular cadence making sense only to the viewers who are tuned it. In fact it strikes out at the viewer engaging him in a seemingly one side fight. I bring together those elements innocuous in and of themselves but joined together create a whole art form.  Dissonance is taking the everyday mundane fashion an entire new creation.

It all flows together.  It rattles.  It shakes.  It demands to be heard.

Hit the note on key, then threaded, spread it, flip it and bounce it off the wall a few times.  They bob, weave and pirouette.

All together in one tiny room they create a cacophony of what appears to the layman’s ear noise but is actually a symphony of everyday items and the sounds they emit.

Life is woozy with interconnectedness.  Word Dance and images assault the five senses fighting for dominion.

It is a cacophony reaching the very core of the brain’s cerebral cortex arriving at a level of distortion where all becomes clear and melts into one.  It is the kinetic frenzy of acoustic violinist Lorenzo LaRoc.

How can one in a place of seeming quiet reflection experience the luxurious of a racing mind with images and sound vie for dominance with our core senses?  How can we filter the stream and use it to our advantage?

Let the mind wander through the galleries independent from the body and see what happens.

Normal is the mutually created state between self and Goddess whereby you repeatedly step out of one state of being into a personal universe of goals, dreams and fantasies without having a complete psychotic break with the reality at hand. Living inside ones head with the ability to return to the Three dimensional worlds for discourse with earthly flesh and blood. Some forays take you over to the dark side but one must always have a plan or a way of escape or you will be consigned to dwell in the nether regions ruled by the Tormentor and populated murderers, sadistic rapists, and demented of the worst sort. I’m fortunate in that my ancestral angels have not only pulled me back but accompanied me, overshadowing my being with a golden celestial aura.

Anytime I’m dissatisfied with the present reality I retreat to my “Happy Place” π a parallel universe populated by created forces over which I have total control or at least most of the time. Occasionally the inhabitants may get out of hand but my fellows are allowed to stray from their appointed pathway only in the greater scheme of further ends I’ve already predestined for them. π Sometimes the Angels assigned to guide have me morph into alternate beings, with the ability to inhabit the glories of past and future worlds both terrestrial and celestial.

Each chamber of my mind has a doorway that opens to Flights of Fantasy Realms with many alter-egos and avatars each vying to pilot the “Dream Ship Taijhena “!

These dreams and fantasies become my true normal. Normal is the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt coupling with Flappers of 1920s America producing a race of superhuman beings and biomorphic forms who populate the fourth dimension world of Modern Art. The dissolute household, Isis, Ishtar, Nzingha, Makeda, Storm, the Borg Queen Lilith, Juan de Pareja, phantasms from the paintings of Tanguy and Carrington, the Wizard of OZ, Star Wars, all  meet  in a Great Celebration!

Visiones de Juan de Pareja

Juan de Pareja plays ethereal music upon a 17th Century Italian Harpsichord accompanied by musical voices that have taken the form of African drums, old Negro Spirituals, Baptist Hymns, Native American, Gregorian and Buddhist chants.

Juan’s soul once held captive within the painting is now free and he romances a young African American Woman transporting her through the portals of time into his world, making all her dreams of romance and adventure come true.  The Lover has come to claim his Beloved undaunted and undeterred by the passage of time across centuries and continents.  Taijhena became his model, his muse, his lover.  Her reward; his full Moorish lips joined to hers.  Her slender fingers reweaving the tangle of his thick, knappy, kinky curly hair.

The Kaleidoscope Turns

Dwellers from the off center worlds of Yves Tanguy and Lenora Carrington dance a ghostly minuet strangely in time with the aforementioned harmonies. Umberto Boccioni mechanical cubist forms shape shift as each civilization raises its songs of praise to their nation’s way of life. Rumi and Hafiz recite poetry in Old Persian. Surreal images of Magritte and villagers from Chagall mix and mingle in a charged atmosphere.  

From shattered bits and broken pieces I recreate Eden.  A forest populate with animals, plants, perpetual sunshine; all manner of jewels and precious stones.  In the middle a clearing there is a slow moving stream, its banks alternately sandy with smooth rocks dotting the coastline.  Looking across I see Beloved transitioned family, friends, even pets from long ago childhood.  My suffering now over, Our reunion begins.

All happily exchange and converse within the Stream, that unconscious subtle system of verbal and non-verbal communication. Empaths guided by cues, pheromones, and inner thoughts, dreams and visions.

Always remember, “A Unicorn seldom this way comes to a locked Garden.”

Yes! Normal is the reality I create for myself!

Excuse me but my Creator Mistress signals me to re-enter the story from which I was summoned.  π

Contrary to popular belief sensory deprivation rather than sensory overload may be the root cause of alienation.  Not enough intellectual stimulation to the cerebellum causes the thought processes to wither and die much like a paralytic who no longer has use of his limbs.  On the surface chaos is the semblance of order.  Chaos is the first order of discipline.

Life as a collection of items, things, pieces of a whole, separate they are in conflict together they

Hallucinate baby Hallucinate because the world you once thought was real has been challenged by the authentic.  I am one with the mad woman who lives inside me.

Unicorn emerging from the Rain

{Experiments’ in Dissonance}

Suddenly We have a new murder here and it’s wasting along the page.
The make dissonant movements damning the reader or the writer to make any sense of the dialogue. As in Jazz the worlds bob and weave along the page, not necessarily making any sense.  Suddenly I’m fight with a perfectly black keyboard. tHIS IS A VIOLENT NEIGHBORHOOD.  jUST GOT HIT oVER THE hEA[D WITH a cLEF NOTE.

Pitted where it should have been potted.  keys at irregular lines and angles.The keys are diving in hollowing out, making messages peck as peck can.  Someone follow J and tell me where he goes.  You know that J cannot b trusted. And K, well K is all over the streets timing every Hookah House we know and some we don’t know.

Trouble nothing but trouble just like Q.  Not enough known about Q.  He’s the fakir in the group.
Hell’s Bells Messers ipad, ipod and laptop we still have to take the all in the questioning.
Found M laying out on the courtyard floor.  Was it booze or nose candy?  S came by in a sexy outfit hoping to distract the other two B & Y can talk business in the rather mode cyberspace combination of bar mixed drinks complete with Merry Go Round.  Suddenly B, Y found R who in the interim met up with P.  P left the car idling waiting for us to get in, while we all pondered could we even fit in that rebuilt British MG Midgit.

Y&R&P settled the debate by plying into an old VW bug.  We’re leaving here whether you want us to or not and we’re taking the stash with us.  B highly upset by this change of plans refused to fix the aerobiplane or the ramshackle ships our only two hope of getting off the island.

Black Unicorn from Rain River
Black Unicorn Spirit Animal

The Lover


The Lover

Writing is the neglected Lover who calls me away from a stifling my 13 hour workdays.  It is the hunger that demands to be fed.  The passion that must be satisfied.

The dilemma: money vs. true love.  I need the money but I must feed my soul.  Only when I answer the voice of my muse am I truly engaged in this life.

My fervor is akin to amusing myself with dilettantes whilst the face of my Lover is ever before me.  The Lover is the orgasm I seek on a nightly basis.

I feel his long slender fingers playing over my body like the keyboard on a piano.

The music he produces brings an exotic mixture of pain and ecstasy.  It’s an addiction that dominates my mind, soul, spirit and body.  A craving only he can satisfy.

Only his lean taut body, his touch can bring me to spiritually fulfilling orgasmic pleasure when after hours of lovemaking I lock my legs around his torso in those final eternal moments of sensual paradise.

Sometimes he comes to me on the wings of a night bird. A beautiful dark & twisted fantasy.  A Midnight Dream so real you’ve only exchanged one dimension for another.  Whilst the full moon reigns I pass through many long and varied portals.  I taste the sounds of evening on your lips.  Feel the words slipping through fingers.  The crested muse rides the galactic wave gliding silently o’er my cerebral universe seeking a docking station whereby I may be subsumed into His flesh.

Soapbox — Thoughts on the Older Woman


Today’s Soap Box — Thursday, July 15, 2010

Thoughts on the Older Woman

 I feel women over a certain age are marginalized in this society. It seems once you reach 40 then 50+ women especially Black Women are expected to fit into preconceived categories regarding looks, behavior and expectations. The women on my job in particular the younger women in their 20s and 30s and some of the Europeans seem to be shocked that at 51 I still have dreams, goals, aspirations and desires akin to theirs. Of course the white women are always asking me what I do to my face that I have no wrinkles and lines. My answer, “Good Black Don’t Crack!”  I’ll never need Botox, Restylane®, collagen or a facelift.

I think young people either expect you to be dried up and half dead or a throwback to the 60s, hence my nickname by one young white girl, “Soul Patrol”. Other than the physical ailments that naturally come with middle age my mind is still has the focus of a 25 -35 yr old but with the wisdom that comes with getting older. The young folks don’t realize it but I have the advantage over them. I’ve already made all the stupid mistakes, so now my goals are clear I just have to find ways of making my dreams come true. Not that I won’t have a few detours, in my case romantic detours but my eyes are on the prize because I no longer worry about whether I’ll marry or have children. Yes I desire a life partner/soul mate but I’m ambivalent about marriage and long past childbearing ability. Right now I enjoy dating and even as the birthdays keep coming I’ve never had too many problems attracting a man. Most intelligent mature men want a woman who is in good shape, has a sense of humor and is his intellectual equal, not a bubblehead.

Another attitude towards 40+ women I find very disturbing is what men in my age group think about in regards to dating. I had a conversation with one of my supervisors who claims he is 55. He’s depressed because women in their 20s and 30s no longer look at him as they did when he was younger. His reasons for wanting very young women are they everything on them is firmer and in good shape and he feels older men make better lovers. I pointed out to him that many women in their 20s and 30s are in terrible shape thanks to the fast food industry and a serious lack of exercise and also that for some men by the time they reach their 50s they need Viagra. He claims he does not need this.  Also he’s flabby himself and could stand to lose weight and firm up! What a hypocrite! However this particular supervisor is known to be a horn dog and word in the Ladies locker room is that he can get it up but can’t make it last. Also it never seems to occur to these 50+ men that younger women only date them for money, power, authority, position or status and when they find those qualities in a man closer to their own age they will leave that old bastard!  After all most young women want a contemporary so they can marry and have children. If you marry someone twenty years older than you, they will either croak in a few years or you’ll be their nurse as well as their wife.  Realistically you need someone you can build a life with, not someone who is old enough to be your Father!

No I’m not a proponent of this new age philosophy that 40 is the new 30 or 50 is the new 40. Fifty is 50 and forty is 40. There are some days when I get out of bed I feel like I’m 25 and other days like 95.  However because I never smoked, did drugs, only drank socially and adjusted my diet as I got older I’m proud to say that my exterior looks pretty darned good!  Personally I see myself staying in this condition for another twenty years God willing.

My Aunt Helen who recently transitioned at age 89 used to say to me when she turned 80, DeBorah what is 80? What does that number mean? Does it mean that you should stop doing some of the same things you did at 40? Go sit in a rocking chair and go live in a retirement community? Her answer was always No. Aunt Helen loved to tell jokes, attend family parties and church functions, sing, dance, and enjoy life until she became ill. Now she is singing, dancing and playing her violin in Heaven keeping the Angels and my other family members on their toes!

I want to be like Aunt Helen with that spirit and zest for life. I believe that in many ways I am like her only my drumbeat and pathway are slightly different. Ladies, age ain’t nothing but a number.

Prosperity vs. Adversity


She seemed like such a lovely lady.  A beauteous form can hide the darkest of hearts.  The face of an Angel, a lithe and exquisite body, however, does not the Holy Writ say that the devil is disguised in the purest of forms? Was he not known in the beginning as Lucifer and could he have not had a female counterpart.

And what is the appearance of a Fallen Angel? It is thus, a slightly prominent forehead, below are wide deep set eyes, high sculpted cheekbones,  an aristocratic nose, full sensuous lips with a generous mouth encasing small pearl like teeth, and a sturdy jaw line. Such a classic face was enveloped in a halo of thick curly black hair with a shock of white in the front.

All these gorgeous outward features contained in alluring golden brown skin kissed by the sun. This regal head was attached to a small lissome body.  Her fine-looking face and petite frame hid the advancing years very well.  

Being diminutive enabled her to pass quickly through narrow spaces without touching the sides, almost like an apparition, you felt air, looked back only to see the rustle of drapes or curtains but not the actual being. Leonarda’s physical movements whilst working the room at a cocktail party were not unlike her charming yet devious personality.

And when Leonarda was speaking with you the entire world fell away, you became the complete focus of her intentions and she seemed to exalt your small ideas, thoughts and words just with a nod of her classic head. That night as would be the case in future events, every guest in the room magically disappeared leaving only me, Leonarda and the martinis we held in our hands

 Who would have thought she was really a succubus, sent to drain men’s souls. Every night when I lay down beside her I would become as vigorous as a lion to meet her insatiable demands which left me as weak and mild as a lamb.  She drained my daylight strength from me. Yet at the dawn of the next day her preternatural words would enliven me so I could carry out her wishes. 

Those wishes which at the time seemed the mildest of suggestions caused my former friends to fall away from me much like the strangers in the room where she and I first met. Somehow my boon companions sensed her evil and knew from whence she derived her wealth, power and authority but alas I did not or rather I did not want to listen when they tried in their various communications to alert me to the danger I allowed into my life.

Leonarda La’Velle hailed from New Orleans. She was rumored to be a direct descendant of the mulatta and sorceress Marie Laveau. Leonarda had anglicized her name in an attempt to throw off track anyone who tried to research her background, but her attempts were futile to the superior talents of my friends and co-workers who were by trade paranormal researchers trained to recognize the schemes and incarnations of the wicked.

Like her infamous ancestor Marie Laveau, Leonarda La’Velle had as her patron an elderly rich white lover, so enamored of his mistress’ guile and subtleties that he scarcely realized that he was being cuckolded on a daily and nightly basis.  From him she drew money, from me, Christophe Dumell she was able to drink my very essence because I made the error of falling in love with the witch.

No doubt when I was under her spell, whenever I expressed some dissatisfaction, no matter how small she would caress my face with her tiny hands all while singing soothing melodies, songs which proved to be carefully crafted spells designed to keep me under her power. I only lived to satisfy Leonarda.

We all resided in Ulster county section of the Hudson Valley within the small town of Monrose, New York, population, 6666, one more than the devil’s number, not more than one hour from Satan’s major domain of New York City.

Monrose was a town comprised of transplants, those even too freakish for New York City proper. Small trade guilds of artisans flourished in this place, an abode of freethinkers, magicians and curiosities steeped in their own rituals and rites they believe preserved Monrose and allowed it to prosper.

Leonarda was a consultant of sorts. Wealthy businessmen came to her with their dilemmas which she solved for them all while extracting personal information which she later supplied to her primary patron, but unbeknownst to him, she used these intelligences to blackmail her clients. She had files and illegally taped conversations on all of them. She had witnessed either firsthand or via her spies, who operated all over the city compromising positions and conflicts of interests of the most powerful city fathers. Some o f these power brokers when called to Leonarda’s boudoir to confess their sins and make restitution initially balked at the idea of paying her blood money until she showed them her evidence and threatened to expose them. Fearful of being stripped of their power and positions they all acquiesced except one…………