Melisande's Soliloquy. (novel excerpt)

Melisande gazed from the window.  The call had gone out suddenly and there was no help for it, but to make some lame excuse, take a few vacation days and fly to Mayax. It had been a long time.  

Everything these days seemed so long ago.  She had fled this city for a quiet job in a rural setting, determined to hate it and make it brief.  But she liked it there and her temporary flight, her banishment, became her passion.  A husband and children followed and she led an ordinay life ever keeping to her training ever keeping in mind who she was and ever at every turn using her powers and knowledge in the best tradition of the wise throughout the ages.

She always made it look natural, herbal and simple.  From the store she and Gerald ran with her father, she had slowly gained the trust of the town.  And, when she married a favored son, everything magically fell into place.

She became just like one of them, and not so frightening after all.  She just had gifts, special gifts and when the baby came the final ice melted away to distant memory - like this city which she now viewed anew from the hotel  penthouse suite.

There were six bedrooms with huge beds in each.  She had arrived first, her sisters from the school would all be here later tonight.  By morning, they would occupy the entire top three floors of the Mayax Hilton and they had booked the penthouse ballroom for their "Conference" for the next full week.

They was no choice but to intervene.  They'd worked so hard to build the people's trust - One of their own gone rogue would destroy it all.

To sleep, perhaps to dream or sure to dream?

Is there such a thing as Lucid dreaming.  Can we really decide not only to dream, but what to dream about?

Depends on who’s answering the question.  I say yes, but then I think life is magic, and dream is just the part of our life our essence inhabits when our corporeal self sleeps.

I notice in my dream journal… 
Note: if you don’t keep a dream journal by the bed, get one.  We say, oh, I’ll remember.  But we don’t.  Dreams so fresh and vivid on awakening, are lost in moments as the day’s chores loom.  Write it down immediately – review at leisure.

Once more:
I notice in my dream journal that I revisit certain places over and over again.  There are familiar houses, stairs, rooms, places and people that I know from past dreams.

At first I thought, hmmm, odd.  But as I let the dream sweep me along where it would, I reflected on later reading that there were doors I’d never opened.  There were conversations unfinished, and I wanted to know more.  I woke feeling unsatisfied as if I’d missed something.  I had.  I had missed out because I didn’t exercise my free will.  It exists in dream, but you have to work at it.
 
Lucid dreaming is an odd place, and anyone can do it with practice.  I find that taking a tangible item in my hand allows me to feel anchored on that side of dream to the me I am on this side.  I use stones.  I have my smooth stones, a clear and a black, and a rather craggy frosty quartz.



Practice and it comes.  These are my steps.
*   Meditate for 5 minutes as simple as paying attention to my breath
*    Hold my chosen stone loosely in my hand
*    Turn off the lights, lie down and with closed eyes recite in my mind:

• “I will remember my dreams.”
• “I will know I am dreaming.”
• “I have choices, as it is my dream.”

At first, I did good to remember the dreams, and slowly my recall became more intricate and detailed.  As time went on, I knew exactly when I entered a dream and my surroundings seemed more solid.  I could choose to explore more; pursue conversations and get real answers.  Things that frightened me before were manageable because after all, it was my dream.  I could will a light on in darkened rooms; sprout wings instead of fall.

I find I’m become more attentive on this side of dream, because I’m so attentive in dream.  That is a boon it did not expect, and I plan to embrace both sides to the fullest.

A Date with Death - she's my kind of rain

Glancing through old journals, I came across one entitled “The House call – a Date with Death”.  I wrote it on this date in 2003, not on the actual day it happened - January 9, 2003

Journal Entry 2/6/03 – Aerie:
I can put it into words now, It’s been a month since Sabrina passed.  My beautiful star-white angora cat was 23 years old.  She could barely walk and refused food and water toward the end, but life would not let her go.  She needed my help and one morning told me so in the only way she could.  She stood, looked me in the eye, wet her blanket and lay back down.  I picked her up, wrapped her in a fresh blanket and made the call.”

I still remember the kind young vet who made house calls, sitting with me on the couch with Sabrina between us on her favorite blanket.  He and I stroked her as the drugs had their way, and she breathed her last as the strains of Tim McGraw's ‘She's My Kind of Rain’ played on the radio.  I still get moist eyed every time I hear that song.

Twenty-three years was almost half my lifetime, so it took several months before I could rescue another cat.  I briefly considered another white cat, but thought better of it.  I would expect her to be another Sabrina and that wouldn’t be fair.

I have Jazmine now.  She is shiny obsidian black – Yin to Sabrina’s Yang.

Where Sabrina was star white (yang), Jazmine is black satin (yin).  Aptly so, their personalities are as diverse as yin and yang, and I’m grateful.  Another white cat would only disappoint, as I’d expect her to live up to my first and that would not be fair.

Resolutions on track.

At 5, I remember thinking 62 was really old. Now, at 62, not so much. I am sometimes utterly amazed that I’ve been on this planet so long. Lately, I’ve been pondering this next 3rd of my life. Yes, I think I’ll make it to ninety-something, but not as some fat frail old lady.

I can’t prevent getting old, but I can certainly prevent getting fat and infirm. A very real danger if I don’t begin and do it now. Somewhere around 57, I started slipping, and I can’t really put my finger on any one reason.

I think it was a combination: A sedentary job I knew would end in lay-offs, as the company was slowly divesting itself of all its properties; menopause that although symptomless slowed my metabolism; and then eight months on unemployment followed 6 months after that by a year on unemployment. 

For the first time in my long life, I look at the scale and do not like what it says. I look in the mirror and it confirms the numbers – 40 pounds in 5 years.  Like everything else, I'm taking everything in steps this new year.  

January was committed to a blog per day. February, I am back to walking daily rain or shine and art, being it photography, drawing or painting one by Sunday of each week while continuing the blog a day and a walk (5miles) per day. 

It takes 30 days to build a habit and only 3 to break it, so I'm committing to a minimum of one new thing per month  February is exercise, but I felt that 1 drawing a week is doable as well.