dreamspace | bloodteethandflame

June 4, 2019

A strange thing that leaves me speechless.

I keep having this … recurring thing.

I do not know how to describe it.

It’s a visual thing.

A repetitive vision?

A visual thought?

~~~

All I can say is that it began as a dream I had a little over a week ago.

I woke up last Sunday (the Sunday that came before the day before yesterday, mind you) from what seemed like an extremely vivid portion of a dream….but I wasn’t quite awake and I wasn’t all the way asleep.

I know this because the volume of a program on the television in my bedroom had gotten really loud – loud enough to awaken me enough to wonder in a split moment or two if the sound was loud in my dream or if it was reality – but I had not opened my eyes yet.

But then the sound went entirely away and I heard a loud ‘click’ – and I assumed that the sleep timer on the television had just gone off.

So I rolled over and started to fall back asleep, feeling thankful that my husband had thought to set the sleep timer (rather than letting the television blare all night as he sometimes does, unfortunately.)

I was aware of the possibility that it might have been early in the morning because I recall laying there in bed, with eyes shut, but sensing the light in the room.

And that’s when it happened.

Though I had lain there in silence – newly aware that the silence existed because the tv had shut off and feeling tired on the edge of returning to sleep again – I was acutely aware of the fact I was dozing off, and I felt pleased about it.

And the visuals that bloomed before my eyelids were the typical blobs of color that I’ll usually see as I am dozing off and I watched as they slowly formed into different abstract shapes, as that slow process is how eventually, I allow myself to fall asleep.

But then as clear as day – suddenly I saw a sharply defined image of an older woman – as clear as a photograph – in my mind’s eye. I could not place her – she did not look like anyone I knew. And I was a little shocked – because if it was the beginning of a dream, it came on pretty quickly and I felt a little concerned.

You see, the woman was crying loudly.

She wanted some soup. She was asking me for soup.

Please make me some soup, she wailed, please give me some soup! Please Pleeeeeeaaaasssseee….Why won’t you? Why won’t you?

And it was very strange! I was awake and aware enough to have a rapid string of thoughts, such as that I was in bed, and I would have to get up and most importantly, did I have any soup to give her?

I didn’t think so.

I recall actually rolling over and saying aloud, I’m sorry! I don’t think I have any soup and I recall that my mouth worked fine, my voice was clear and I was fully awake then…so much so that I opened my eyes and looked around the room.

You see, the sound of my own voice answering this dream-visual woman had woken me up.

And on that Sunday, I was certain that I had just had a rather vivid dream.

And so, I forgot about it.

~~~

And then this past Tuesday, I was sitting in front of my altar just as I was beginning to meditate, and I saw the same visual…of that same older woman again.

And the memory of that vivid vision of her and her wailing request for soup came rushing back.

To my surprise, I even felt a wave of nausea and guilt, as if I had broken a promise.

(But at the same time I also felt a bit foolish for feeling guilty. I mean, that whole thing had just been a dream, right?)

But as much as I tried to meditate, I couldn’t focus.

~~~

Wednesday into Thursday, another short interlude of that woman interrupted another dream I was having.

In the dream, I was walking down the street, in the midst of a conversation with someone else. I don’t even recall what that person and I were talking about, I just know that suddenly I felt a hand pulling on my clothes, and I looked behind me and there she was.

That same old woman standing in the middle of the sidewalk, trying to get my attention

And she was still crying, wailing those same words, that same request

Please make me some soup.

Please give me some soup!

I didn’t know what to say to her, but her sudden appearance in my dream was enough to shake me awake.

On Thursday afternoon, lunch-time, I found myself looking in my pantry-closet.

And though I was there to look for something else, it occurred to me that I should see if I had any soup.

Turns out I have a two cans of chicken noodle, and one can of beef stew.

I wonder what kind she wanted – broth or stew?

Who knows?

~~~

I was watching T.V. on Saturday, involved in watching a film I’d seen before, a comedy I enjoyed. I was laughing, focused on the dialogue.

And then, I was suddenly overcome with a thought of the old woman!

The vision of her just floated through my mind.

I can guarantee you that I wasn’t thinking of her even a moment before, but then I was.

I don’t know why the thought of her – complete with that same vivid image in my mind’s eye of her tear-stained face, and me watching helplessly as her wrinkled mouth opened and closed, as she choked over each word, her voice clogged by emotion that dragged over the long insistent vowels of please and why.

It occurred to me that when the vision of her comes, I cannot seem to shake it away.

And though her tears, her insistence affect me deeply, I feel helpless to speak to her.

I feel this wave of guilt and nausea when I see her, and though I feel those feelings, I don’t know where they come from when they come.

That probably doesn’t make much sense.

I feel a bit haunted, to be honest.

I don’t know what it means or who to ask about this strangely repetitive thing.

4 Comments

January 15, 2018

A mysterious Goddess?

Last night I dreamt of making statues of a olive skinned goddess who wore purple and green and blue clothing.
Her headdress was blue – with Her dark hair peeking out from beneath Her headdress – and I recall purple and green ‘stripes’ or mottled batik designs on her clothing.

mysterygoddess
In the dream, I was supposed to bring her an offering of some sort.

I remember she seemed friendly with dark eyes and a calm smile.

She was patient.

She was associated with dogs and roads and the nighttime sky, especially stars.

****

When I woke up and Googled ‘Goddess associated with the night, roads and dogs’ — I came up with Hecate.

Hmm.

July 15, 2017

Month for Loki, Fifteenth: Drawing.

Two weeks ago, an out of state friend of mine went to visit her relatives back home.

She, her boyfriend and her kids took a six-day road-trip to Tennessee.

While there, she and her boyfriend decided to get married, so they did.

While their spontaneous barbecue/weekend get together wedding seemed to take all their friends and relatives by surprise, their day turned out to be exactly the sort of beautiful celebration that they’d been planning to have.

But it wasn’t so much of a surprise to me as she had told me of her plan to surprise everyone while she was on the road a day or two before.

She talked of how she wished that I could have been there on Thursday for their wedding on Saturday – which made attending a bit difficult if not impossible.

But I would have attended if I could have.

Though on that Friday night, I had a dream.

I had a dream that I attended their wedding…

And Loki was there, too.

Upon waking up, an image seemed stuck in my head

…of Him sitting in a chair, off to the side watching the festivities.

Some of the few details that struck me as unusual were that He was fully dressed *and* wearing boots, as well as He was holding a handful of black-eyed Susans.

~~~

On Sunday, my friend shared her wedding pictures on her Facebook feed.

And I was surprised to notice that both her bouquet and the flowers on the guest tables both featured black-eyed Susans.

I told her about my dream…and resolved to draw her a picture of Loki at the wedding.

So I did. ❤

5 Comments

July 11, 2017

Month for Loki, Tenth: German lesson.

So, in case I hadn’t mentioned, I have been trying to learn German over the last six months.

Though as much as I have tried, according to the fluency paradigm of the application I’m using, I’ve only reached about 35% fluency and that supposedly corresponds to a vocabulary of approximately 800 words.

Only 800 words.*

In my waking life, I find myself translating simple phrases that I read or hear into German, as the program I use encourages this practice as it promotes intuitive learning.

Nonetheless, something odd has begun to occur: These basic German phrases have also begun to seep into my subconscious, as certain words and phrases have crept in during several of my daily meditations and have been popping up in a few of my dreams lately.

Thus, I was half-tempted to title this post:

Was sagt Er? (What does He say?)

Case in point, I had an intense meditation the other day, wherein this phrase kept echoing in my head:

Schauen sie mich an

(Look at me.)

Now that’s a phrase that I knew, as I’d been studying a unit on imperatives (ie; commands) last week, so I didn’t think much of it, and I mentally pushed it away, and continued to focus on my breathing.

However, that phrase continued to surface throughout my meditation, so I treated it as typical distracting mind-chatter, and I tried my best to accept that it was going to keep floating through my head for the duration.

But I found it difficult to focus after a while.

And then last night, I had a dream I was talking to a man in my dream – who had been speaking English -until suddenly he said:

Was wirst du mir beiten?**

Not once, but twice.

Now that immediately brought to mind the phrase I use to refer to Them – sie beiden – so I stopped, and began to examine the phrase itself, trying to translate it, wondering if I was hearing/understanding what I heard…

But thinking of ‘beiden’ made no sense:

Was wirst du mir beiden?

Which, off the top of my head, I was translating to mean: ‘What will you both to me?’

I was confused.

I said to the person, Was sagst du? (What are you saying?)

To which the person responded:

Wieso rennst du von mir?

Which I was pretty certain was

Why are you running from me?

O.o

~~~

* I feel a bit disappointed in myself, as a vocabulary of 800 words strikes me as being a rather small amount. I would think that I would be more fluent after six months of study.

** When I awoke this morning, I plugged the phrase ‘Was wirst du mir beiden?‘ into Google translate, it suggested that it was not ‘beiden‘ but ‘beiten‘ which is from the verb, ‘to offer’ – therefore, Was wirst du mir beiten? translates to ‘What will you offer me?’

4 Comments

May 31, 2017

Wednesday’s subtly layered lesson

(Warning: heavily cross-referenced, possible TL;DR)

I woke up with “Kiss This” by the Struts stuck in my head this morning.

As it seems to be a song about a breakup (especially the chorus), I was concerned.

I went to bed last night feeling both sorry and jealous; I know I was not in a good mindset upon falling asleep. I tell myself that it is just that. (I hadn’t meant to go to bed, but I must have dozed off while I was meditating, as I dimly recall repeating ‘I’m sorry’ like a mantra…but what’s rather odd is that I remember feeling guilty and ashamed but I don’t know exactly what had happened to trigger those feelings.)

At any rate, here I am.

It is Wednesday.

And as it is with a lot of Wednesdays lately, I’ve been feeling disconnected from Odin, and so I think about what I could do today to connect with Him. And so begins that weekly process of self-examination of whether or not Odin is blocking me or if I am (somehow still) blocking Him.

Therefore I search myself inwardly for feelings of anger and denial, for distrust and skepticism. It’s as if I am opening up a box of feelings and I am obsessively running my fingers over what I find inside.

Perhaps this is the source of last night’s apologies as I ruminate over the past and over all of the ways in which I had insisted I wanted no part of Odin.

I wanted no part of Him.

There it is.

That realization.

You see, several months ago, it occurred to me: Loki is ‘a part’ of Him, whether literally or figuratively, as Loki is His blood-brother:

Loki spake:
9. Remember, Othin, | in olden days
That we both our blood have mixed;
Then didst thou promise | no ale to pour,
Unless it were brought for us both.

(Lokasenna)

Therefore, to deny Odin is to deny Loki, isn’t it?

To offer to Loki and not offer to Odin makes the offering incomplete.

And yet, for years, I did just that.

During those meditations wherein I’d first attempted to connect to Loki, often, I would sense another presence along with Loki… and I’d send it away.

As well, a few times in dream-space, Loki would ask me:

Do you like Odin?

Would you work with Him?

But, in response to that question, like a child, I would shut down, sometimes almost to the point of throwing a tantrum.

I’d flatly refuse the suggestion – sometimes becoming angry and dismissive:

No. I don’t want to work with Odin.

I won’t work with Odin.

Tell Him to go away.

(Perhaps this is yet another thing that I need to let go of, more shadow work for me to do.)

Hel, I’ll admit that there was a time when I would become angry with Loki for even suggesting such a thing… insisting that I didn’t want to hear Him even say Odin’s name.

Now how ironic is that?

Considering how there are many Asatru who refuse to say Loki’s name – much less hail Him along with their much-beloved All-father – and yet there I was, doing the exact same thing, saying:

You are welcome; He is not.

Can one honor Loki without honoring Odin?

Well, I certainly thought I could.

What a hypocrite I had been!

~~~

But I suppose that it wasn’t always that way:

In 2010 or so, in the beginnings of my devotional practice, I did make tentative offerings to Odin… and yet I remember sensing His refusal.

Even back in those early days, I had vivid repetitive dreams wherein Loki would visit me, and more often than not, He was accompanied by Odin.

Several years later on, Loki suggested that Odin and I should talk, but then Loki would leave, as if it had been His intent all along…and yet, upon being left behind, Odin spoke very little to me. As well, He would refuse all of my offers of hospitality – which left me feeling awkward and socially anxious.

As well, during that time, I was prone to terrifying nightmares, where I found myself feeling forced to interact with Odin anyway (such as detailed here, here, and here) and yet whenever I would show fear or emotionally shut down, only then would Loki come forward to ‘rescue’ me (such as in this shapeshifting guided meditation here.)

But now I look at these past experiences, and I can’t help but wonder: Why are Loki and Odin always together? Are Odin and Loki one and the same God?

Or perhaps, are They so closely intertwined that They might as well be?

While I know that They are not interchangeable, perhaps in my denial towards Odin, I have denied Loki.

So, in a show of good faith and trust, I recently made space on my altar for both of Them:

Ich liebe euch beide

Now the work becomes to live that belief.

To accept both of Them, to love both of Them.

They are not interchangeable…

And yet, one of my greatest fears was that feeling of being seen as and being treated as ‘interchangeable.’

I suppose that I still do, as it is one of the things that hurt me the most when I think back upon what happened with Local Other Lokean (LOL), or whenever I consider myself in reference to my experiences with her.

Especially when Loki seemed to begin to make requests of me that mirrored specific requests that LOL often claimed that He’d made of her, regarding

gathering ‘resources’

serving the community through seidhr

and

writing a book of personal experience and practices.

Why, I had whinged, Was this all just because we share the same name?

And again, I will admit that I reacted to Him with a ridiculously self-righteous tantrum:

She and I might have the same name but we are not interchangeable.

But just as I had once refused to consider working with Odin, I refused His requests and ignored any suggestions of working in any role remotely resembling a role that I’d come to associate with LOL…

Meanwhile, He went responded by reminding me of how

Separation is an illusion. It is the creation of useless categories. Window-dressing. Manufactured restrictions.

The only thing you are doing now is making excuses.

(Well I will admit I did make excuses, refusing to listen and to do.)

This was yet another situation that showcased my obvious hypocrisy.

I was allowing myself to be triggered by all the same concepts with which He’d allegedly hounded LOL.

Well, it’s not even the concepts as much as how discussing these concepts brought up associations to LOL’s presence in my mind.

I was triggered that Loki always seemed to be surreptitiously referencing LOL in Our conversations. I was offended that He’d treat me as interchangeable with LOL, and so I reacted from that place of offense rather than to look more intently at His actual request, which highlights a sort of inevitable parallel too:

Welcome Odin as you would welcome Me.

And yet, there I was also being offended by Odin’s presence in Our conversations, and though I didn’t realize what was going on….

But it was that exact feeling of angry offense.

Perhaps these two things are not connected, but I sit here feeling horrified that it would appear that I had spent years denying ‘a part’ of Loki by denying Odin….

(cue melodramatic pandoramancy here)

And suddenly realizing that I have recently moved through a rather layered lesson in denial:

Perhaps the ‘Odin’ I have been rejecting is another face of Loki’s.

Or perhaps They really are ‘two sides of the same coin’ and denying Odin is denying Loki.

Or…

denial

What I asked of her, I ask of you.

By avoiding mental associations [with LOL], you are denying your own gifts.

And in that, I know Loki to be relentless:

Do you see the layers?

There is your work.

Now do it.

2 Comments

March 30, 2017

Another earworm.

I had three vivid dreams last night.

And this song…

was playing repeatedly in the background throughout all three dreams.

I have no idea why.

Upon awakening, I wondered if the repetition was simply an instance of pandoramancy, but its lyrics or imagery didn’t seem to connect to anything I’d dreamt of, so I guess all that’s left is to consider it as a rather insistent earworm.

November 8, 2016

A thing about…Heather(s)

(From dream of 29 October:)

I was talking to Him about conduits, and He was encouraging.

Then, suddenly…I heard V talking loudly.

So loudly, it woke me up.

I rolled over to look at V, and he had his eyes open.

He seemed wide awake, and he seemed to be looking right at me.

Then, V said to me:

“Just be me. Come… just be me.”

And that made no sense to me.

Then, V shut his eyes, and rolled over.

And even stranger – about 20 minutes later – V awakened, got out of the bed, and stumbled towards the toilet.

Evidently V had no memory of what he’d said.

~~~

I don’t know why we talk about these things.

Yes, I’m not certain as to how I feel about what He says about conduits.**

But I don’t like the part – the insinuation that I’m not sure if it’s an insinuation at all – that I *must* consider these things, even if I don’t talk about it.

~~~

Years ago, I wrote that people named Heather are always conceited in some way.

Heathers have a desire to be important.

And I think about what He’d said during a recent meditation, concerning the reasons for performing seidhr.

And He had this to say about a Heather I used to know – that is, L.O.L*:

Heather wanted recognition from the community.

Meanwhile, I just wanted a community of people to with whom to connect.

~~~

But after dream-interactions like this, I ask myself:

Do I want something more?

Do I want more than to be seen?

I feel shame over wanting recognition at all.

I feel selfish.

I ask myself why.

I just want a quiet community where I don’t have to talk about things with others unless I want to.

But I do know something about myself and that is …

To check myself, I often feel the need to share my experiences:

Is this happening to you too?

What does it mean?

Does He want this from you too?

What does it mean?

~~~

*(Local Other Lokean, named Heather)

** Edited to add.

5 Comments

September 8, 2016

A Thursday Throwback: Sometimes.

Here’s a Thursday Throwback – from 21 February 2013 – that I am sharing at the request of a dear friend.

Enjoy!

~~~~

“Sometimes, He is not pretty.
Disheveled, stinking of piss and filth.
A frightening homeless man
Shouting at me from the other side of the train station:
The face that you often see is nothing but a glamour crafted to be pleasing to you.
But, sometimes, I am tired of that
face, and you will see Me as I am
An ancient being, whose face bears the ravages of time, and what appalling marks
Grief, pain and madness have inevitably made upon Me.

While it may be easy to approach Me in a finer guise,
Silk cravats and topcoats, leather and flash, I am
Also this, at My core. This is also Me.
I am bloated with rage, and careless
grime settled in the creases, compulsively licking
The blood and the spittle that collects at the corners of My ragged lips.
My yellowed, broken teeth have gnawed and ground down upon the offal and
bones of My very long memory.

I call to you
but you must approach Me.

Would you kiss My mouth?
~~~
And I see Him across the room, and His voice is interwoven with the cacophony of noise that is noon at South Station, Boston.

I cannot will my feet to go forward, but I see His eyes, the intense clear blue of Icelandic water, His disheveled hair an awkward penumbra of red and gold, His face unshaven and streaked with the filth born of having slept in the elements upon concrete. He raises a hand, and makes a beckoning gesture. Oh I see you, little one, He drawls. I notice that His fingernails are dark with grime, and He smiles, a grin of wolfen teeth, and He licks His cracked lips, waiting.

For all that He looks, His voice is not unpleasant.

But I am afraid.

I am cold, I realize, and I hug myself tighter, as if my own arms could possibly warm me enough, and yet I know that I am holding myself in. This is me putting up all my walls and fronts.

You have so much shame, He shouts, You have learned nothing….

The rumble of the trains pulling into South Station obscures His voice, His tirade, for several minutes.

There are too many trains, I shout, I cannot hear!

He begins to laugh, shaking His head. He tilts His head, almost menacingly, working out a crick in His neck, as He continues, Oh no, my dear. It is as it is always, with you. You are too cold. You cannot hear. You have a headache. You are afraid….

He glares at me.

He pulls a cigarette from the pocket of His shabby, unseasonably thin coat. Oh, spare Me the details of all of your excuses, He snarks at me, loudly, angrily.

He reminds me of Heath Ledger’s Joker, as He wipes His sore and tattered mouth with the back of His grubby hand, before placing the cigarette deftly on the edge of His lower lip, and lights it.

A lone ribbon of smoke curls and spirals ever upward over His head, strangely unbroken and unbuffeted by the crowd and activity that surges about Him, between us.

Come. Kiss Me. I might believe you.

But I cannot will my feet to go forward. I will have to push myself through this crowd, I am thinking.

The air feels thick and heavy, my head rings with high-pitched buzzing anxiety, and my skin prickles with heat.

Poor little girl, is His singsong sigh, half a sarcasm, half a reprimand, to me, as He shuffles His feet, waiting.

Come to me, He whispers, more within my head than without, and His words seem to reverberate like a humming inward chant, in my head.

Come to Me.
Come to Me.
Come to Me.”

(link here)

1 Comment

July 10, 2016

Month for Loki, Day 10: Story

I feel like my throat is closing up.

My throat feels raw and it is painful to swallow. My senses seem dulled as my sinuses are filled with congestion.

Perhaps this is nothing but a chest cold, a head cold. My head feels as if I am under water, and there is a strange metallic taste in my mouth. My eyes water and my muscles ache.

Perhaps this is really nothing at all besides my simply being sick.

But I am not telling my story.

I know my task. I know what stories I have promised to tell and yet I am having trouble speaking of them. I am having trouble writing about them.

I know that He wants me to write of how things changed.

How Loki as the Teacher and the Magician slowly morphed into Loki as the Lover in mid-2013.

You see, my husband of 20 years was having an affair and that knowledge of that fact devastated me.

So Loki came forward, first to comfort, and then to strengthen and empower me in my feelings of brokenness and betrayal.

Ever the Teacher, He sought to show me –through use of Himself as an example – how I should be loved. Simple as that: He sought to love me and to heal me with a fierce and steadfast tenderness that I continue to marvel over, even to this day.

But I didn’t want His love…in the sense that I felt that I could not possibly deserve it. I did not believe that I deserved His fierce loyalty, His honeyed promises, His gentle touches. Instead, I insisted upon a passionate, almost feral connection.

I was angry and avoidant.

I didn’t expect to be understood, much less, did I expect to be loved.

I pushed Him away.

I refused to see; I resisted recognizing Him as anything other than a Being Who could break me and I sought to be broken.

I wanted to experience the height of relationship that I had recently been teaching others about – I wanted to experience a consensual, BDSM-fueled dynamic.

But He refused.

Our ‘scenes’ were passionate, yes, but He refused to cause me any pain.

Though I begged for Him to transform me through pain, He responded:

Why? You have been through enough pain…and yet you have not learned.

So He approached me with care and kindness. I daresay His behavior was all romance and gentility, and my response was I wanted desperately to shut down:

That is not for me, I wept and I raged, That has never been for me. I don’t believe in that.

And so I hid from Him.

I pushed Him so hard.

I dared Him to grab me by the neck and shame me like an errant puppy.

I waffled between fear and rage.

I was either afraid of Him or I was angry/despairing of Him.

I was insistent: You do not love me. You cannot love me. No one can.

But He simply smiled and blinked and continued to present Himself to me, in dreams.

He spread Himself out like water at my feet.

He stroked my face with tender hands.

He bowed down low, head to the ground, and asked me how He could serve.

To be honest, He was a better submissive than I ever could have been, and yet I still argued, how – why – what had I ever done to deserve such devotion, such heartfelt words, such considerate actions? The acts of His submission were all rooted in my own personal repertoire, and yet He faced me with every single one of them, challenging me to consider Him and to receive Him as I sought to be received in the BDSM dynamic I craved/created with so many others.

Allow Me to care for you as you have cared for others.

Allow Me.

Allow Me, He whispered over and over.

He often tried to convince me, cajole me into recognizing Him in the shape-shifting flurry of faces, of former play-partners and past lovers that I’d see in my dreams:

I see you. Do you see Me?

See Me.

Look Me in the face.

See Your Beloved. I am here before you.

He demanded eye contact. He accepted no less.

And still, I ran. I avoided. I cried.

I would not look Him in the eye.

But He was patient…and He was relentless.

~~~

By 2014, I stopped teaching at BDSM events.

Though I’ve been involved in ‘the scene’ for over 20 years now, I have not attended a BDSM event in two years.

(to be continued…)

3 Comments

July 7, 2016

Month for Loki, Day 7: Magician.

As I was becoming increasingly aware of my unease with my role as a Student, you can be certain that Loki sensed that I was struggling.

It didn’t seem to deter Him from trying to instruct me, however, and His lessons for me increasingly involved transformative rituals.

I began studying runes, at His request, and it was around this time that the rune, Eihwaz first came to me.

I created a prayer to Eihwaz asking for protection, connection and transformation.

My meditations were full of trees – visualizations of an Ancient Tree with gnarled branches that twisted toward the sky – and the points of the Eihwaz rune were sunk deep in its bark, facing out in all directions: