Through the Gilded Door

I have no desire for it anymore.

What I do desire anymore though is...............
your mind.
Your eyes
Your stories.
your ghosts.
Your smile.
Your family.
Your truth

MONEY IS FAKE

Oh how I have learned what is real and important.
They lied to us!
Fame is a fake!
Money is lies!

What I have learned is that you my friend, your story, no matter how big or small, is the best story of all. And worth millions.

Help! 2008- The Year Fashion Died

Don't get me wrong, I love Sesame Street, and all of it's characters, but come on!
Grover in a shirt? Big Bird in a dress?
I would rather wear Grover any day.
What the F is going on with fashion this winter? These colors might not run, but I sure will when I see them on the racks. Just like I did today, while visiting a nearby Target and Mervyns.

Is this just happening to ME because I finally made it to my 30's? Is this just what happens when you loved last year's styles just fine but finally the moment comes when you cannot identify with the trends of the day anymore WHATSOEVER? Am I alone in my disgust or is anyone out there with me? Are we grandmas yet?


PTA Meeting 1993 anyone?
Are the early 90's ACTUALLY REALLY COOL AGAIN, or are we being force-fed our own regurgitated vomit?



Or is this just a tragic misunderstanding of the fashion industry and some guru of style decided that George Bush could pick out the imported clothes?
Cause this stuff ain't made in the US of A. This is what they are selling at Target, Walmart, Mervyns, Forever 21 and Macys..... these clothes are most assuredly from China. So it's my fault for encouraging sweat shops all this time anyways then right? Honestly, I am sure I had it coming. Cause for years I have walked into those stores and wished I hadn't because the fashions every year just kept getting better and beautifuller and more lacy and bohemian and well-fitting and vintagey and with passion I wanted half the clothes I laid my eyes on .....even Spring this year was OK....but, well, I guess I can walk away from the aisles with no sadness over my poverty this year. AN ABRUPT ENDING to the lovely styles that were. I guess that era of goodness has died and I'd rather shop a thrift store any day than look at this complete crapola.



Really? As if.... Clueless was back? Unfortunately, the styles that came out of Clueless were heartily more clued in than this piece of crap, available at your local Wet Seal.



Not that I am some fashionista, by no means am I. At the MOST, I usually circuit a couple of thrift stores and wear clothes I was given by cooler-dressing friends. Glad I developed my craft of thriftyness..... No wonder another there's another Depression. Fashion sales just crashed, or at least, I would damn hope so.





SOS! Distress call! Does anyone have an ACTUAL explanation for what the shit is going on? I am assuming French people would KILL US for going out in public in something like this. Not that I know much at all about fashion.....I really don't. I just know my gut instincts, and today.....they were telling me to exit the buildings.

And I am not such a pessimist-really! But I do truly appreciate beauty!Do me a favor and check out the clothing at this website....where beauty and bomemian flare actually still reign. Velvet Leaf

For Once and For All

I have to write this now. Because I always forget. But for once I am not going to forget. I NEED A HANDHELD DIGITAL RECORDER THIS CHRISTMAS. A LITTLE ONE IS FINE. One that records for one or two minutes is fine........PLEASE!
I would buy myself one today, but because Christmas is close I might as well ask.
The thing is, for those of you that know me well, you also know I am married to someone who JUST MIGHT be more overdramatic than I am. ABOUT EVERYTHING. A few times a month we have an issue that involves me needing a digital recording device. SERIOUSLY. I have thought about needing it ever since we got married.
The problem is this. (perhaps it's more typical in marriages than I realize?)
Art uses a very very sarcastic almost rude sounding tone of voice daily. But usually he is describing how hot he is, or how much he wants to kill a song on the radio, or how bad his knees hurt, or how annoying some poor bystander's coat looks, or how busy it was at work. This quality in him is MOST DEFINITELY NOT one I enjoy. As you all probably know, I am kind of an extreme optimist, a pretty damn positive girl.... I believe using such rudeness at the environment around you reverberates out into the world and creates dissonance around a person. So I do my best to steer clear of his mean overdramatic moments. But at least he usually keeps it directed at distant things and not me....for the most part....EXCEPT ON DAYS LIKE TODAY. Sometimes he slips up and uses this tone at me right in a moment when I am cheerful and happy and everything is going just fine and we are getting along perfectly and then afterwards HE NEVER EVER EVER REALIZES THAT HE JUST DID IT!!!!!! Literally, he will completely hurt my feelings by his rudest tone of voice and the kind of pent up sarcasm on his brow that speaks millions when he says things like "What do you mean share this table? There's not even room for ONE of my elbows?!!!" all the while he's looking at me with this look that says EXACTLY "YOU COMPLETE IDIOT!" in a rolling-eye kind of sarcasm. And it's not funny and he's not TRYING to be humorous. He's just being a plain old grouchy rude DOWNRIGHT MEANHEAD. I EFFING HATE IT! So then I get my feelings hurt and barely even know what to say since we weren't even arguing in the first place he just got rude out of nowhere, so I will say something back like "GEEZ! What the heck, I am trying to be nice and hang out close to you and you get MAD at me?" And then he will be even RUDER than the first time trying to defend himself (because when Art is wrong, even if he is REALLY wrong, he will defend himself to the stubborn bitter end- seriously it takes HOURS sometimes for me to make him realize that he was the one in the wrong)....anyways the whole thing gets out of control and comes back to the same old thing, every single time. HIS TONE OF VOICE. When we discuss how the whole arguing got started out of nowhere HE COMPLETELY DENIES THAT HE USED A RUDE TONE OF VOICE AT ALL. He acts like a suddenly just got upset after he said something polite and kind to me! And you know what? I honestly think that he does not realize how rude and mean his voice sounds at such times. I honestly am beginning to believe he actually believes that he was talking completely normal and cordial to me the whole time!!!! SO I HAVE GOT to get a recorder that sits in the kitchen or somewhere that we both are frequently so that I can discreetly press record the next time it happens. I just want him to realize what his jerky take-me-for-granted-completely- sarcastic tone of voice sounds like in real life and why it hurts my feelings. He know this too. This isn't some secret blog to the world leaving him out. He knows he does this and he always says sorry even if the "sorry" take five hours, and he realizes that his tone of voice may in fact be out of line whilst talking to his nice little wife-girl.


HELP!
Anyone got some ideas besides the recorder? I could most definitely use them.

My deepest apologies to the beautiful Segonku

Something very terrible happened to me coming home from work Wednesday night. I haven't cried so hard about something in years. As a lot of you know, skunks are my favorite animal. Do I need say more? Can you imagine what might have happened? I have never hit an animal before on the road, save for once, which was a very low flying bird. And I cried about that too, that morning. But hitting this beautiful little skunk was far worse than anything I could have imagined. I have always sort of judged people that, when asked how they hit an animal, said "it just ran right in front of my car" and claim they could not have avoided it. I always thought that they could have, if they had just tried hard enough or swerved right. I was wrong. I did the only thing I could to keep from hitting this little segonku ( native american name for skunk) in an even worse way......I drove straight. If I had swerved to the right or to the left I would have run right over it, like actually OVER it with a tire. Because the sweet little skunk fluffed from across the OTHER lane of oncoming traffic, not from my side. And he didn't hesitate or pause to run DIRECTLY into my car! My car is so loud, you think he would have backed up.......or stopped. But it was as though he was committing suicide. This made everything far more difficult to figure out in that last moment. And it probably was all because I had GLANCED down to change my radio station. I hate even admitting that, but I SWEAR THAT EVEN IF I HAD BEEN LOOKING UP EVERY SINGLE MILLISECOND BEFOREHAND....it might have been even worse. I could have driven all my tires RIGHT OVER HIM while trying to swerve or driven into a ditch or flipped my car on top of him. But I looked away for that millisecond and when I looked up all I could think was.....(since he was just inches from my oncoming car)...GO STRAIGHT. Which I did, and so the center of my car went directly over him, and I think he would have been just fine if he just would have ducked his little head down. But instead, I heard that small bump. And even a small bump from a car going 45mph to the head of a small skunk is most likely fatal. After I heard it I sure hoped it was because I didn't want him to just be suffering!!!! And it really was just a smooth little bump from my oil pan or something under my car. But I was in so much disbelief and horror, I did not know what to do. I wanted to turn around....but I was alone and so so sad and scared. I knew my tires had not gone over him, and that he might just be injured and not dead, but I DID NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO!

And so I just screamed, and started sobbing, yelling "WHY?!!!!!!!!!!" Over and over and over again. And I was SCREAMING "Oh God I am so sorry, little skunk I am so sorry" over and over again in between completely out of control sobs. It was horrible. I don't know really how I was driving at that point (this was right outside of Coloma) but I was praying to God " Oh God please forgive me....please let me forgive myself...I am so sorry....WHY?!!!!!!!!!!!!" I was screaming these thing out loud....so loud. Perhaps my voice was audible to passerby cars....I don't know. All I know is by the time I was to the State Park area in Coloma there was a car RIGHT ON MY ASS. And by the shape of the headlights I was pretty sure it was a cop. I was so pissed. Because now I thought I was going to get pulled over, and this was worrying me and interrupting my screaming/crying session and I had to calm a bit down. I was so so mad. But then he just wouldn't pull me over, and he wouldn't GET OFF MY ASS, so I just started screaming and crying again and this time yelling "GET THE HELL OFF MY ASS!!!!!!!!!!" in between sobs. Cause let me tell you, even a few miles after I turned onto 49, he was RIGHT ON MY BUTT still. Finally, I was so pissed at him (and starting to wonder if it EVEN really WAS a cop) and knowing I had all the proper paperwork and he had no reason to pull me over really....that I just pulled over to the side of the road, to let him pass. Sure enough, the car pulled over too.

I wasn't worried at all. I was just sobbing. And I could see his spotlight, from near his driver window, so at that point I knew it was a cop. Through my driver side mirror I could see a figure walk up to my car ( and I was still BAWLING).....and then I heard his voice, very kindly.."Hello there. I just want to make sure everything is alright. Is everything OK? " ?????????????????????? I was a baffled mess. How did he know anything? Since when do cops approach windows of cars saying such things? It was seriously so odd. But all I could blurt out was ...." No! I just hit a skunk and they are my favorite animal!!!...." and I was sobbing, not even looking at him. And I could tell that immediately he knew he was getting more than he'd asked for and probably wished he'd never followed me (CAUSE I WAS A COMPLETE WRECK)....but at the same time he seemed endeared. He started telling me "Oh....hey....ya know, it happens. Don't take it so hard....it's happened to me so many times when I have to get somewhere fast....Where did you hit it at?" And I told him "Right before Coloma" and he said "Are skunks really your favorite animal? More than a deer?" And I said, still crying "Well I never hit a deer before so I don't know but I just REALLY love skunks" and he just kept saying "Awww...it's Ok, don't take it so hard...." And finally I glanced up at him, brave enought to bare my red teary face and saw that he was like 25! Just a young one! Anyhoo....in my time of need this stranger-cop actually helped my feeling so terrible, even if just a little. It was so odd. And finally he just said "OK. Well how far do you have to go?" And " Drive safe....I don't want anyone to side swipe you with your lights like that...." I think he meant my headlights because the driver side one is not secure and kind of bounces around, due to an old accident Heather got in when the LeBaron was her car.

So I started up my crying again and bawled the whole way home. I just wanted to get home so bad...and crawl into Art's arms so he could rock me like a baby. I knew that if I walked into the house without saying anything direct that he would think something REALLY REALLY REALLY horrible (like a human death) had happened, so as I pulled up to the house I resolved that I would walk in and declare "I hit a skunk" and then go through with all the tears and wailing....so as to not scare Arty too bad. Which is precisely what I did. I just didn't want to talk about it all. I only wanted to cry. That was the longest drive home ever. And after my declaration, I just climbed into Art's arms and bawled and bawled and bawled. Until every tear was gone.

And that's my terrible story. I hope I never have to tell one like it again. I think the reason I cried so much is because I think so much. I think too much probably. And I kept thinking how that little skunk was about the same size as Grabby and Owl and JUST AS ALIVE as them, with life in his little eyes and his nightly business to go about. And I thought about why people who hit animals didn't go to jail. And how I deserved to go to jail. And I thought about that skunk's little fluffy figure waddling across the empty highway, and pretty fast, RIGHT INTO MY CAR. I just kept thinking about the same things, over and over and over. When I woke up yesterday, my eyelids were as big as jellyfish, all bloated and funny looking. But the crying part was over, and I decided to try some skunk therapy. So yesterday, for quite some time, I decided to research more about skunks and pet skunks. I can't wait to have one. This Christmas, I want a pet skunk look alike stuffed animal that has long fur and everything and could ALMOST be a real skunk.

Skunks are legal as house pets in some states, but not California. They are legal in Oregon. They are legal in Florida. You can look on wikipedia and see which states they are legal in. Skunks sound like they are amazing house pets. They get their stinker removed when they are very small, and if you hold them and cuddle them oft when they are small, they can be just as amiable and fun and cuddly as cats. And they like cats too. I am going to post a video of a skunk named Petunia. Petunia is with a cat friend. Many people have a great love of skunks and run shelters for them (in other states) and have many of them for pets. This photo is of a man that helps run a shelter for skunks feeding them popcorn. The word skunk comes from the Abenaki language and is a corruption of the word segonku. Say that 10 times fast and you'll see what I mean.



There are many kinds of skunks.
And baby skunks.
Petunia!
Baby skunks.

And this one is effing heart wrenching. But it gives you a true taste of how much love there is for skunks in one's heart. Make sure watch it til the end....( I wasn't so fond of the slow-mo part)

Our time has come

Well the good old US of A has gone and done something revolutionary. Not only did we pick a President that will finally make many of us proud to be living here, but we picked someone that the entire globe admires. We picked a man that I am sure people in France would want for their own, that young people in the UK would want for their own, that people in Japan might want for their own. What I mean is....we went from having the most hated President ever (even on a global level) to having the most beloved (even on a global level). Now that's what progression is truly about.

Not that Barack can solve all these problems himself, with his dashing good looks, with his inspiring speeches, with his motivating life force.....but that he can give us the slap on our asses we need to get out and be the change! Perhaps, we as a people will have enough to inspire us now that we can actually start believing that we as individuals can make a difference on even a global level. We can look at the face of Barack Hussein Obama (which I think is a revolutionary and beautiful name for the new President of our country) and perhaps we will see our own inspiration coming from being excited WITH him on a new direction for the United States. I encourage everyone to start becoming more and more active in issues where you may want more change to come. If that means volunteering....then do it. If that means the simplest of things....like dropping cans of food in a bucket for a food drive, like rallying with civil rights activists, like smiling to passerbys on the street, like going to senior homes and talking with the elderly, like writing songs with messages of change (i know i know) or maybe not so simple things like venturing to other countries with a mission not religious, but a mission of hope and health and donating your energy and time to work with the people there helpfully and on THEIR agenda. To just be a helping hand and to not force one's own beliefs, but to help where is needed.....

I love what is happening. I may be older than I hoped to be when such a kind of revolution begins, but (as I told Art this morning over our giant homemade breakfast burrites) at least when I have my first child our Presidency will be a Presidency that I will be gleaming about. (OK peeps, I am talking a few YEARS in the future still! Not now!) I know Obama and the Democratic House and Senate WILL make things like HEALTH CARE FOR ALL CHILDREN available in the US, and probably soon. I know that certain health programs in general will get more encouragement, that schools will probably have healthier choices for food, that teachers will probably get higher pay, and that certain military focuses will have changed. I also believe the pharmaceutical companies will lose some of their ridiculous profit-reaping ground and western medicine will start to focus more on prevention rather than pill popping. i know these things won't happen overnight, I KNOW they will take years, but at least now I also know that our country's administration is not going to promote the massive infectious fear of Terrorism and Evil and Hate and Doubt any longer, for these are not Obama's tactic and by gosh they never will be! I know it might sound odd or offputting, but honestly I will be so glad to start a family in a time when such a great leader and his own A-freaking DORABLE family live in the White House. I know such things shouldn't matter, but for some reason, these things give me hope. They make me a little more OK with bringing a child into this crazy world in the first place. They make me a little more OK with what things might be like in 2020.

Dear God. I do believe in you. Maybe you are a giant mass of spirit, maybe you are like a giant human spirit, maybe you are a great ghost, maybe you are the great Grand Father or the great Grand Mother, maybe you are in everything- speaking through DNA and molecules, maybe you are life force itself, BUT WHATEVER YOU ARE- and I am cool with words like Lord and Great Spirit and Heavens and Universe -Thank You for letting hope pull through this time. Thanks for it being Barack Obama, a global presence, a man of many places and a man of goodness. I believe in the highest intelligence that is God- and I believe that there are reasons for everything. In fact, I do know it.

We are so very lucky kids! For the first time ever, I would actually like to go to DC and meet the President of the United States. Wouldn't that be awesome?

Best to everyone.
Sorry about Prop 8. But those things shall change too.

Adie
Me finding out that Barack Obama is the 44th President. I cried for a long, long time after, like.....alot. A lot of emotion came out I didn't even know was built up in there. I had to go outside and sob.


Barack and Sarah Hussein Obama.
Barack's Father.




With his Father.
With his Grandparents.



With his mama and his sister and his Gramps.
Married!


What a gorgeous family.

On The Eve I Will Ne'er Forget

YIkes. Tonight is a crazy adrenaline night. I am so excited about tomorrow, I really am. I know things can go either way.....but still, the suspense is doing its job. Perhaps it's the increasing intensity ever since the election of the year 2000, when, in the city of London, I watched the actual newspapers (at vendors on the streets) change headlines 4 times or so. I had just gotten back from my first European venture, with Mandy Rosenberg, and had seen the red lights of Amsterdam, the towering beautiful gothic architecture of the Dome in Cologne Germany, the shadowed and velveted walls of cathedrals in Sevilla Spain, the Eiffel Tower, the Alhambra in Granada, and many other of my lifelong awaited visions appear before my traveler's heart. When we arrived in London on the morning of November 8th, at 6am, it was still 10pm in the states. A stranger shook my hand when he heard my accent and told me congratulations and that Gore had won. Even though I had not voted, and despite the fact that even if I had I would have voted for Nader, I was very excited. I remembered the last presidential debate just a couple weeks before, and Bush's vocabulary about "war" had freaked me out, and I hadn't been following the election too closely, I just felt things would be fine. But I should have known things would sway into a way bad direction after the country's obsession with President Clinton's little extra-curricular activities. Everyone acted as though Satan himself was running our country. Little did we know who would come next. In Europe, they laughed so hard with me, about how nosy and bored people in our country had to be to make such an effing stink about it FOR SO LONG. How many Presidents, I must ask myself, came before Clinton with mistresses and affairs alike that they managed to keep snugly to themselves?

Back to 2000 however. Hours after I arrived in London, after the results had teetered back and forth already repeatedly, I fell asleep knowing that this election wouldn't be ironed out for a long ass time.

Since then, some really insane shit has gone down.

I didn't like Bush from the get-go. But at the beginning of his term, I basically just ignored him. I was just minding my own egocentric business and pretending that not knowing what was going on in the world would actually help change things in my heart.....? I know, I was a romantic wreck........ That was until the morning of September 11th, 2001, when I found myself in New York City.
More precisely, I was in Brooklyn, New York, and in the company of three traveling friends who had all met in New York City for a film festival and the CMJ music festival. We had flown out on the 9th and we celebrated my birthday in the East Village on the 10th....with far too many shots of who knows what and repeated ACDC themes on the jukebox. Needless to say, I didn't wake on the 11th until about 10:30 am. A few hurried discussions later (a phone caller informed us all as to what was happening just a mile away) we climbed atop a brownstone roof and watched silently the black cloud of smoke that poured from over most of the Manhattan area we saw before us. That day was unlike any other day I have ever known. I honestly have very few words to describe the feeling. Across the nation the American people's preoccupation with business, their pocketbooks, the economy, consumerism, fashion, celebrity idolatry had vanished into thin air. There was a complete abandonment of selfishness in New York City. I saw stranger's helping strangers everywhere; as they crossed over the bridge into Brooklyn, on the subway, in cafes and shops, on the streets...... absolutely everywhere. My brain was blown out by the immensity of that day. Later that night, we heard George Bush's statement. Everywhere people were raving about it. Here it is. If you'd like to see how strange it seems now, now that we see he spoke these words that very SAME day, take a look for yourself. I think his wording is weird. And I thought it seemed weird on that day too.



But the point of this blog isn't to rag on the past. There would be way too much to blab about...........and believe me, even talker-to-the-grave ol me is sick of the discussions. I have heard them one too many times...and by now I am SOOOOO OVER the past 8 years. I could go on and on and ON in this blog and expand into great detail about the hoaxes and trickery and corruption that took place in our country AFTER November 7th, 2000. But I will not because my stance is already clear. You all know what has happened. We all know what has happened since then, be it even just through the media's whirl of confusion and mixed vocabulary about Osama Bin Laden and Iraq and terrorism and economics and Sub-Prime this and that and blah blah and blah. We are all, I am quite positive, very informed about the yucky things that have gone on.

But tonight, coming from the heart of my heart of my heart of heart, I want to write a blog that addresses the ferocious veracity that such years of struggle have imparted UNTO US. I have to say, this eve feels like no other eve I can remember. Not any eve of Christmas or Thanksgiving or Halloween or ANY OTHER CELEBRATION I CAN REMEMBER holds a candle to this racing of my heart. I happen to be at my Mom's house tonight, changing cat litter and setting pilots on the heater (kind of) and warming things up a bit before she gets home from her autumnal holiday. And in being here, I have had a few moments to check out this one old thing I forgot ever existed, maybe you've heard of it, this odd square in most people's living room called a television!
I have seen so many things on TV tonight, and it's weird that it's the night before the election. Cause that's all it's about. News stations reporting poll numbers, nonbiased political advisors, Campaign ads, rallies, more rallies, protests on sidewalks......it's insane! Already the polling places have 4-5 hour lines for early voters in various states. I have a feeling what shall take place tomorrow will leave the media and the Grand Ol Party alike with dropped jaws. I just think there may be more registered Democrats that show up to the polls than ever ever ever could have been predicted. Break a leg, I think to myself. We shall see.
At least my mental state is good. I hope all of ours are. I feel like everything is OK. I could deal with anything.....any result. We joke about a mass Koolaid suicide if Sarah Palin were to stumble onto the task of actually being Vice President. God, I HATE EVEN TYPING THAT! My prayers are out there in the skies tonight big time though, speeding though my own sleeping dreamscapes where I hope I am at least in line to hug the New President. That doesn't make any sense to you I know, but it does to me so I wrote it. I pray. I pray hard sometimes. I know I am such a girl but......tonight I cried a couple times just listening to Obama speak. I am sure it is also a decent bit of PMS. But it is also with conviction that I truly and most happily believe that Barack Obama is an inspiring enough of a person that sheerly through his own demonstration of hope and dedication and motivation, he can motivate ALL OF US to get off our asses in the next four years and do our share in helping to make this country more of an admirable place to live, and no longer be the actual laughing joke of Europe and Iceland and Canada and god knows where else. Because he has the life stock AND the hard work behind him. Because not only does he have what it takes to be Pres AND MORE, but also because he is more like all of us, the small ones in the world. He may not be after tomorrow, but he HAS BEEN, and he has worked his whole life to make change and headway in the world.

I always am an optimist. I know things could work out differently than I hope. To tell you the truth, usually I don't get what I want. Not until later that is, when I don't really give a fig anymore. So I woke up this morning with an awesome old Smiths song in my mind, always I have thought of it during my bouts of unrequited love, of which there were plenty. Perhaps you know it? If you are not too familiar with the Smiths than perhaps you will remember the song from a scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It's the radical awesome scene when they hold hands with the kids and go to the art museum........and Ferris at the blurs of paint..

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, LET ME GET WHAT I WANT
Good times for a change
See, the luck I've had
Can make a good man
Turn bad
So please please please
Let me, let me, let me
Let me get what I want
This time

Haven't had a dream in a long time
See, the life I've had
Can make a good man bad

So for once in my life
Let me get what I want
Lord knows, it would be the first time
Lord knows, it would be the first time

Dreams

A lucid dreaming mask.
I am going to start writing about my dreams. Especially on account of some reading I am doing about Lucid Dreams. I am currently reading a book called Lucid Dreaming: The Power of Being Awake and Aware in Your Dreams by Stephen LaBerge, PhD. It is absoltely fascinating, and I have found the fact of lucid dreaming to be the greatest treasure ever.


Since reading, I have yet to have a lucid dream. But I must make an account of the first time I did. About 8 years ago I was reading a section of a book titled Dreamwork (by whom I cannot remember this moment). Anyways, it told the story of the first written account of a lucid dream, other than in pictographs and such. It is in a letter written by St. Augustine in 415 AD. He actually tells of the dream of Gennadius, the physician of Carthage at that time. St. Augustine describes Gennadius being aware of dreaming in his dream while being led around by a young man of remarkable appearance and a commanding presence. During a few lucid dreams, Gennadius dreams that this same young man guides him to a city where he beholds music "so exquisitely sweet as to surpass anything he had ever heard" and asks Gennadius certain questions. He asks "Where is your body now?" Gennadius responds "in my bed". The young man says "Do you know that the eyes in this body of yours are now bound and closed, and that with these eyes you are seeing nothing?" Gennadius replies "I know it." The youth-guide continues "What then are the eyes with which you see me?" Gennadius has no reply and the youth says (according to St. Augustine's account) "As while you are asleep and lying on your bed, these eyes of your body are now unemployed and doing nothing, and yet you have eyes with which you behold me, and enjoy this vision, so, after your death, while your bodily eyes shall be wholly inactive, there shall be in you a life by which you shall still live, and a faculty of perception by which you shall still perceive."

Why do I tell this whole story? Because the day after reading this I took a nap on a couch at the place where my friend Ruebi was housesitting. I was laid out perfectly flat with my hands folded on my belly and I fell quite asleep like that. Kind of like a mummy. It was then that I had my first lucid dream ever. And the parallel of my dream to that of this account was uncanny. The only difference was there was no youth with a face leading me around, but there WAS a clear and pronounced voice speaking to me in my dream. The first thing the voice said was "Look at your hands." I did. The voice spoke more. "Do they seem real to you?" I answered that they did! Then the voice said "Do you know you are sleeping right now?" I actually did, and I even had enough awareness and wherewithall to open my body's eyes just a slit and look through them to the room around me. I knew my body was lying down sleeping, but I went directly back to the dream and the voice. The voice then gave me my tarot cards (in my dream). The voice ( definitely a man's voice) told me to look at each card one by one and tell him if they seemed real. As I looked at each card I realized that not only did they seem completely real, they seemed REALER THAN EVER BEFORE in my waking life!

This was my first lucid dream. In the next few nights I had more, I believe they had that same voice kind of guiding me. But I cannot remember exactly.

Since then, I have had many lucid dreams. Maybe 25 or 30. Maybe 50. I cannot say. But I do know that having one is one of the most life-changing experiences ever.
In more than one I have touched a leaf and seen a tree or plant grow, flower, wilt, lose leaves, and grow more - all in a moment. Just like fast-speed motion. In another I had no body, and I was flying in the wind, over a grove of beautiful beautiful trees and I could sweep right up upon a leaf and I saw this one tree, glowing and glowing like flourescent and I swirled so close to it and saw the leaves alive, breathing almost, so very very alive. In most lucid dream the first and only thing I want to do is fly. As soon as I realize I am dreaming, I lift off the ground.
In my first lucid flying dream, I could barely make it off the ground. I was too aware of my sleeping body and too aware of my emotion of excitement at flying and I couldn't get very high. But in another, I was on a bus riding somewhere when I realized I was dreaming. I asked the bus driver if he could stop the bus, as I wanted off upon realizing this. (I suppose I could have just THOUGHT the bus away) But I got off the bus, and I stood out in the road, and then I am telling you I SHOT up like a real human rocket and began flying into outer space. That was the fastest and strongest I have ever flown. In other dreams I am often at this kind of lodge, with rafters, and I always choose to fly up, around people's heads and out into the day. In the last lucid dream I had, I was already flying, and it was the act of flying that made me realize I was dreaming! It started out as just a regular old flying dream. I had one lucid dream where I was flying with Devendra Banhart, who was a much better flyer than me. I have had dreams where I started out in my own bed by my sleeping body, and then flew out the window into our yard and got into bushes there! I had another recent lucid dream where I was in a lodge and saw a sign posted that said "222" (in waking life this is a sign-theme that I see alot). Without even being actually AWARE yet that I was dreaming, I said to myself, "Hmmm. 222 even appears in my dreams!" (Which proves I must have been sub consciously aware I was dreaming in my dream- odd, to think there is a subconscious even in dreams!) And it was that innate knowledge that I already knew that I was dreaming but had brought it forth into clear consciousness that made me immediately abandon my thoughts about 222 and start flying in the lodge. In this dream Art was with me, and he wanted me to bring him up for flying too. But he was holding me down, so I told him to let go of me and I took off without him. I was pretty excited to show him how I could fly, and that emotion of pride made flying more difficult than normal until I was out of his sight and then I flew well again. And in this dream, I said to myself "I am going to HOLD onto this consciousness. I am dreaming, I am dreaming," for the longest amount of time yet in a lucid dream. I was able to fly out to a pool of water and get in it, and I explored the water and the banks around it and held onto my lucidity. I can't remember it all completely anymore because it was a couple months back.

But I need to start writing about them more. And taking more naps. I am so very excited to get to the part of the book that tells about practices and ways to lucid dream more frequently, but I am reading it slowly and trying to absorb every word, as THAT itself (the absorption of subjects and matter around a person) is a practice toward lucid dreaming.

I think, if people spend their whole lives trying to get famous, trying to drive the right car, to own a giant house, to fly around in a jet, etc etc. etc. - if they knew the treasure of lucid dreaming would they care so much? It is the exact same thing as being awake except you CAN DO ANYTHING!!!!!!!!! If one trains herself, I am hoping that I will be able to explore the most fascinating mansions and lands and caverns, to fly through lodges and space and gardens, and to hold gold in my hand and not marvel at anything about it's worth other than it yellow bright hue! Money is nothing! Consciousness is everything.

Yikes.

Last night my dreams were not lucid. But I do remember I was taking a music class. I had a teacher with long hair in a ponytail, a man. It was time for finals and we all had to play the class a song we had written. But he only had a guitar in the class, and I had written mine on piano. I did not and was not going to sing acapello. I felt weird about it, and cowardly.
Later in the dream I found my mom sitting, eating her lunch under huge shady oak tree. She seemed sad and lonely. She was on her lunch break at work. I sat with her.

Earlier in the night I dreamed of a crazy long train ride to somewhere. An open face train, like a rollercoaster.

I remember so many rememberings of before. Dreams perhaps I had when I was 20 but they really do feel like they could have been other lifetimes. Like treks I have taken across land, in the night, with a group of friends, toward a strange and small city. Like a house with a garden and watching the sun set there. The gravel driveway there. The roads nearby.

ahhhhhhh, strange mysterious life.