Dream Talk

In the final weeks of edit and design of “Dream Talk,” my dreams went off the rails.  I should have expected this, but I didn’t.

In these dreams I visited major events in my life – the retreat to the desert, divorce – then the Dream Maker took me further.  I remembered my love for the two children I cared for when I was sixteen – live in nanny, housekeeper.  I recalled my love for those two shining children, how well their mother treated me though I was homeless and impoverished, completely dependent. 

Then the Dream Maker added goddesses, new colts, ceremonies and a golden boot for my left foot.  Yes, left.  That’s always been my direction.  Coyote, my old friend, loves the left.  A celebratory dinner finished off these dreams.  So far.

During this time I had a medical scare related to my heart.  Of course.  It went on and on, test after test.  “Don’t go to the mountains.  Stay close to emergency services.”  Hmmm.  But after weeks and weeks, I was finally told that my heart is abnormally healthy.  Really.  A few extra beats like my mother, my brother and my aunt.  Nothing more.

My heart via the Dream Maker made a tour of old pain, what and who I love – even those long ago children, now old, too – the small blond boy who liked to nestle at my neck, the brave red-headed girl who rode a horse neither one of us could handle, a palomino the exact color of her bright hair. 

So, why this deep visitation of the heart just now when the book is ready?  Though “Dream Talk” is not long, and certainly is not encyclopedic, it did require deep delving to find the spirit’s language.  To write in any other way would tamper with her roots in the Other.  I had to sort what I believe, what is important.  I had to travel to those places where I left my heart. 

The process reminds me of writing “On the Mountain” of The Blue Child Series.  I know people like the second book, “The North Road,” best, but the first book was the deepest dive for me.  The spirit insisted that I reach beyond my wonderful Gemini mind, apply poetry to prose, that I find language for the heart’s knowing. 

I am still working on the third novel in the Series.  The Dream Maker has inserted herself into that effort, too.  As I write it, I understand the first novel better, but this book is written in layers of time.  Sometimes I wonder if I am writing a novel or if I am involved in some obscure ceremony.  Leslie Marmon Silko would probably know. 

At any rate I don’t intend to write two books at the same time again, unless, of course, spirit tells me I must.  A long time ago in a desperate moment I chose spirit over everything else.  Even if her hand is a little rough at times, her ways confusing, she’s been good to me, faithful.  I want to do my best to be the same to her.