winning gold and cult

I was visiting a local shopping centre and decided to enter a competition of some kind. It was not a test of skill; rather, it was much like winning a lottery –– a game of chance. I purchased a digital 'ticket' by swiping my mobile phone, and pressed 'play'. I watched my mobile screen as numbers and symbols spun around on three reels, as they do on a standard poker machine. I pressed 'stop' and my screen lit up and music played. The phone showed gold coins spilling out of a casket and piling higher and higher. A cash amount flashed on the screen –– around $36, 000 (I cannot recall the exact figure). I was very excited and immediately began to budget out my winnings.

Later, I dreamed I was in a huge hall with hundreds of other people. We'd gathered to attend a weekend workshop of some kind. There were various crew members –– both women and men –– walking around, attending to the audience, and a few women on stage, talking to the crowd. All of the crew appeared to be fit and healthy, and I gathered I was there to learn about health. I could see a few family members and close friends also gathered in the hall. As a woman on stage spoke, the man sitting next to me whispered a few asides: 'You know they change an annual fee of $700 dollars, don't you?', 'Just wait until we've all signed in. Everything changes.', 'Once you're in, you're in. Don't say I didn't warn you.' –– that kind of thing. I grew increasingly alarmed. I looked around and noticed the crew were now walking through the audience, taking hair samples from everyone. Each person was to cut a lock of their hair and give it to the crew, who would then place and seal it in a small plastic bag. Some people were readily snipping off samples of their hair, obliging and even proud to follow the directive. Others seemed uncertain. I asked my friend if she intended to give a hair sample and she answered, 'Of course. Why not?' I didn't like it. I wondered why they wanted our hair. I wondered what they were going to do with it and felt worried they'd somehow use our DNA. Follow-up crew were now getting around the crowd, having people sign a form –– a permission form? I knew I had to leave, although I was bound to cause a scene as I was sitting in the middle of a row towards the back of the hall, and would have to walk through the audience up to the very front to make it out the door. I hoped my family and friends would follow.

humanity

There was a creature rising from the earth, made from flesh and from the earth itself. It was born of the earth, one with the earth and decaying back in to the earth. It was human, or rather, it was once human; the source of all humanity and the place to where we return once we die. It was compost. The creature breathed on me, a long, slow breath, drawn up from its unfathomable depths. Its breath smelled sweet and rotten, fecund and ancient. I could smell life and death and time. As it breathed on me I understood that we are all born of the same flesh. We each enter the world, of the world. We are an expression, an extension of the same force, the same source. We are an organism. A living, breathing energy spreading across the earth. Unstoppable, almost, but for the earth itself, which will consume us just as we consume the earth. We are driven to survive and change and, I understood, what sets us apart is our constant striving. Striving to be better, to have more, to change, to succeed, to overcome, to create, to build. Striving. Just as in our bodies how when a cell dies it is swept away, I saw how when we stop striving we die and decompose back into the earth. We need to move to survive. To stagnate is death. At the same time, it is our striving that will finish us. I breathed in the breath of this original human creature and understood, and then I woke.

summit

I was driving the roads of my hometown. The houses were absent and there were no buildings, as far as the eye could see; yet, I recognised this place - the rise and fall of the landscape. My car laboured up a steep slope, but I was preoccupied, surprised by the changed flora: fruit trees laden with fruit grew jungle-like, fringing the road. Through the trees I could glimpse the sea, skirting the hill up which I drove. I realised I had my handbrake on, so I released it and found the car travelled more swiftly. However, the fruit trees now grew so densely they blocked the road ahead. I left my car and continued on foot, the ground sandy beneath my feet, the road now a narrow track. There was only a short walk up the hill - not more than a minute - before I reached the crest, but I was fearful. To go on, I would need to climb over branches and sidle around trunks. I thought of snakes. I felt alone. I knew, from the summit, I'd likely see the lay of the land and the ocean around me. I knew I'd witness the beauty of place and feel a sense of freedom. Yet, I turned back.

bionic blood

I was with a practitioner of Chinese medicine. The doctor, a man, asked for my finger and he pricked it with a pin, squeezed it and drew blood. Red blood dripped into a petrie dish. Upon pooling, the blood grew luminous green crystals, tiny jewels glittering like precious green diamonds. The doctor was surprised and told me it was as though I was bionic; I had bionic blood. I felt pleased, as though I had supreme health. I understood bionic to mean super-human. My blood was bursting with health.

dead head and crossroads

Two dreams:
A head was on the table, lying on its back, facing the ceiling. The head of a man my friend used to know, she told me. I picked it up and looked at it. He looked to be in his fifties. He had good skin for his age and an honest face. He had a beard. I turned the head over in my hands and found it was flat at the back, as though it had been sitting on the table a very long time and had, over time, flattened. I stroked the face of the man and noticed a tear escape from the man's eye and travel down his cheek. I was surprised and, feeling for the man, I spoke to him. He opened his eyes - blue - and asked me to sing him a song. The song that came to mind was a chorus I'd learned in church as a teenager. So, I sang him the song and he cried.
I was walking across a road flanked by tall trees. Although I couldn't see it from where I was, I knew I was walking toward the ocean. I became aware I was being watched and looked up into the branches of the trees to the northern end of the road. A pair of Wedge-tailed eagles perched there, and one of them flew at me, swooping down close to my head, before rising and landing in a tree south of me. The other eagle followed, diving down and narrowly missing my head, before flying up to meet its mate in the tree down the road. Suddenly, there were two more birds - a pair of griffon vultures - perched in the trees to the west of the road. In the same way, they began, one at a time, swooping me, flying down, close to my head, and back up to perch in the trees to the east. The eagles and the vultures kept swooping me and, for a while, I was stuck in the middle of the road, covering my head, not knowing which way to turn to escape. I began to run south, although I wanted to go east, and as I ran I dipped down to scoop up a handful of damp sand, which I shaped into a ball, planning on throwing the sand at the birds as they rushed at me. I looked up behind me and saw the first eagle flying, but it was tangled in a string of bunting flags. I was both relieved and concerned for the eagle; although they seemed intent on harming me or driving me away, I wanted the birds to be safe.

the rules that bind us

I was with an old friend I've not seen, in waking life, for years. He had his arm around me as we walked the streets to his car, having just left a gathering of his friends. He had invited me along and I had been the only woman there. I knew my being there had caused the men to alter their behaviour, to behave more respectfully than they would have usually, these being rather androcentric men. As we walked, I thanked my friend for inviting me and said I hoped the group had not been put out. He nodded and accepted my thanks, but, even as I spoke the words, I wished I hadn't and I resented his superior attitude. Why should I apologise for my attendance at his invitation? How was my presence any less worthy than any other there? I had not enjoyed the evening with the the boys' club and, rather than now behaving pleasantly and doing what was expected of me, I wished I had spoken my truth or held my tongue. I silently vowed to fight against my learned cultural urge to be nice, play second and not stand in my full power. When we reached his car, we noticed a hibiscus shrub had grown, arching over the car and sprouting red and yellow flowers in through the ajar windows. We had to wind down the windows fully to free the car of flowers. I noticed another car parked close by. It was almost covered by grass, the roots having grown up the tyres and over the car body. Imagine, said my friend, if we'd stayed here a week; that's what would have happened to our car. Upon getting into his car, I realised he had a driver. The driver sat in the driver's seat, my friend sat in the front of the car in the middle space between the driver's seat and the passenger seat, and I sat in the back seat in the middle of the car, directly behind my friend. For the first time that night, it seemed my friend and I could speak, regardless of the presence of the driver; I felt the driver and he were close friends and he certainly knew the ins and outs of my friend's life. I asked my friend how he was, really. Immediately and unreservedly he told me (and the driver) that his marriage was terrible and his life was a sham. I noticed we were driving the streets of my childhood, towards my family home where the driver would presumably drop me off. I felt the driver had heard the story many times before and my friend was chained to his life by the rules laid down by the society in which he existed. He felt he couldn't escape.

an uncertain road

It was a dark night in the city and I needed to be somewhere. To get there, had to ride a bicycle far too big for me - my feet didn't touch the ground. It was an usual bike: the seat faced backwards so that, riding it, I could only see where I had been, not where I was going. Not only that, the roads were all downhill and the bike had no brakes. I was scared, but knew it was what I had to do. I rode the big bike - backwards, down the hill, with no brakes, in the dark - twisting around to attempt to see where I was going, dodging traffic and hoping I would not crash or fall. Eventually, I arrived at a midway point where I naturally slowed and dismounted. I walked through a maze of a high-rise building - corridors, rooms, more corridors - until I reached a door blocked by a stack of boxes, both full and empty. I rearranged them, careful not to damage them, basically tunnelling my way through. Once through, I descended the stairs and found myself in the basement carpark of the building, thinking I'd find my car and drive the rest of the way. I saw what I thought was my car, but someone was in the driver's seat about to drive away. 'Wait,' I called. 'You're in the wrong car.' As they drove away, I could see it was not my car after all. I wondered how I would travel the final leg to my destination when someone asked me, 'Well, how did you get here?' I realised I needed to find the bicycle and brave the dangerous, uncertain journey - to dare - if I were to arrive.