Water tales
I’ve been spreading myself thin lately – the usual juggling act that is particularly annoying for writers, what with the day job, daily ministrations, working on other writing projects and so on. A novel I’m currently toying with (a surreal, Young adult story) is growing arms and legs, so it’s taking center stage at the moment, however – last night I had one of my flashes as I tossed and turned, in regards to my memoir.
I wondered how it would be to write about some of my stories along the theme of water – or any other theme. I assume we all have these themes in our lives. For example, we all have tree stories, beach stories, holiday stories, school stories etc. The flash I had included all the memories that involved water, for some reason, and I decided that when I got up this morning, I would write them out and see how they panned out. So here they are, in random order, for me to organize at a later date, when I decide to actually put all this into a book!
The two most profound water memories I have involve saving both my brothers from drowning, at two separate incidents. The first one was when I was twelve years old and my brother Lucas was ten. We were at Seaspray which is known as the Ninety mile beach in Victoria, Australia. My Aunty Doris (who was the lady who kind of adopted my mum for holidays when she was a child, being brought up in the home) owned the holiday house there and had rented it to my mother for two weeks. I discovered later that mum had taken my brothers and I there after a fight with my stepfather.
Seaspray – the 90 mile beach, Victoria, Australia
There was no television but there was a radio and a ping pong table as well as the beautiful beach across the road. Mum thought that we were going to drive her nuts without a t.v. (I was twelve, Lucas was ten and Peter was eight) – but we spent most of our time exploring the beach, playing ping pong and catching blue tongue lizards. When you came out the front door you could see the hummocks (or hills) that were at least fifteen feet high and covered with long grasses. Every now and then there are tracks leading to the beach and once you get to the top you hear the roar of the ocean.
http://gatesofeden.com.au/reptiles/ – Blotched blue tongue lizard
I spent a lot of time on my own writing and this particular day, I was sitting on the beach writing as Lucas went out into the water on an inner tube from a truck. He was sitting in the middle of it, slowly drifting further out. After a while I stood up and yelled at him “Lucas, you’re too far out!” He yelled back “Far out, far out!” doing peace signs in the air with his hands. I yelled again to come back, more urgent now as he was fast becoming a dot on the horizon. “You’re too far out, come back!” I strained my eyes to see him and realized that I could only see the inner tube floating to the right, without him on it. All of a sudden I saw him burst up from the water in the distance and I heard a blood curdling scream.
I froze for a split second but then it was like my primal brain took over. I dove into the water and started making my way towards him. The waves were at least four feet so I had to stop every now and then to see where he was. He was still struggling and dipping below the surface, his arms flailing wildly and then disappearing every now and then. After what seemed like an eternity I reached him and of course he latched onto me, grabbing at me frantically. I remembered something I had seen on t.v. about drowning people who ended up drowning the people who were trying to save them and that was definitely what nearly happened to me. He kept grabbing me around my neck and climbing over me, pushing me under the water.
Eventually I slapped his face and screamed at him to stop it and to turn on his back and go limp so I could take us both back to the shore. Luckily he did as he was told and I was able to wrap my arm around his face and under his arm. Using my other arm I swam us both back, carefully, telling him to help by kicking his legs. When we got back, a final wave dumped him thunderously onto the sand, as though to punish him for being an idiot. It made his tank top come up over his head and he just sat there for a while, crying. I was so mad I wanted to kick him, but all he could think about was the missing tire tube and how our Uncle would be pissed!
The other time was a few years later when I was fifteen and my younger brother Peter was eleven. We were visiting my mother’s boyfriend at Wonga Park and decided to go for a swim at the Yarra River. Being older, I was a stronger swimmer so I got to the other side first and waited for him, sitting on a rock. As soon as he made it he said “Let’s go again!” and I said “No, wait, you need to catch your breath!” He just laughed and said ‘No I don’t. I’ll beat ya!” With that he jumped back in and started swimming, so I followed. When I got to the other side I turned around and realized that I couldn’t see him. I looked up and down the banks and at the water but couldn’t see him anywhere.
The Yarra River at Wonga Park, Victoria, Australia by Melburnian
Just like Lucas at the beach, all of a sudden I saw the water break, in the middle of the river and heard an awful scream, with Peter’s arms thrashing about, trying to grab onto something – anything! My guts jumped! Here we go again! So I swam out to him and realized that I had to tell him to calm down so I could get him back to the edge of the river, but he was so panicked that he climbed onto me as soon as I got to him. He got onto my shoulders and pinned me down under the water. Both of his feet were on both of my shoulders! The water was at least ten feet deep and when I tried to buckle my knees to get out from under him, he kept balancing himself and pinning me to the spot.
Every time I got out from under him, and tried to swim back to the surface, he found me and stood back on my shoulders. By this time I was out of air so all I could do was punch and dig my fingers into his ankles with all the strength I had left. This worked and he jumped off. When I got to the surface and caught my breath I had to grab and throw him, swimming up to him and continuing the process until we made it to the banks. I was so mad as he was laughing hysterically and I didn’t know about hysterical laughter so I started slapping and punching him. A couple who had stood by and watched the whole scene pulled me off him and explained that he couldn’t help it but I turned on them, yelling “Why didn’t you help us!?” They just stood there dumbstruck, then walked away quickly.
One more time where I saved someone was my beautiful son Zack, when he was two years old. We were living in the Buddhist commune and one of my duties was cleaning the swimming pool. I had him situated in a section away from the water, playing with his toys. As I walked around the pool, scooping leaves, I turned around to keep an eye on him. Every time I looked at him he was in his little section, playing with his toys. The one time I wasn’t looking, he slipped into the shallow end, without even a ‘plop’. I turned around and didn’t see him. I called his name and he didn’t answer.
I ran back to the section and he wasn’t there. By this time I was hysterical, screaming his name when my eyes were drawn to the water. He was under the surface, his arms and legs outstretched, not moving. I jumped in, my heart frozen, and snatched him up. He laughed and said “I was swimming!” I couldn’t help yelling at him, even though it was my fault. “I told you to stay away from the water!” Then he started crying and I felt like a bag of dog shit. I cried too as I realized what could have happened if I’d been daydreaming or distracted. Needless to say that I watched him like a hawk after that.
The road to Seaspray
One time, at seaspray, when I was around six years old, I nearly drowned in the dip, or what they called ‘the washing machine’. It was a dip about six feet into the water where you could easily get caught if you didn’t know how to swim through it. The waves would tumble in a circle and you could get caught and not know which side was up or down. When it happened to me I thought I was going to die. I remember trying to use my brain and every time my hands felt the sand I’d push upwards but the waves pushed me back down. My equilibrium was in chaos and I was churning around and around.
The adults were oblivious to my plight and by the time I got myself out of it and back onto the shore, vomiting up wet sand and sea water, they laughed and said “You’ll know better next time!” I remember being furious for a long time, feeling uncared for and abandoned, as though I had no-one to rely on when things got dangerous. How ironic, as there were times later on, where I would have to be the one who would save the day!
When I was fifteen, we had a swimming pool in our backyard and had many pool parties over the years. I learned how all of a sudden people would be your friend when summer came and magically they disappeared when it was over, at least until the next summer. One of my mother’s boyfriend’s friends, Lucien, who was an older man, tried to pay me $5 to get in the pool with him and give him a kiss under water. Of course I declined. He was always after me, giving me strange gifts of chocolate or 4711 perfume. Whenever I climbed out of the pool I could feel his eyes on me and it made me uncomfortable, but the other adults respected him as he had lived a charmed life and used to be a strong man in the circus many years before and had met Laurel and Hardy.
by Felipe Skroski
It’s funny how, when you’re young and going through puberty, you don’t mind certain people noticing, but others make you self conscious or even worse, they sicken you! Again, at Seaspray – during the time I had saved Lucas from drowning, I was swimming, wearing my red one piece bathing suit, that happened to be see through when wet! A dune buggy came tearing along the beach with three guys in it and they stopped, yelling for me to come out of the water to talk to them. I was scared as I was only twelve years old and had a faint idea what they might’ve wanted. My brothers were being rambunctious, yelling at them to “Fuck off!” but they ignored them and continued asking me to come over and talk to them.
I was polite and said no thanks, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer. Secretly – I was excited, but fear got the better of me, and I continued to shy away and stayed in the water. In the meantime my brothers had ran back to the house and told my Aunty Doris, who was probably in her sixties at the time. She came over the hummocks, waving her walking stick and yelling angrily, telling them “Leave her alone, she’s only a child!” I was humiliated, but also relieved. As they drove off, yelling obscenities over their shoulders, I stared after them ruefully, thinking to myself that if I’d been older, I might’ve had to guts to talk to them.
One of my favorite pastimes as a child (like most children, I expect) was to play in creeks, causeways, drains etc. There was a lot of exploring to be done and adventures to be had. As my mother and her friends were drinking, we were able to slink away and pretty much do what we wanted, as long as we were back before dark. I especially loved the ones where willow trees hung over them. I would take my notebooks and sit, writing dreamily for hours, as the boys played pirates and so on.
One time, Lucas climbed to the top of one of the willow trees at my stepfather’s place, in Ivanhoe, and jumped onto one of the branches, swinging like an idiot. He yelled out “Look at me! I’m Tarzan!” He did the Tarzan “victory cry of the bull ape” when suddenly there was a “CRACK” and the branch broke, bringing him slamming into the creek! We all laughed so hard. We didn’t dare take him home, drenched and muddy. He just took off his outer clothes and draped them across the grass to dry and continued to play.
Sometimes we would follow the creeks for hours, walking barefoot through the water, pretending we were on a mission to find something elusive. If it got too deep we’d find an old piece of corrugated iron or fiberglass and use it as a raft, or walk along the sides. I’d find pretty rocks, feathers, leaves and flowers and take them home. I remember some days mum would pack us a picnic for the whole day and we’d have a wonderful time, exploring, getting filthy, climbing trees, making friends with random dogs and goats here and there.
I could go on and on but I think I’ll save it for another time.
Questing
Writing this memoir has been a very therapeutic experience in terms of exorcising demons and analysis. For the most part, as long as I’m writing, I’m happy, although the perfectionist and idealist in me tend to gripe from their perches, saying things like “What about the poetry?” or “Not as good as the Beats” or “I thought you wanted to be a Great Writer!” I’ve had articles published in three of Llewellyn’s Almanacs. The first was about Animal totems in their 2011 Magical Almanac. Then I wrote a series of entries for their 2012 Witches’ Spell A Day Almanac. The last was a piece on the Numerology of plants for their 2013 Herbal Almanac.
I’m proud of those pieces, but I have to admit that along the way, something in me transformed, in regards to my ‘spirituality’. I have always felt uneasy with the term ‘atheist’ as it implies the notion of an aversion to spirituality. The idea of calling myself ‘agnostic’ also made me uncomfortable as it came across as laziness, or at least – as being in a holding pattern until something better came along. It was like a ‘just in case’ position, or lying in wait – like a spider on the outskirts of a web, waiting for the tug of the string.
In my earlier years I went ‘out on a limb’ and explored different faiths, reading book after book and attending services and visiting temples. I had countless conversations with a variety of different types of people from different walks of life. I lived in a Buddhist commune for a year and was initiated into the White Tara mysteries. I spent a brief period studying with Jehovah’s Witnesses (boy was that a mistake!), which was brought on by an episodic fear of death. My cousin organized a clumsy religious intervention, disguised as a makeup party, where she and a psychotic garden variety Born again Christian woman did their best to ‘exorcize’ me! They both ended up in tears and I walked away amused but angry that I was duped into wasting my time and energy – AND I had brought good food!
When I was twenty three I met an American woman – Elia, who was from Waco, Texas. She was in her early fifties and had an ad in the paper about teaching Numerology. I had been interested before and decided to look into it so I called her. When she answered and we started talking, for some reason I thought that she was Russian. (It turned out later on she discovered that her family did have Russian in their background!) The lessons were cheap so I signed up and started attending, every Tuesday night. Elia had a degree in Psychology and was also an art teacher. She was thoroughly fascinating and I learned a lot from her.
It turned out that I was the only one who stayed for the complete course and she said that from the beginning, she knew that I would be the only one who would stay. Week after week, someone would drop off until it was just Elia and I, which was fine with me. To this day I still practice Numerology, as it’s been the only thing that has rung true, for me. I have tested it in a variety of different ways and often I find myself saying “Well, it’s all projection!” But when I look back over my chart I get a chill, and realize that whatever happens, Numerology has been like a blueprint that just states the facts ma’am!
I had religious people telling me often that I needed to have faith, but that seemed like too much hoping. I’d rather have knowledge and truth. Something concrete is better than smoke and mirrors. I remember thinking that it seemed as though they all wanted a father figure so badly, that the idea of someone watching over them gave them comfort, and who was I to take that away from them? I thought “Good luck to you – but don’t impose that grasping onto me!”
Fear is a great motivator and pain is a great educator, however – it all depends on where you take it and how you develop it. Every time I had a crazy experience, whether it was a hypnagogic hallucination or a supposedly prophetic dream, I assumed it was my synapses misfiring or whatever I ate the night before. Sometimes they were prompted by auto suggestion or psychosomatic circumstances.
I knew an older man called Keith who did my tarot cards for me every now and then, in my twenties. He reminded me of Khalil Gibran. For years he pursued me romantically but I was not interested – and I never led him on. One night we stayed at a mutual friends’ house and had to share a bed. Apparently he came to bed later and my vibes were so strong that he had to leave the room! When I came out in the morning he was sleeping on a bean bag in their lounge room and was very angry with me, even though I had no idea what had happened! (Later on that day, we were sitting in their backyard and their pet goose came running at Keith in full attack mode! It was like even the animal kingdom was against him!)
I remember that every time he did my readings, there were always messages about me having to let my guard down and to stop worrying about what others thought about me. I had to stop worrying about the ‘pigs and fishes’. The last reading he did for me was using a Native American deck with animal totems. Again the message was about removing the masks and discovering the real me. I wondered if Keith was peppering the readings with subtle hints about letting him in. There was no way that was going to happen. He was sweet – but kind of creepy at the same time.
from Wikimedia Commons – Zivm21
After that last reading I had an incredible out of the body experience. All of a sudden I was floating in space with two creatures – much like a white demon I had seen in a painting, with faces on their groins. They were on either side of me, holding my arms and they were grotesque. They told me telepathically that I needed to ‘drop the mask’ and to learn to see beyond the masks of others. In front of us I could see a huge black planet rolling towards us like a bowling ball. I was afraid but they kept telling me to relax. Then I saw a brilliant white light coming up over the horizon of the black planet. It was growing brighter and brighter as it came closer, appearing over the planet, still rolling towards us.
‘Saint Augustine and the Devil’ by Michael Pacher, circa 1483 (Similiar to the creatures I saw.)
I wriggled and tried to break free, screaming in my ‘mind’ that I wanted to go back to my body and that I wasn’t ready. The creatures (or angels?) kept saying “You’ll regret it!” The white light was getting bigger and closer to the point that it was almost unbearable to look at. Finally I broke free, screaming “I can’t!” and I snapped back to my body. Fair enough, as soon as I sat up in bed I regretted being a chicken and not waiting to see the light, as it dawned on me that the white light was my ‘Higher Self’. To this day I feel bad about that, even though I’m still not sure if it was just my synapses misfiring!
One constant thing that has always been a part of me or my spirituality, is my pagan side. I have always felt strongly connected to the earth, the seasons and to the animal kingdom. I have always been fascinated with ritual and witchcraft too. When I was about twelve years old I came across a book of ceremonial magic that my mum had in her bookcase. It was given to her by a friend of the family, who had given it to us as he thought he was cursed by the witch who gave it to him. He was a guitar player in a band and he had an affair with her. He said that she scared him as she was very controlling and definitely had ‘the power’. When he broke up with her he started having terrible problems with arthritis in his hands, to the point where he couldn’t even play guitar. I don’t know what he did to “break the spell” but giving the book to us apparently helped a lot.
I remember taking the book into my room and setting up a ritual with candles, casting circle etc. However I freaked out when the wind picked up and the candles flickered so I quickly snuffed them out, packed up the altar and put the book back in its spot in the bookcase. Years later, mum threw the book in the fireplace.
In my late twenties I started dabbling with an ouija board. My neighbor at the time, Debbie, came up with the bright idea, and even though we didn’t have a board, we decided to make one out of a piece of masonite and some scrabble pieces. We used a little liqueur glass and placed our index fingers on it. Immediately it started moving. It was strange as it seemed as though it was moving of its own accord. Both of us were quite skeptical and wanted to test it, out of curiosity. Sometimes it would go so fast that it would slip out of our fingers and keep moving across the board. It was hard to keep up with it.
The same people would come through and it would say random crap that usually bored us to tears. We noticed that even after just twenty minutes our energy would be drained dramatically, and we had to stop to recharge our batteries with cups of tea and cookies! One time was freaky though. An entity came through and told us that Debbie’s son had torn his pants climbing over a fence at school. I went with her when she picked him up and fair enough, when he got into the car, he told his mum that he ripped his pants climbing over a fence! We raced home to jump back on the board!
It was amazing though, that we couldn’t get the lottery numbers! It wasn’t long before a nasty entity came through, saying that my brother Peter was going to die (he did die a few years later). I was so angry I told Debbie that I wasn’t going to do it anymore so we broke the board up into little pieces and threw it away.
I still wonder about what happens with an ouija board – whether you’re just channeling your own subconscious energies through it, or if there really are actual ‘spirits’ coming through.
Debbie and I started getting into tarot cards and read for each other over the following years. We also went to a professional reader who did a reading for me that I will never forget – as it made me laugh so much. She said that I would end up living in Argentina on a cattle ranch, with 40,000 head of cattle! Debbie promised me that if it ever eventuated, she would personally get on a plane and come to the ranch and eat her own shit from a gold platter. The funny thing is, it kind of came close. I did relocate to the U.S. and am living in Nashville, just not Argentina and without the 40,000 head of cattle. I hope to one day make enough money to do that, just to see Debbie eat her own shit. (Just kidding!)
Whenever I did my own tarot readings I recorded the questions I asked as well as the answers, so I could go back to them after a certain time to see if whatever was predicted came true. The problem with doing this is that once ‘programmed’ with the supposed outcome, you subconsciously bring about the result, unless you’re a saboteur and stop it from happening. I found it annoying when I realized that no matter what, I had the power to begin with, to bring about whatever change I wanted. Even though it was fun and enchanting to do a reading, whatever question I asked – I already had the desired answer in my mind.
I knew what I wanted to happen so I felt that I was affecting the outcome with my subconscious desires. I resorted to doing readings where I just asked “You tell me.” I got more honest and interesting results, which I still recorded and checked, months down the track. At times things did come true, but then it was easy to project certain outcomes. These days I don’t bother with the cards, as I rely more on cause and effect, research and knowledge, based on what has gone on before and what seems logical and reasonable.
Etching of Vendome Green Man, France
We also started getting into witchcraft but I dropped it when I got into my relationship with Jim, the crazy unemployed writer. When I split up with him I picked it back up. I went the whole hog, doing rituals, wearing capes and pentagrams, celebrating the Sabbats and Esbats, writing my own incantations, gathering herbs, playing with gems, oils, spells and so on. I was already into dream interpretation, astral traveling etc so it went hand in hand. After years of practicing I realized that essentially, I was still an atheist at heart. I wondered how I could reconcile this with my pagan heart. Then it dawned on me.
We use magic as a touchstone to program the mind and deities as archetypes to understand our psychology. Symbolism is the language of our subconscious and ritual allows us to tap into it and to project our intentions. I realized that my connection to nature and the animal kingdom was what expressed my spirituality. It is my spirituality. The collective unconscious and the symbolism of the world is what speaks to my ‘spiritual mind’.
It’s not necessarily a faith, as it’s something that I can test and can see real outcomes eventuate in my life. Although my spirituality is still a work in progress (which is the same for all of us), I do feel that I don’t need a religious dogma to nail it down.
Organized religion has an agenda that is not in accordance with the ebb and flow of the rhythms of nature. It is preoccupied with the motivations of greedy and power hungry humans, who are hell bent on controlling other humans. I am happy to side step all of that and to find peace with the reality of nature, without the unreality of religion.
Dreamscape
One of the tools I discuss in my book about lifemapping (a work in progress – which I may or may not finish, that incorporates ritual, self analysis, delving into darkness etc) is dream interpretation, as I have always found this to be a very satisfying method for understanding what’s going on. I’m fascinated by universal symbols, archetypes, the collective unconscious, the Shadow, anima/animus, the integrated self and so on. I have recorded my dreams since I was little and discovered that I have some common themes and some not so common. I found that it’s important to keep in mind factors such as what substances you have ingested or what foods you have eaten before bedtime (for example – if your digestive system is trying to negotiate with a variety of cheeses or spicy dishes then your dreams will be infiltrated with interesting if not alarming imagery!)
I also found it interesting to note that, for me anyway, smoking marijuana either stopped me from dreaming or at least remembering my dreams. Alcohol made dreams more vivid and colorful. I’m still grappling with the notion of drugs either opening gateways in the mind to hidden concepts, memories and dimensions that are actually there or if they just simply create hallucinations. Whatever happens, don’t the symbols, memories and the ‘raw materials’ already exist in our subconscious – so the idea should be, whatever works to flush them out?
I always found the dreamworld to be a magical state that provided endless insights and ideas. One of the earliest dreams that I can remember was when I was living at Nanna and Pa’s. It was after my parent’s divorce and my two brothers, Peter and Lucas, as well as my cousin Georgia were living there, with my father. In the dream we were all in a car, including Georgia’s father (he and my dad are identical twins). The men were sitting in the front and us kids were sitting in the back. We were driving up and down some very steep hills. We arrived on the top of one of the hills (it was night time) and our fathers got out at a gas station to pump the gas and get something from the store.
All of a sudden the car started rolling down the hill, faster and faster. Our dads were still back at the gas station and we were screaming for them. As we were plummeting down to the bottom of the hill, Georgia and I were trying to lean over to take hold of the wheel. I woke up just before we crashed at the bottom. I had this dream four nights in a row. I was about 5 years old. I realize now that it was an anxiety dream brought about by our parent’s divorces and that Georgia and I were trying to figure out how to take control of the situation, but couldn’t.
Car dreams have appeared here and there in my life, along with other vehicles. Symbolically vehicles represent the way you are traveling in life, or life itself. It’s all about what’s going on, whether you have control of the vehicle etc. I’ve often dreamed of being in the passenger seat, or not being able to drive properly, which is indicative of how I’ve felt with the direction my life has taken, over the years. One dream I had was with the car splitting in half – and both halves going in two different directions! Other dreams had me feeling like I couldn’t control the steering wheel or couldn’t make the car go faster. The best one I had was where I was on a motorcycle and was on a long straight road, all by myself and I was going full throttle! It was wonderful. At that time, my life was taking off and I felt like I had more control.
I’ve also dreamed about trains, often feeling like I was on the wrong train, or seeing a train crash into the ocean. (Water is supposed to represent the subconscious, or emotions.) Now that I am living in another country, I dream about planes and feeling stranded, or flying back to Australia and feeling like I can never get the connecting flight back here!
A major dream theme for me is the Tidal wave. When I was in my twenties, it was ominous and overwhelming. They were huge and would wash over me, devouring me like a monster. Sometimes I would be inside the tunnel and would see furniture such as clocks, chairs, tables etc in the water. I would be panicked, wondering how to get out and worried about drowning. Eventually I would be outside of the wave but on the beach and seeing it coming, still freaking out and trying to run, but my feet were heavy in the sand or the drag of the water would be pulling me into the wave.
Other times I would be in a city and I would see a wave coming over a tall building, or I would see the water sluicing down alleyways. It got to the stage when they were not a bother, as the last one was where I was sitting on a sunny beach and I saw a wave in the distance. I didn’t panic. I just observed it dispassionately and once it crashed on the shore I watched the foam gently creep up to my feet and tickle my toes. I realized that it signified my having tamed my emotions (to a degree!).
An interesting (almost precognitive) dream I had was when I had started a relationship with a guy who turned out to be – to put it politely – quite a handful. He was draining on my nerves and drove me nuts. Jim was an unemployed writer and we hit it off, even though I had a feeling that it was going to be trouble. I fell for him straight away as he had a wicked sense of humor and was very intelligent. I learned a lot from him and he exposed me to books, music and art that I might not have gotten into, so I am grateful for that, at least.
When we first started dating I had a dream about wading into the ocean. I was walking under the surface as though I had lead boots on. I could feel the current gently buffeting me about but I kept walking. Then I could see all these mines – the circular ones that are anchored at the bottom with chains, like balloons on strings. I had to navigate my way past them. It was like walking through a dense forest and I had to make sure I didn’t bump into them, with the current pushing me this way and that. As soon as I woke up I knew what it meant. This one was going to be trouble.
It was intense and there were a lot of tears and angry words. He was infuriating as he had no issue with taking and not giving in return. He would snap for no reason and had issues with drinking. He made me feel bad about my appearance as he was a typical small man caught up in the idea that women have to be petite and weak. I put up with him for two years and finally let him go. It was during that relationship that my brother died and his sister committed suicide, so at least we were there for each other. Everything has its reason, I suppose.
I’ve talked about my mountain dreams in my post ‘Otherworldliness’, so I won’t mention it again here – other than to say that I wonder if it represents the integration of the self, according to Carl Jung. That would explain my utter fascination with it and how I yearn for it so much!
Snakes have often been a recurring theme for me. Some say they represent psychic power or sexuality. The symbolism always depends on what they represent for the dreamer. One dream I had was where I was flying through a lush jungle and I saw a large, beautiful green snake on a small island in the middle of a lake. I flew down and spoke telepathically with it. I woke up feeling so at peace! Another dream had me walking up and down some stone steps of an ancient temple and I saw a strange, small blue snake with horns. Then I saw another one with a head at each end of his body. Symbolically, the snake in a circle, swallowing it’s own tail means wholeness or infinity. Maybe the snake having two heads meant that I had to make a decision before I could be whole? (I can’t remember what was happening in my life at that time.)
Another snake dream I had was where I was underwater – swimming with a large snake, hanging onto it. The water was murky and we were dodging rotten logs and flotsam and jetsam. I think at the time I was worried about sordid sexual relationships.
One of my significant dreams I had before coming to the U.S. to live, was about a house, that seemed to be somewhere in a place like Indonesia. It was tropical and mysterious. The house was very mysterious and I was interested in buying it but next door was a yard that I had to go through to get to it. The yard was protected by stone animals that came to life every time I entered it, like a video game. I criss crossed and negotiated my way across until I finally made my way to the house.
Once inside there was a large rectangular room where an Asian looking, blue ghost lady was floating along the four walls, going in circles. Every time she passed me I was scared but I knew I had to speak to her to buy the house. I made it past her to the bathroom but then she vanished and a woman was cooking in a kitchen, back from where I’d come from. I realized it was too late. Still trying to figure that one out.
One of the scariest dreams I had was one of the most profound, as it involved the integration of the self. I was in a dark attic, sitting cross legged. At the other end of the attic was a little blonde haired girl. I knew she was evil as she was eating body parts and had jagged teeth. She looked like a demon. She was wearing a tattered white dress that was splattered with blood. There were lumps of meat all over the floor. She saw me and then started floating towards me, her teeth gnashing and her eyes flashing, with her arms outstretched.
I was petrified but realized that I had to accept her as she was a part of myself that I kept hidden. (Either my rage or some other aspect I didn’t like to admit to.) The fear became more and more intensified the closer she got to me until finally she was in my arms. Suddenly she transformed into a ‘normal’ little girl and was sobbing into my shoulder. I comforted and hugged her, telling her that everything was going to be alright. Once I awoke I realized that something huge had just occurred and felt very proud of myself.
I know that some people think that other people’s dreams are boring but I want to include the important ones (important to me, at least!) in my memoir as they’re a part of my history. Dreams afford us the opportunity to explore our motivations and to analyze our lives from different perspectives. They can be warnings or messages of hope and peace. If nothing else, they are a well of inspiration and wonderful ideas.
Memories of Melbourne
Box Hill Hospital in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, where my father was born, I was born and my son was also born!
Me as a baby – hand blurred!
The Royal Melbourne Show – I loved getting show bags full of lollies and toys.
Fending off the Paparazzi
Miniature Tudor Village at the Fitzroy Gardens. When I was little I expected that little people lived there and would come out at night when no-one was looking.
Butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth!
Royal Botanic Gardens – has always been a magical place.
State Library of Victoria
State Library Reading Room – spent a lot of time there
Flinders Street Train Station – photo Ian Cochrane (I’d like a dollar for every time I came through that station!)
Queen Victoria Market – the best produce, meat, bric a brac, clothes and wonderful food! Oh the cheeses!
Queen Victoria Market – how I miss the delicatessens!
Gopals Vegetarian Restaurant – run by the Hare Krishnas. Wonderful vegetarian lasagna – photo by Chloworm
China town, I can smell all those glorious restaurants! – photo by Poh Wei
The Magpies – best team!
The Hopetoun Tearoom – wonderful place for morning or afternoon tea. – Photo by Miss Potato Princess
One of the hidden laneways in Melbourne. It’s easy to get lost
Smoke Dreams – great jewelry, band t-shirts, stickers, pop culture etc – Photo by Jessica K
Brunswick Street – great cafes, restaurants. Very bohemian!
Outre Gallery – wonderful. – Photo by Mark H
Minotaur – wonderful shop selling comics, movies, toys and memorabilia on pop culture.
Theosophical Society Bookshop
The Palace – was burnt down in 2007. I saw many bands there including Danzig and Henry Rollins. – Photo by Stevage
Danzig 2006 ticket
Festival Hall – I saw so many bands here, including Pantera, Marilyn Manson, Slayer, Machine Head. Some call it a toilet!
Machine Head 2007 ticket
Prince of Wales Hotel – I saw Morphine here (R.I.P. Mark Sandman), as well as Celtic Frost.
Celtic Frost 2007 ticket
Sidney Myer Music Bowl – saw many bands and events – the best, of course, was Tool! – Photo by White Hat
Tool 2007 ticket
Nicholas Building – where Vali Myers had her studio
Young and Jacksons Hotel – where I drank with Vali
Vali Myers R.I.P.
Back of postcard
Passing the torch
Saturn, from the European Southern Observatory –
http://www.eso.org/public/germany/news/eso1116/
My narcoleptic experiences had died down to a dull roar during my teens, which is strange, but they intensified after the birth of my son at age 22. The last big one I had was when I was about 28 years of age. (Which is interesting as that is the age that some people believe your ‘Saturn returns’ come into play. For example: every 28 years, Numerologically & Astrologically, you go through a crisis of some sort.) It’s an age when people are apparently more likely to commit suicide – or make a major change in the direction of their lives. Apparently every 7 years you go through a crisis, good or bad, just like every 7 years your body has totally replaced every cell in your body.
At age 7 you are learning more about the world, its rules and your place in the world. At age 14 you are dealing with puberty and going through lessons dealing with how to become an adult. At age 21 you are expected to have ‘arrived’ and the crisis is usually to do with questions such as ‘who am I? what am I here for? where am I going?’ Some people figure that if you haven’t got it sorted out by the time you are 28 years of age, or if you are having difficulty with your assimilation into society, that it’s a big crisis. 4 x 7 = 28 and every 28 years is another major crisis.
The Atheist in me is still intrigued, but more likely to believe that each person has different life paths, patterns etc. Some people seem to be in crisis all the time! It’s usually all pinned to the journey an individual has lived, the summation of the decisions and choices they have made, their background, their projections and perceptions, belief systems, relationships, environment etc. Although a 7 year rhythm does seem reasonable, as most things in the universe relate to the vibration of a number, I don’t believe that everybody is exactly the same with this cyclic phenomenon.
At the time, I was living alone, apart from my 5 year old son. Nothing overtly important was going on, other than my son having started school. I was single and living in public housing, in a stand alone unit. I wasn’t working at the time and had a routine set with getting up early, getting my son ready for school, including getting his breakfast ready and packing his lunch. Then we’d get on the bus and after dropping him at school I’d come home and do housework, shopping etc.
Prof. Dr. Mario Markus, Max-Planck-Institut
This time there was no warning. I hadn’t changed the position of my bed. It was early on a Saturday morning and the sun was coming through the curtains, around 6:30am. It started with a dream, where I was in the back of a bus and I needed to get off. When I started walking towards the front of the bus, a few other people got up too, and we were queued in the aisle. When the bus stopped, we got off one by one and when it was my turn, I looked at the bus driver and something told me not to look at him, but I couldn’t help it.
When I did look at him his face was scrunched up in a really evil smirk or snarl. It was very scary. When I turned to jump off the bus I saw a little brunette school girl, about 5 years old and she had a surprised expression on her face. Her head then started getting bigger and bigger, as though someone had started pumping up her head with a bicycle pump. It looked like a balloon, the way her head kept getting bigger and bigger, and her eyes kept getting wider and wider, as if she was becoming more and more surprised.
Finally, her head exploded and then I saw a totally different scene. It was like a page filled with swarming maggots, but when I looked closer, I realized that it was a massive orgy with thousands of people swarming over each other. It wasn’t long before I snapped to and woke up out of the dream, but I was again paralyzed and couldn’t scream. I was on my back and felt another mouth inside my throat. It kept saying, over and over – “Why don’t you call your mummy?!” – in a sarcastic, taunting voice.
At the same time the voice was taunting me, I was trying to scream but couldn’t, and I also heard in my right ear, railway crossing bells ringing loudly. I could almost make out the railway crossing to my right, as I strained to see the room. Then I saw the ceiling go a misty white, like a cloud was forming.
As the clouds started clearing in the center, I saw three aliens. Two of them seemed like the standard greys but the one in the middle was the one that scared me. It seemed to have a face that floated in front of its actual head, changing and morphing like oil on water.
I was screaming inside my own throat, as the voices kept taunting and the bells kept ringing. I forced myself to look off into the left corner of the ceiling and yelled inside my mind for my ‘higher self’ to come and help me. As soon as I started doing that, I could see an orange ball of light appear in that left corner of the ceiling and as I focused on that – rather than the aliens, it dissipated. At the same time, lots of eyes had started appearing all over the walls, blinking and looking at me.
It took a long time to shake that episode off. Even after I got up and went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea – 10 minutes later – I could still faintly hear the bells and my throat felt like the lips were still there. It shook me so much, I finally made an appointment at the local hospital and was linked to a neurologist.
After being interviewed and giving my whole history, I was scheduled for an EEG reading. They played strobe lights in front of my face as I stared straight ahead, and after a while we stopped and they told me they’d be in contact with the results. A few days later I received a phone call from one of the doctors, who advised that the findings were quite amazing. Apparently the majority of my brain activity was in the right temporal lobe. They said that the left brain was virtually inactive in comparison! They said that they could see where the last attack had taken place and that I needed to be tested further.
According to a theory put forward by some scientists, the right brain is best at creativity & expression. It also covers intuition, music appreciation, emotions etc. The left brain is supposedly in control of logic and analytical thinking, being better at things such as critical thinking, language, reasoning etc. (Some scientists say they have debunked this theory as a myth.)
I’ve always been very creative, love music and consider myself mostly intuitive, but I can also be quite analytical and like to think that I have a good grasp on language and critical thinking! So I went to my next EEG reading which was more intensive and then finally went back to my neurologist for the results. I was told that even though it’s a sleep disorder, it’s not technically narcoleptic. Hypnagogic hallucinations happen when falling asleep and hypnopompic hallucinations happen when coming out of sleep. I mostly have hypnopompic ‘turns’ but have sometimes had hypnagogic turns.
A trick I learned, especially over the last big turn, was to aim to turn my head to the right. When I was finally able to move, I noticed that I could ‘snap’ out of the attack and sit up, no longer paralyzed. Hence the reason that I have not had anything like that last attack since then. From time to time I have felt myself slipping into it – but suddenly turning my head to the right sets me free! There was a time, after that, when I fell asleep on the couch and I half awoke, feeling like there was a tornado in my ear. I felt the familiar, rubbery sensation along my spine and thought “Oh no!”, but was able to snap myself out of it. Some people say that the roaring in your ears is the beginning of your ‘soul’ leaving your body, as in astral projection. Who knows!
It was sad, (and strange) when I realized I had passed on this ‘affliction’ to my son, Zack. He was three years of age and prior to his first incident (or at least, to my knowledge it was his first incident), he had not yet strung words together to make full sentences. I was a little worried, although he was able to communicate and knew quite a lot of words and was obviously intelligent. It was early morning and I was at the table having a coffee. My brother Lucas lived in the unit next door, in the fishing village of Warneet on the outskirts of Melbourne.
All of a sudden, his door flew open and he ran towards me, very angry, breathing like he’d run a marathon. He just looked at me, angry and breathing hard. I asked him what the matter was. Then he calmed down and said “I come from the Pleiades constellation!” That’s right. They are the exact words that came out of his little mouth. I was flabbergasted and nearly dropped my cup. All I could say was “What?!” He repeated himself. Silence. A little while later I said “Say that again.”
He said it again. I grabbed his little hand and took him next door to my brother’s house and woke him up, which made him grumpy, of course. I told Zack to tell his Uncle what he had just told me. He said proudly “I come from the Pleiades constellation!” Lucas woke up 100% and did the same routine, saying “What?!” and so on. We were both flabbergasted. Zack proceeded to tell us, in full sentences, that our whole family came from the Pleiades constellation, from a planet called “Liftkik” (I don’t know if that’s the correct spelling!), and that we were vapors before we came into our bodies on this planet.
We spent the whole morning, trying not to lead him, to be as clear as we could, to find out where this stuff came from. It turned out that Zack had woken up in the middle of the night, feeling trapped in his body, and he tried to scream for me but I wouldn’t come. He said he saw tall grey aliens in long black cloaks standing in a semi circle around the room, with small, squat black aliens in front of them. One of the small black aliens put a clear crystal ball in the air and it floated towards Zack.
He saw that it had a black key in it and they told him that if he took the ball and unlocked the key he would discover the secrets of the universe! Apparently all the aliens kept chanting “Take it, take it, take it!” There was one alien that was very strange. He was also short, but like a white dwarf, with a long nose, pointy ears with gold earrings in them and he didn’t have a shirt on and no shoes. Apparently he was wearing shorts. Zack was mostly afraid of him. Zack asked me why I didn’t come to him when he was screaming for me. I apologized and said I didn’t hear and agreed to let him sleep with his door open from then on.
No matter what had happened, it dawned on me that he too might have inherited the dreaded narcolepsy curse. Or – our family comes from the Pleiades constellation! (?)
The Pleiades star cluster. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, AURA/Caltech, Palomar Observatory.
lilithu
Notes for a Chronicle 
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