This piece was prompted by a fairly serious trifecta of events I experienced in June of this year. June seems to be a month I need to watch out for, as I was seriously injured in a bike/car accident in June 2018. The trifecta was a pulmonary embolism (actually multiple emboli), being infected by COVID 19 and the death of my 96-year-old father. Ironically, the COVID19 infection brought me into the emergency department here in Edmonton, as the combined symptoms of DVT and COVID infection were too much for me to handle.

I heard death breathing on the other side of the door. In fact, the first symptoms of the pulmonary embolism (which I thought was a heart attack) had me down on the floor thinking I was dying. This threat, and the anxiety and fear it generated, finally pushed me to start writing again, to find some life with a shroud of death all around me. The mysterious first step into my story came from a spelling error in an email from Russell Lockhart. Some background is needed here. Russell and Paco Mitchell had been writing an online series titled The Deathling Crown Lottery. In one episode, a character in a pub named Bumbles was briefly introduced. I liked the name and the character. He reminded me of my state of being at the time. In Russell’s email responding to my request to use the Bumbles character name in my story, Russell’s Bumbles, became Brambles. That fortuitous change was the connection I needed to start writing something new. It also connected to many events around my living in England for a year at a time twice when I was much younger.

A synchronicity perhaps. The subsequent writing was therapeutic for me evoking feelings of play connecting me with something mysterious that spontaneously led me in my writing. I began to feel life again inside myself.

Is my story an example of exceptional writing? No, not at all, but that is not the point of it. Since then I’ve wanted to continue the writing, but couldn’t find the next connection or path leading me on until recently. Then, one day, I remembered a story I had started quite some time ago but stopped writing it because I allowed my inner critic to cut me off from it.

In my next blog, I will present the Bumbles piece I wrote and then connect it to the old story.

Over ten years ago I had the following dream:

I’m walking in the countryside on a moonlit night. There is something very strong/intense pushing me to go in the direction that I am. I walk up to a guard rail of a four lane highway. The male voice that sometimes guides me in my dreams says I must cross. His direction terrifies me because of the cars speeding by in both directions. Summoning up my courage I decide to close my eyes and let intuition guide me across the guard rails here, in the middle and on the far side. I step over expecting to be killed but unwilling to stop. Cars go by me, their noise, I can feel the wind whipped up after they pass me. By some miracle I make it all the way across. I open my eyes. The voice says “walk towards the forest”, which I see about 100 meters away on a hillside. As I approach the slope I see the vague shape of a person in a small clearing perhaps 30 meters uphill. Coming closer I can discern a figure dressed in a white robe standing beside a wooden lectern. I hear his voice which is the same voice guiding me here. He steps up to the lectern, then opens the cover of a thick book resting on the lectern. I notice he has opened the book about halfway through. His voice says “you must learn the book of nature”. I wake up.

In response to that voice I changed course in my life. Slowly, and not without resistance on my part, I shifted my life around. I had been teaching Pilates in my home and doing some art (fused glass/encaustic) including nature photography in my free time. I began to focus my awareness more intently on what I was going through, encountering, as I walked in nature. Bill Plotkin, the creator of the Animas Valley Institute, says that each human being needs to go through an eco-awakening, a depth soul experience in nature, in order to begin healing the deep separation humanity (particularly western civilization) has developed with the natural world-the more than human world. This lack of initiation to our deeper selves has led to adults remaining adolescents psychologically (but not from our collective societal perspective), contributing greatly to the mess we now find ourselves in. My eco-awakening experiences were as a young child in the endowment lands set aside for the expansion of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. At four years old I would wander downhill from our house, cross Dunbar street, then down the steep incline into the swampy place I loved. Crawling on my belly to the edge of ponds full of frog life, I’d watch water boatmen glide across the waters surface and more than anything simply open myself to the experience of it all. This awakened my soul, a soul which loves to wander, into the depths found in nature. I had numerous experiences standing under huge cedar and Douglas fir trees, listening, becoming rooted to the place, swaying with the trees in the wind, gliding along moss moist trails climbing up from Jericho Beach, standing face upraised to the rain, being still.

Back to the time after the dream above. I started opening myself to what might present itself to me as I wandered in nature. If something arose, if it felt right and permission was given, I would take a picture. I felt a growing sense of wholeness, a oneness with my soul, a sense of deep belonging and meaning. What I didn’t do is work on the punctum of the photos.

In 2013-14 I went through a year long intensive with Animas Valley which solidified the joyful connection I experienced being in nature. I had a number of synchronistic events with birds, rocks and wind to name a few. After that time I needed to reduce my time in nature, to make money to support a family and to heal from a serious bike accident. During this time I felt the deep connection waning. I wondered if that was all for me, maybe I was done with these kinds of experiences. Then about two weeks ago I had the following dream:

I’m standing behind what appears to be a wooden teachers desk. There is subdued light coming from behind me which illuminates the room somewhat in front of me. I’m in the act of putting down a wooden picture frame on the desk. There is something in the frame which I can’t quite make out. When I look up from finishing this task, I see rows of school desks in front of me with people are sitting in them. There is darkness behind them so I can’t see how far back they go. There is another picture frame on the desk. I pick it up and look at what it’s holding. I see textured dark black and grey soil on the outside edge inside the frame. Inside of the soil, in a kind of depression, is a circular ring. It is a silvery grey and textured, something in it feels alive. At the top of the circle is a silver leaf, tip down, bridging the outer edge of soil, the ring and the inner centre of dark earth. My feeling seeing this is of becoming still inside, a sense of something so sacred I feel like weeping. I realize my task is to show the people (adults) sitting in the class what is in the frame. I walk over to one side of the class (the right side) and begin holding it up to the people to see. At one point I begin to turn away from showing some of them when a person says wait show us again. I turn back to them and hold it up again. I feel like I am showing them something so deep it is like seeing God/spirit, to help them remember the wholeness of life. I’m moving into the darkness, the class seems to go on into the darkness. I wake up curious.

Here is a water colour image of the mycelial ring of interconnectedness.

In the days after the dream I kept the image from the dream alive in me. I understand in my heart that I must do what this “just so dream” is suggesting. I’m not sure how to do this yet. Not sure I even can.

Then, about one week ago I had what I feel is a follow up/reminder dream and a warning. I’m looking for a woman I have know in the past. I walk into a huge abandoned, grey, concrete warehouse. It’s dark, with just a bit of light inside. After walking for a while I come across a number of people sitting on either side in a narrow passageway linking two large buildings. Some individuals are up on a ledge six feet higher. I notice a person with fuscia coloured, short cropped hair. The person raises her head. I see a young woman in her 20’s intently looking at me. Her hair had reminded me of the woman I was looking for. Walking on I see that most of the people are young. I come to the end of the passageway and I stop because I hear a man’s deep voice. He’s speaking slowly. There is something about it that raises the hair on my neck. I listen intently to what the voice is saying. He isn’t speaking loudly but his words penetrate and they are lyrical. He is speaking/reciting poetry. Intuitively I know it is his poem that he recites. I walk forward a bit, curious about who this is. Sitting on a loading dock at the end of a massive empty warehouse I see a large dark shape, in black clothing, maybe leather. There are a number of young people sitting around him. He has an immensity of energy about him and something else-a sense of love/life and death/annihilation together. I continue my search for the woman deeply affected by what I have experienced.

All of these dreams have a connection to finding a path towards finding ways to celebrate what has been, what is and what is coming. The following dream from a year ago moved me closer to this sense.

I’ve walked to an old church similar to some I explored as a child in England. Entering through a large wooden door I come upon people busily doing things. I meet Nicholas and Lillian. Lillian says I need your help and has me follow her through a narrow passageway then outside through a side door. Looking around I see a small courtyard in the corner made by the transept of the church. There is a low stone wall around it forming a square. The stone inside appears dark. There is a foreboding feeling about it-a cemetery I wonder. I hear her say I need your help. I notice I have an oblong wicker basket with low sides in my right hand. Turning to her I see she is swinging her legs from side to side kicking at a raised furrow of earth. She kicks something from the earth. I bend down to pick it up. It’s a smooth egg like stone, greyish white. I put it in my basket. After gathering a few more I begin t understand that these stones represent stories and lives (human, more than human) lost and will be lost, that we will take inside and celebrate. I begin to weep from the intensity of the moment. A deep sadness fills me. I think we could have lived human life in ways that wouldn’t lead to the catastrophe that is coming.

It’s my perception that all of these dreams are showing me a new path to take. Celebrate and show those in the collective who are open, the mycelial/rhizomic connections between all life. Engage with the dark beast man, the poet of life and death, where the young people (who know what is coming) are listening. By so doing maybe I will find the woman I am looking for. Maybe she will find me.