I suppose the word must have spread on the astral...

Somehow I'd forgotten to post this earlier, but this is the art notebook I kept during 2021-2022. I don't know if it's good at all, but I do know I finished it, and that must count for something.

The Year Of Dreaming Dangerously

Okay, that's a wee bit of an exaggeration. It hasn't been dangerous at all. But it has been interesting, 

When I decided to give the twelvetide fortune-telling method a shot last year, it was mainly as a lark, to try a different form of divination and bring old folklore into modern practice. I hadn't the foggiest notion what the results might be. Now that a year has come and gone, it's time to review. What came to pass? What was a bust? Let's have a look, shall we?

The original post is here

Prediction for January:

Aside from China's landing of a probe on the dark side of the moon and running various tests (as mentioned in the original post) at the same time, I also became acquainted with Before The Moon Falls, by The Fall, a band that had only vaguely entered my awareness before. 

These two items I consider to be predictive hits. As for ballerinas and plunging to my death, nada. 

Prediction for February:

Aside from Trump's plan that didn't work (does anyone even remember which one it was? ) this one was a bust. No hair accident, no driving the old men crazy, not even anything particularly amber colored. The closest anything came to this at all was discovering an odd shade of lips gloss (Pac-Man Pinky pink ) that seems extremely appealing to men of a certain age. But this is pretty wide of the mark, and what's more, it happened in December. So yeah, I'm calling it a bust.

Prediction for March:

 Yeah, no.

Prediction for April:

Big hit with this one re: Bobo being our mail carrier, which I wrote about here. The catch is that it happened in March, not April. Aside from that, it's interesting to see how such dream imagery translated to real life (provided you believe in such things.)

Alas, still no word from Robert Reich about his feelings for me.

Prediction for May:

This was my favorite dream out of the bunch, and the one I was most hoping would come true. And it did come true, though it wasn't immediately obvious, as it turned out to be quite metaphorical, even for a dream. The key here is in remembering what a monstrance is made to hold.

It happened in two parts, the first in April (so again, a month ahead of time). I was unexpectedly sent something which was very meaningful to me, and I wondered how I'd got so lucky. The second part came in August, and fits in with the rare recording aspect of the dream (though neither Berber nor Moroccan). They were two parts of the same thing.

If it seems I'm being cagey about this, it's because it's one of those things that instinctively feels private and not for public display, so you'll have to take my word for it. This dream also gives me a hint of what the recurring motif of silver might indicate.

The carnival represents social media, of course.

Prediction for June:

A hit in my estimation, described here. Again, slightly early, but a little closer to being on time.
The bit about the tea, though, is still a mystery.

Prediction for July:

Not a darned thing. Sorry.

There were no real workable dreams for August or September, as one was an OBE and the other was more or less a blank. There was some imagery of farm houses in the OBE which I think I found when out in that direction recently, though. For whatever that's worth.

Prediction for October:

This one came to pass while running our little shop at the street market during the summer. Again it came early, in July, or maybe August. We went to eat at a pastry shop, and when going to wash up, I discovered a room much like the one in the dream, with velvet curtains on rings. However, it was not a dressing room behind the curtains, but a storage room. The restroom, quite unusually, had no mirror.

Despite things not fitting exactly, it did give me a dizzying moment of deja vu.

Prediction for November:

It's so hard to know what to say about this one. I did not meet a man or a girl of this description, I did not come upon a box of fire. Did I participate in casting a spell on myself? This is much harder to say. But, having thought it over at length, I realize how much this dream is interwoven with the next one...

Prediction for December:

Again, this one took shape in a way that diverged significantly from the dream imagery. While the aforementioned forum member has been mercifully absent from my waking life, the theme of following clues and searching for hidden things has been very present. Also, frustration with/ losing interest in a game and finding a key (though not a literal one) were strong elements this month as well.

This being the case, I would call it a predictive hit, but in such an allegorical way that it would make no sense to anyone not aware of all the details. In short, I couldn't have seen it coming, but in retrospect the story is there. Not sure this is much help as far knowing the future, though.

And because the twelve days of Christmas has only eleven nights, I threw in one more for good measure:

Prediction for January 2020:

There has been no sign of Christopher Eccleston or anyone else to save the world as yet. So, nope. Unfortunately.
 
All in all, the twelvetide fortune telling method was fairly good, as these things go, and certainly a fun and mystical activity for the holidays.

Next post, I'll lay out my dream predictions for 2020, and if they're anything like right this time, it's going to be a weird year.

The Gateless Gate

When I wrote about the twelvetide fortune-telling method in January, I didn't know how much to expect as far as divination was concerned. There have been a few subtle bits and pieces that had seemed accurate predictions, and this one in March that I'm convinced was quite accurate indeed, although the month was off.

Now I've got another hit, I believe, and this time, the timing was very close to the mark. Read on and decide for yourself...

This is what I wrote about my dream on December 30th, 2018:

"In waking life, there are two arched gateways in my town that are several miles apart. In my dream, however, theses gateways have become two sides of the same gate, as if the distance between them has disappeared. It's a little eerie, as if this suddenly appearing shortcut violates the laws of physics. Nevertheless, I pass through it on my way somewhere. I find a shop where I ask for a cup of hot tea.They say they don't have any, but I tell them they do, they just don't realize it. I find the tea and get my drink for free."

A couple of weeks ago, thinking about those gates, I went to check the one that is in my neighborhood. It had been a while since I'd last looked. But when I got there, what do you know - it was gone.

The gate had been in that space between the trees - previously, and always, as far as I know - it had  led to undeveloped land that was used as a wildlife reserve. Now, there was a road being built, It was easy to see down the cleared space to where a neighborhood was going up.

Now, I had known that a housing edition was being built somewhere back there, but it was my understanding that there would be no road connecting it with our neighborhood, for the sake of minimizing traffic. Yet there it was.

Feeling a bit disturbed by this, I drove the several miles it took to reach the new neighborhood to have a look at it.  The route I took is marked here in green:

This is a route that had been more or less the same my entire life, but sure enough, there was now a new road - one with the same name as the one in my neighborhood. Like so:

As you can tell by the positions of gate 1 and gate 2 on the map, they are not connected, but by golly, there is now a new road connecting them much more closely together, something I did not at all imagine happening last December.

Here is the second gate, just for reference:

And here is the new road, from the vantage point of the new neighborhood being built:

This is just on the other side of the now missing gate.

The distance between the two gates is now reduced considerably, and at the same time is sure to bring changes to this place, which had remained the same for such a long time. This change does make me a bit uneasy, much like the gate in the dream.

This was a prediction for June, and while I discovered this in late ,May, the road isn't open yet. For all I know, it will be open within the month.

As for the part of the dream with the shop and the tea, I'm not sure what meaning that has, if any.

I suppose it might mean that even though this change may be somewhat disturbing, not to be too closed-minded and risk overlooking any positive aspects of the new situation.

The Mysteries Of Fate, Part 2

Back in January, I posted about the twelvetide fortune-telling method in which a person writes down their dreams during the twelve days of Christmas. Some of the dreams were so wacky that it seemed impossible to make any (sane) prediction from them, but...I may have got another hit.

On December 28th, I dreamed:

"my son and I are walking down the road when we meet our new mail carrier, James "Bobo" Faye from Finding Bigfoot. He greets us very cheerfully and hands us each a copy of Reader's Digest."

This was a fun dream, but I was stymied as to any sort of meaning it might have. However, on February 11, a notice was posted that a hoard of old Fate magazines was for sale on eBay. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love Fate magazine, especially the old ones which were digest-sized. As a gift, my son bid on them and won.

I wasn't thinking at all about the Bobo dream at the time, but then suddenly it struck me: in the dream, Bobo Faye, a Bigfoot hunter, delivers to my son and me copies of a digest-sized magazine. In reality, my son buys me a load of digest-sized magazines about such things as Bigfoot, to be delivered by mail. And the name "Faye" has only one letter different from '"Fate."

It might seem silly, but it really does seem to combine the elements of what was basically a nonsensical dream.

The one problem, as far as the twelvetide fortune-telling method goes, is that this should have happened in April, not February.

Oh well, I'm not complaining. I'll be off to read my magazines now.

Signs And Symbols

Back in March, I posted about an unnerving dream I'd had. Most of what I wrote then concerned my rather fraught relationship with an old schoolmate who'd appeared in the dream, but in the months since, other elements of the dream have gained prominence. Below, I've excerpted the parts concerning the dream itself. The original post is here.

...


March 31, 2018 

Last night's dream was an unsettling one. Not a nightmare really, but unnerving somehow. I am still unsure what it means.

A winter storm was coming, a blizzard the likes of which we'd never seen. It hadn't arrived yet, but everyone was warned to be prepared. I was at home, alone. Where everyone else had gone I've no idea - it didn't seem to matter. You know how it is in dreams.

I looked around - the house was dark, and not warm, but the walls were sturdy and I figured I'd be all right if I chose to stay. At the same time, I'd had an offer - who knows how it came - from a group of hippies who had set up a tent site on the edge of town. They were nice tents - more like yurts, really, specially insulated and heated - in which to ride out the storm.  There were 200 tents, the hippies said, and they had one for me if I wanted it.

I was doubtful at first. I didn't even know these people, and maybe it was best to keep to myself, but the hippies convinced me it was better not to be alone, especially in a storm like this.

The tents were set up in a field below mission hill, all of them bright white. All the people were dressed in white as well, although there was no obvious reason for this. It occurred to me that when the snow came we'd all be camouflaged, invisible to any predatory eye, though whether this was intentional or not, there is no way to know.

I was shown to my tent, which was indeed very nice, and put on my warm white clothes. I then went out to wander among the people in the field. All of them were strangers, and as usual I was feeling shy. Starting conversations has never been my strong point.

After making a few nodding acquaintances, I was surprised to be introduced to someone I already knew, a woman named Lori.

[...]

I shook [...] Lori's hand and said "I don't know if you remember me." She said, "oh, of course I do" and I replied "well, we have known each other since the age of 7."

Just then, though, my hand began to bleed, ghastly red dripping all over our clean white clothes. I apologized, although I couldn't quite explain it. "It's no problem" Lori was saying, but by then I had noticed that the blood had run into the lines of my palm - the left palm, the lines that mark the potential with which you were born.

That's when I woke up.


...


It was in April that the parent/child separation policy went into effect for migrants on the border, and June when the first tent city/children's detention camp went up in Tornillo, Texas. This has caused an immense amount of distress in the state as well as the country. Indeed, I've had a sick headache just about every day since then. All the same, when I saw the pictures of the tents, I couldn't help but recall the dream. The scenario was different, but the imagery was strikingly similar. 

I found this similarity interesting, but not necessarily relevant, until I learned of all the protest marches being planned. The marchers are requested to wear white. That spooked me a bit. White clothes - was this only a coincidence? Considering this, I became concerned about the final disturbing image in the dream, my spontaneously bleeding palm. 

Today, there was a protest at the capitol, and i happened to see the news footage on TV. There was a banner being carried by some of the marchers - it's the one at the top of the page. It wasn't evident at first glance that it was a small red hand print inside a larger yellow one - it first looked to me like a bleeding palm, outlining the fate lines of the left hand.

I still don't know what to make of this. As a coincidence, it seems vanishingly unlikely. Perhaps these are images that happened to filter back to my psyche from the future, and my dreaming mind folded them into a story. I can't pretend to know. but I confess I am concerned. 

In any case, I expect the road ahead will require courage of us all.

Spirit Of The Water

When it's been raining for a while, the sides of the road fill with water, like little flood-meadows.One morning after a particularly wet few days, I dreamt that I went to look at one of these puddles, and saw a golden koi rise to the surface.

I didn't know what it meant, but it felt lucky somehow. After all, what else could a golden koi mean?

The next day, I happened to be next to a murky pond. I didn't imagine there was any living thing there, but suddenly a golden koi rose to the surface, much like the dream.

It's not clear if that week was any luckier than usual, but I felt an uncommon peace surround me.

I suppose luck is in the eye of the beholder.