I dreamt I was outside at night

with a lot of people I can’t say I recognize. However, my still-selfish boy-men sons who wouldn’t lift a finger for me, may have been nearby somewhere but I can’t tell. (I can only sense their presence, now awake but did not see them in the dream.) There was some sort of animosity around and it was coming mainly from a dark-haired man. Suddenly, golden stars like those on elementary school papers for a job well done, exploded in a burst in the dark night sky. Wow, I looked up and was amazed at the glorious display and then there was another and a another and another. It was fascinating but to my terror and alarm, the earth beneath our feet suddenly disappeared and we were as standing on nothing but clouds.

There is a red-brick building nearby and it is similar to look or feel as was my elementary school from childhood. I begin to swim-walk through the clouds and see the only person I know amid the crowd. It is D (who in real life is writing a book about love and happiness and who I discussed the topic with at length many a day as I took a break from my own writing at the little cafes where we used to bump into each other). But in the dream he looks confused and scared (or was it unaware?) so I grab his hand, because he is my friend, and tell him we have to get to shelter in the school and I drag him along with me.

Inside, people are hiding from the groundless earth but on one side it is like a restaurant, with tables similar in look and/or feel to the tables at the restaurant that is next door to where I live now. People there seem to simply be dining and enjoying their fare. But before me, there are refugees camping out all over seats, like pews in a church, and on the floor, some in sleeping bags, some with blankets and some with nothing.

Later I dreamt, after waking up scared of unknown natural disaster, that I am in another school, more like my high school. I notice a frosted birthday cake in a bag that was supposed to be for a woman that reminds my of a girl named Louise in high school but also reminds me of a young woman on a women’s forum, whose nickname there is independenteagle and who I believe is a noxious troll (or else I’ve been duped into believing it by other noxious and irritating trolls; mean and hateful is their game and their tireless and mindless but destructive passion).

But I feel the need to bring the cake to Louise/independenteagle even though it’s late and her birthday has already passed. I am in the process of doing what is necessary to bring this cake in the white paper shopping bag with handles, along with other shopping bags full of things with things like decorations and wrapping paper but then I see that members of the church (the one I used to love and trust, but trust no more) are doing it and they’re doing it in a very big way and obnoxious manner.

I am grateful to be relieved of the responsibility but I am aggravated about the largess of the project because it has overtaken all of the rooms in the building, with lots of junk laying about all over the place, so much so that it’s difficult to walk and even dangerous in some areas such as stairwells, etc. As I am trying to traverse one of these stairways, which is like an obstacle course, I mutter something in frustration about the pastor being drunk. Someone hears me and what was a nonsensical muttering, out of frustration to myself, is quickly rumored around the entire congregation. And an exaggerated rumor about what I declared to everyone--gets back to him.

OH! Imagine the scandal.

While standing in line for something, someone tells me they need to see my identification. I tell them I am not required to show my I.D. at church and that it’s an inane request, it seems discriminatory to me; it is discriminatory. Then Pastor McD comes up from behind me and instructs me that I must show my identification. I realize in the dream that this is weird and uncalled for but he’s the friggin boss. (Blah, blah, blah.) As I attempt to retrieve my I.D. from my back jean’s pocket, it gets stuck. I can’t get it out of my pocket. But it is of no consequence because the man-boy behind the desk is too busy gabbing and chattering nothingness and nonsense with brain-dead people who are hovering around him and the man-boy isn’t paying an dit of attention to me. (My lucky day, again.)

However, Pastor McD also added before he left, “I want to see you, you and you,” (pointing to me first) in a voice that is dictatorial/patriarchal. If I would have dared, I would have rolled my eyes and said, “oh brother, would you give it a rest, would you just shut the fuck up you lying conniving (but charismatic) piece of shit.” But of course you can’t say that to your pastor. So, I am waiting around to see him and waiting and waiting and waiting, dutifully as always, but he has been side-tracked and distracted by all the things and all the attendant glory that really get his mojo going. (Ha ha ha; my lucky day.) He’s so transparent, he’s always the same, I don’t really need to listen to his dumb lies anyway.

So in the dream I realize that no one is paying a dit of attention to this farce of a scene, nobody cares about the protocol and directives as they preach/profess, and I begin to plan my way out of there. I go to one exit and am planning to take a shortcut to a place I know (somewhere “over there behind the hill”) but one rare kind and wise soul there advises me that it is not the right way to go because there may even be some danger in that big field of mice and snarky snakes.

So, per his advice, I take the regular path right out the front door even though I will more readily be seen. But no one cares, no one is watching me because no one really gives a hoot even though they like to bark a lot about dumb doctrines and dogmas and requirements and all that moralistic mumbo jumbo. Thus, I am walking down the path and see Auntie A--who I have always respected and watched from afar.

In the dream, Auntie A is watering her flowering plants in front of her simple and humble but beautiful abode and she is the only one around who doesn’t go to the inane church. Auntie A never did go to the church and she is still alive and she is old but to me she is so beautiful. Auntie A is one of my inspirations in life. I have always been encouraged and lifted up by that woman’s values, even though she never so much as invited me for tea (she is really my X's aunt). In the dream I feel validated, vindicated and hopeful that I am on the right path. Amen.