Dreams:  Driving through a central Michigan countryside.  Pass a two story white farmhouse with teenage boys milling around outside.  See the head of a blue cattle dog lying on the dirt.  Just the head.  Its eyes watch me as I pass.  There is also a green and yellow budgie the size of a pigeon rolling drunkenly in a ditch and an equally inebriated rabbit.  A small boy picks up the rabbit and flings it in the grass.  I don't like the look of the boys but I like less the look of everything else.  I stop the car and engage a black haired boy about fifteen in conversation.  Tell him I am worried about the appearance of the bird and the rabbit but say nothing about the dog.  In the meantime the others have built a small mound out of dirt and placed the dog's head on that.  It still watches the proceedings with a calm and interested air.  Does the farmer use pesticides, I ask.   If he does and it has had such a serious effect on these animals it may be affecting you too.  I urge him to call his local vet.  The dog bothers me.  Why is it still alive.  Why has it been beheaded.  The boy is polite and articulate but beneath the surface something unsavoury watches.

I am at a bbq or outdoor party.  Again it is central Michigan.  Birds fly squawking overhead.  I lean back and watch.  The mixed flock of birds circle and wheel overhead.  I don't know why they don't fly elsewhere.  Then I see a large white bird like a gannet catch a small sparrow in its beak.  The sparrow's head pokes out of the beak.  I can see the moist blackness of its eye.  I am sick with sorrow.  Always death.

Walking along a dirt road with Nicki.  Yesterday (in real life) I heard a male neighbour screaming, using an obscenity.  Don't know whether he screamed at his wife, children or the animals.  It bothered me as it was a sentence, unintelligible as most of it was, of pure rage.  His children and his wife and the animals were all a witness.  Nicki walks and lays her hand on my shoulder as she talks.  It lays there very heavy.  I wish she would remove it.  The screaming man's wife comes to me.  She is upset with her husband.  She is emotionally fragile after giving birth.  The husband is contrite.  We are all in the back seat of a car.  A very pale, almost ghostly young woman gets in with us.  The wife has hysterics.  She is frightened of the woman's whiter than white skin.  There is something uncanny about it but the woman is very much alive, very much flesh and blood.  The wife insists on leaving.  She is inconsolable.  I do my best to calm her down.  She leaves the phone off the hook.  I hear a tinny voice later and realise it's her husband.  It's all too messy.  Something about diving underwater too, unfortunately in the time it has taken me to type the above the memory of it has gone. 

No More Title as They are Annoying

Finally remembered a dream, at least more of a dream than previously. I was in an urban area but it felt like the American southwest. An urban area but with the prow of a large grey ship jutting over ? There was a shop. The proprietor was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. His glory simply took my breath away. But he was very professional, very aloof. He showed me some totally inappropriate (for me) blouses. They were also sort of Indian/Southwest in style with flouncy bits around the loose neckline, cotton, pastel coloured. Nice blouses but just not me. Another woman came into the store and she had a lovely slim figure, was pert and nicely dressed. I felt frumpy, middle-aged and overweight in comparison. She seemed to click with him and I watched in frustration tinged with resentment while she chatted with this beautiful man who didn't seem to know I was alive. I remember going out on this 'ship's prow' in bright sunlight with the wind in my face and then going back into the store which was dark and rich and ornate. I glanced into one room and noted with surprise that it had rugs on the floor and was a meditation room. That made the beautiful man even more attractive. No, someone said or I somehow instinctively knew, it was a temple, a sort of mosque where Moslems would bow to Mecca.

The dream was vivid but mysterious. I don't know why I've remembered this one and no other. At least asking myself to remember my dream is starting to pay dividends. Having no remembrance of a dream life makes daytime life a little less rich.

Started the new drawing last night. Rather difficult as I had a determined little kitten trying to get on my lap. I'm writing this and clicking into a site to read about perspective. It seems straightforward enough reading about it but how does one decide where the extra vanishing points are. I get eye level and a vanishing point that is within the picture at the horizon line but getting that second (or third), which may be outside of the frame of the picture is a bit more problematical. I'm doing a loose copy of that castle as a background for the main feature, a floating dreamlike man. Well, that's the thumbnail sans castle. We'll see how it goes.

We're going to P and G's this afternoon hoping to see the wild cockatoos. R is so obsessed about the well-being of the long released Caruso it would be pure joy if he saw him today. P fed a wild cockatoo seed yesterday so G writes. Perhaps it's Caruso.

Jack is sunflower seed obsessed. I have been making sunflower and pellet rissoles for several weeks so that he would get the taste of the pellets and recognise them as food. No joy. He still refuses them. This morning I took Marvin in so he could demonstrate to Jack that pellets are edible. Jack was interested and even cracked a couple of pellets although he didn't eat them. Still, it's a start. I have removed all sunflowers from his seed mix. He's going to have to tough it out. He's not a happy bird this morning. I've asked R to pick up some shelled sunflower seeds. I plan to crush them with pellets, a half and half mixture so that he will get the taste of the pellets with the motivation of that lovely sunflower seed taste. The plan is then to reduce the amount of sunflower in the rissole until we're back to plain pellets. The problem is that pellet rissoles have a different look and texture from plain pellet. But we've got to try. He'll die of fatty liver disease if his diet isn't modified. By watching carefully I've come to realise that all Jack eats are the sunflower and safflower seeds - both with high oil content. Because he, we suspect, is an old bird, it is twice as hard to convert him than if he was a young bird. Even Dimitri, a wild caught corella, was easier to switch than Jack. Then of course there was Cambridge who never made the switch. He (she) lives with G and P and is on a seed mix with some vegetables. At least Jack will eat some vegetables; corn and apple. He isn't much chop on anything else.

Last night I dragged a comb through my hairbrush to clear it. Out came the strands which I rubbed between my palms to make them into a wad to throw away. I looked down at it and it was a mixture of brown and white hairs. It looked like a grizzled old man's chest hair. It just looked so odd and so not me. Is that what my hair is? If I was a man with a hairy chest that's what it would look like. Most of the time I go through the days and don't realise that I'm over half a century old then something innocuous will happen which brings it home. Life is short and fleeting and oh so swift!

I've come to the end of the blog for today and that blank title box waits. I've kept a journal for years without putting a title on each entry except for the date. The label box is okay for it is a good way to look up previous posts but this title void in just annoying. So I won't put one.

The usual stuff

You know how sometimes you start the day and it's just kind of blah a going-through-the-motions sort of day. That was yesterday. Read a book all day. Of course had the excuse that it was just plain miserable weather. Very cold and those pre-spring westerlies which seem to slice through your skin and go straight to the bone. It was a day that one wanted to spend indoors with a warm cat and a warmer fire. Today however, whizz bang, lots of energy, lots of innate joy.

Speaking of cats. Natalia is going very well. No more accidents. She doesn't have to spend her nights in the bathroom with an oil heater and an old pillow. I thought she'd join the other cats on the bed but either she prefers the couch or she is intimidated by two very large and territorial adults who staked their claim to the bed, the doona and us many winters ago. Got up in the night to go to the loo and found Natalia curled sound asleep on the couch. She prrrted and purred when I touched her then went straight back to sleep.

Xrays are next week so fingers crossed that all is well. The alternative doesn't bear thinking about.

On a rather more sinister note. Matisse has started sneezing. I kick myself now for not vaccinating them when I had the chance. We had some recently expired F5's at work. We can't sell them to clients so were welcome to use them on strays (like Natalia) or on our own cats. Brought two vials home and then returned them the next day. The reason? My own cats intimidate me. If I took them into the surgery they could be vaccinated but here in their own home...just trying to de-flea Matisse is a major operation. He is so strong and so determined and so frightened (why?) that it is almost impossible to put a drop of stuff on the back of his neck. The thought of trying to hold him still while I gave him a needle was just too demoralizing. So now the prospect of him possibly having cat flu (with Nairobi to follow soon after?) is on the horizon. He's been sneezing since yesterday. Gave him the Natalia's last dose of Vibravet a few minutes ago. Just as I expected. He exploded then ran and hid. But he got the antibiotics.

On the bird front. Good stuff. Jack went for a wander yesterday clear to the back of the horse yards. Found himself a fallen branch and started to preen. He's quit attacking R's boots when he comes out. He's very interesting to watch actually as he tap tap taps his toes, one front one back lightly against the leather of R's work boots while squinting up at us with one dark eye. He's gone from having a go to just testing the water. Finally, yesterday he lost interest and wandered off yet when I asked him to step onto the tea tree branch he did so willingly. I was very proud of him. I think he understands that he is allowed out like the galahs but like the galahs after 20 or 30 minutes he has to return. I do make it worth his while by giving him a reward when he returns.

I'm trying something different with Dimitri. It's a slow process but I think I'm finally doing something sensible. He is so frightened of hands that giving him treats is always a challenge unless the treat is tossed to him or I spend many many minutes encouraging him to take it from my oh so still had. Now I've filled a small coop cup with budgie mix (he loves budgie mix) and I'm using that as the t in c/t. When he targets the stick I put the bowl down. He takes one to 5 nibbles and then I remove it. In that process my hand extends to put the bowl down and again to remove it. He gallops off when I remove the bowl but he isn't galloping as fast or as far as he did yesterday. Over time I believe he'll get used to it and will behave as Tachimedes does; Tach just eats out of the bowl while I hold it. That is something to aim for.

On the dream front. Not much luck. The first night I told myself to 'see my hands' in a dream I dreamed of spilling something, contents from a box? pages from a book? across the floor. I picked them up with my hands, saw my hands in the dream but didn't twig about it until I woke and remembered the dream.

For some reason my dream life is very silent. I'm dreaming I'm just not remembering them. I didn't used to have a problem with remembering dreams if I cued myself to remember as I drifted off to sleep so assume it's some kind of blockage I've arranged for myself for some unknown reason. I did have an imaginary stroll through the universe however. Imagination is such a brilliant tool. I used to have flying dreams but haven't been blessed with one for years so thought I'd make my own; not flying around a few hundred meters above the ground but straight up into the black velvety silence of outer space.

Meditation after yoga was pretty good today, good for me anyway so in tune with monkey mind. Still alot of chattering but glimmers of stillness. I've been pretty regular with yoga. Did an hour today without realizing how quickly the time had gone. There is improvement in my flexibility too, especially my neck. Other joints will take longer but that's okay. I feel so much better after a session, not only physically but mentally. It does calm me. I move with the breath and that centering does something blissful for the whole of me.

dimitri dreaming

More than a month has elapsed since the last post. Feel it too. Miss the chance to write, like being stopped up and needing to unplug. Anyway, while I remember I want to record a dream. I was in an unfamiliar house and went upstairs. In a bare room with windows were 3 or 4 cages with birds. Some were galahs but there was also a sulphur crested cockatoo. The cages were clean and filled with fresh water and seed but I was still horrified as I either didn't know these birds lived here (who was looking after them?) or did know and hadn't bothered to check on them. The galahs were flightless, likes the ones I have; broken wings or the like but it was the S. C. cockatoo that broke my heart. He was feathered but the feathers were thin and wispy, like an old man going bald. I got him out of the cage and he was so desperate for touch that he melted into my arms, snuggling and pressing as close as he could. So I cuddled and stroked him and the love and relief he felt was almost tangible. There was something about getting him into a larger cage rather than a cocky cage, or setting him free but the details are fuzzy.

As usual I have no idea how to interpret this dream. Perhaps it relates to Dimitri. It always comes back to Dimitri. A couple of weeks ago, while in that half state between sleeping and walking I had an epiphany. We had not made any progress whatsoever. I could feed him by hand but it was the same story, sometimes he would take the treat, other times he would back away as though I was coming at him with a hatchet. That morning, however, I recognized I'd positioned his tree stand all wrong. I'm so assiduous in telling clients that birds need to have a safe place, a place where they feel protected, where they can hide if they want and I hadn't followed that most elementary of advice for Dimitri. His tree stand was positioned out in the open, the open being he had the verandah wrap around screens in front and french doors into our bedroom in the back. He was always exposed, poor thing and I was too dumb to notice.
The very next day I moved his tree stand against the wall beyond the living room french doors so he always has something at his back. I can't do anything about the wrap around screens but as he is under cover with a wall at his back I trust he feels safer. He acts as though he does. I put a perch in the place where the tree stand used to be so that he can reach his vegetable skewer and have a change of perspective if he wishes - and sometimes he does. In front of the double doors (screened) leading outside, I've placed a large bark covered and very chewable branch. He uses that too. To guard against falls I've surrounded the tree perch with pillows and saddle pads. He rarely jumps now but sometimes he misjudges (and using one wing to try and right himself just throws him more off balance) and falls.

So this has helped. I've also modified my own behaviour. I no longer try and feed him by hand except when he head bobs and shows extreme interest. Instead I just toss millet seed onto the wood table adjoining his tree perch (where his pellets and water are kept) every time I go onto the verandah. Yesterday he voluntarily came over and took some from my fingertips which was lovely. But I didn't push it. If he shows any hesitation I lower my arm or back off.

I've also been c/t'ing him to target a plastic ball with a bell inside it. It is obvious to me now that the clicker made him nervous. Not because of the noise but because of the intensity with which I attempted to *train*. The intensity of a predator. So it is taking much longer for him to target the ball because of that. I'm not worried however as I finally feel I am on the right track with him. The more I know him the more obvious it becomes that he is an extremely sensitive bird and my tramping through his life with hob-nailed boots, despite good intentions, has had a deleterious effect. This morning was the first time he intentionally touched the ball for a treat. I was chuffed.

It all ties into yoga. With the intensity of my wanting to be friends I actually made it more difficult for us to be so. Now, with the mindset that we will go at his speed rather than me trying to force it it is starting to happen. Which of course means removing my ego from the equation. I could fool myself (and did) with saying that I wanted to be friends for his own good. For instance, he hasn't had a bath since he's been here. That's months. No way could I mist him yet every time it rains he gets excited and I know he wants to be out in it hanging upside down like any good cockatoo. For him to enjoy the rain I'd have to get him in the cage, which he hates, and take that outside - very stressful, or allow him outside under his own steam. But in order to get him back in again I'd have to towel him or chase him back up the steps. Disaster. So for his own happiness he had to be friends with me. Not a very successful precept.

Strange too that I am more relaxed around him as I don't have an agenda anymore. Well, that's not entirely true or I wouldn't try and shape him to touch the ball but as the ball is on the floor he can walk away if he feels it's too stressful - and he does. More and more, however, he chooses to hang around and get treats for walking in the right direction and jackpots for actually touching it even if it's only accidentally. I'm very happy for both of us.

Dreams and the Not So True

From the window I see four horses exchanging gossip around the water trough. Two tails swish; perhaps they're not happy about the subject. "Is it a rumour that we'll have to stay in this over eaten paddock because She says we're too fat? Surely not. I can still see my knees."
Barely. Freya and Dakota both have crests of fat on their neck. My forefinger sinks into flab before I can find a rib on Drifter and Pagan has no waist. Only Balthazar, being the streamlined thoroughbred that he is, looks about right. They'll just have to tough it out. The only other alternative, and one which will have to be introduced later in the summer, is shutting them up in the yards for most of the day. Everyone, including me, hates that. But it's better than foundering.
On another subject altogether. I was thinking about the nature of truth today. Yeah, the big philosophical subject. Truth and how little of it I manage to write. Was it Hemingway that spoke about the difficulty in writing one true sentence. His writing is so spare yet powerful (must reread him one day). But I'm skirting around the subject. I don't write the truth in here. I haven't learned how. Sure, I write about this and that, the outward happenings but as soon as I start to zero in on what I'm really thinking or feeling, the censor raises it's mighty head and silences me with a 'what if'. What if someone read this. What if I'll be judged. What if I'm not really a nice girl with nice thoughts and nice intentions? I wouldn't know the truth if it reared up and bit me. Sometimes I think of something that I think I'll write about; something of importance (at least to me - because it's the Truth) and just as quickly I'll forget about what it was I was going to write about. I am concerned with vanity and other people's opinions (did I write about, truthfully write about my well-deserved humiliation and shame of a few weeks ago? No, it made me look bad. Because I was bad and it's important to myself that I lie enough to keep the illusion alive).
How difficult can it be? Bloody difficult. Nigh impossible. But I'll never write one good sentence unless I can rip the veneer away. It takes more bravery than I possess to be an honest human being - and I'm not talking about garden variety honesty. I've no difficulty with that kind of honesty. It's the honesty within myself that I don't access.
Woke from a nightmare last night. Driving along at night with the headlights illuminating a verge teeming with big red bears. Bears and wolves? Bears and wolves and moose? There were two other frightening critters on this one lane road but I don't remember what they were. Got to a house, my house although I didn't recognize it, and somehow made it inside. Went into my sister's room. White bedspread on a neatly made bed. Two scarves, one red, one dark hanging from one of the posts of the fourposter. Something, I don't know what, on the foot of the bed. But she wasn't there. Hadn't been there for quite a while. It felt empty and abandoned. Went to my room which had a bathroom/shower attached. Closed and locked the doors, drew the curtains but could hear the bears snuffling and crashing through the shrubbery outside. I was so frightened I woke up. Yet the bears, as I drove through them and while in the house, didn't try and attack. No broad bear paws swiping at the car. No yellow bear teeth tearing at the house. Just me and the dark and the sounds of bears being bears.
Now I think dreams that are powerful enough to wake me have a powerful message. Not that I know what that message is, I don't. Bears, bare? Nakedness. The nakedness of truth-telling? What about my sister and that spartan bed. I remember thinking at the time that it was like a blank sheet of paper, waiting to be written on. Yet it was abandoned. Who abandoned it? Me. I don't live up to my sisters expectations. I love her yet I feel distant from her too (now here's a bit of truth). We found during our last trip together, how we tiptoe around one another. Here I was thinking she was the one with the chip on her shoulder (and I was the good girl with the easy going temperament) and she thought the exact same thing of me. I don't get it. I really don't. Tiptoeing around my sister. Impossible. Unheard of! She's the only person who really knows me. But perhaps not so much any more. We have spent too much time apart, led lives that are vastly different so although our beginnings were shared (and no one understands the family home like a sibling), it is no longer the majority of our lives. And what about those scarves, although they were more like squares of cloth than scarves that were meant to be worn. What is the significance of them?
Many years ago I kept a dream diary. I dutifully wrote down every dream I remembered, and I remembered lots! Kept a notebook by the bed and wrote down key words and passages as soon as I awoke. Transcribed them into the journal and then attempted to interpret them. It was abysmal. I think I successfully interpreted one dream from the hundreds I recorded. How do I know? There was a Eureka feeling. Unmistakable. I just knew it was true. A warm wash of success and release. All I ever got from the other dreams was frustration.
But it made me think. Who dreams these dreams? Why are the dreams so inaccessible? Why is it important that they are impossible to interpret and understand? What danger is there in understanding dreams? What am I hiding from myself that is so dangerous? No suppressed memories here. I wasn't abused by either parent or any other person until I was 17 - and by then even though it knocked me for six for a few years, I eventually recovered. My life is happy and well rounded. I don't suffer from bouts of depression. I'm generally happy and content - so why the mystery?
There was another snippet too, of me thrusting my face into another face and saying, "Boy-yea, not Boy-er." My middle name is Boyer, like Charles Boyer, French not English. So, what was all that about?