Not sleeping in Buffalo

It’s the second time I have woken this morning – a dream is responsible (more on that below). The first time was around 3AM, Seget Vranjica Croatia time, stars still dazzling the ink blue sky, Venus descending, the moon a silvery white sliver as it completes its latest transit. I drank water, had a piece of spirulina and oat superfood bar and went back to bed to reply to some emails and Facebook posts back in the United States, and then fell back into a soft cocoon of warmth that, unfortunately, did not involve sharing with the right man.

20 November 2014 Buffalo Central Train Terminal in background as record snows are cleared.

In my apartment back in Rochester NY I have a feather bed atop my mattress and box springs. Obviously, no matter how desirous of such comfort, I was not going to haul such a weighty and bulky thing with me, though as regular readers of my blog will recognise I did bring a queen size down comforter and one of my Anichini duvet covers along  with a mohair afghan purchased from Calzeat of Scotland many years ago with me. (Despite the body numbing of swimming in 17C sea water temperatures a pilgrimage of self discovery this might be but I am never going to be an ascetic.)    Thankfully my landlady also had outfitted my bed with a king size down and feather comforter (it weighs nearly as much as my feather bed back ‘home’ (though I am less and less sure about where home is these days). Hers is covered with two layers of satin brocade and then tucked into an equally heavy duvet of thick white cotton embroidered in white long the upper edge. There are matching cases for the dense feather and down filled pillows (which I use as a headboard, while I actually sleep on my own pillows). When I initially arrived two weeks ago I had folded hers in half and slept atop of it.   As those living in Buffalo NY (where I was born and lived for 29 years) know only too well, the weather can change dramatically in two days time. And so with temperatures dropping into the 40s at night (and no heat in the bedroom) I am now tucked inside the white one (sleeping bag style with all the pillows mounded above and around me) with my own down comforter over me and the mohair cloud with the colours of the Scottish Highlands holding my body heat in place. If I soft focus I can almost manifest the sublime joy of resting with “the he” in such an environment and fall asleep with the angels providing protection and sweet dreams.

Yesterday on Facebook an article appeared from  The Independent about how a woman has opened a “cuddling shop”, for $60 USD an hour she will hold your hand, stroke your hair, hug you and talk to you (without implications of sex). I thought about the loneliness so many experience (she received 10,000 emails of enquiry in her first week of business) and think she’s onto something. We, in the west, sleep alone. We do not sleep in a single room choke-a-block with 15 or more relatives. I think our isolation makes us hungry for touch – willing to pay for it to realise even an hours worth of connectedness with a complete stranger. While a tremendous economic opportunity for her what a sad commentary on the state of being in the United States.  I could have, or should have, cried in reading the article but I didn’t. While I might want to share my bed with the ‘right man’ I am not in need of sharing it with just any man. The truth is that I have not found a man I felt sufficiently ‘in comfort with’ to share my bed in more than twenty years. Want implies mutuality and a conscious decision to be vulnerable, to love unconditionally, to trust, to believe in the fullness of being which both partners bring to the intimate sanctuary of sleep. Whereas to need something (or someone) conveys desperation, an unquenchable hunger to possess that will ever leave the person demanding fulfillment void.

And so while nestled in my cocoon of sleep, just before I woke for the second time, a dream. I rarely remember these, I don’t write them down, and do not possess the skill to interpret their meanings, but this morning was different – this dream, ripe with messages stands out because for a couple of reasons.

I was sitting at a slatted wooden picnic table.  The light is from a campfire and a nearly set sun. There is a man sitting opposite me, his wife or girlfriend has just sat down in a chair to my right.    On the table before me are silver spoons or slim decorative pieces each about 7″ in length – they are united in having a small scene at the top like old fashioned ‘souvenir of’ spoons.  Two I distinctly recall, one with a three petaled Trillium flower and the other with a group of men in Medieval clothing including chain mail on horses (knights?). The campfire is to the left of me, and a man appears there, speaks and then disappears. The woman gets a call, she has long hair and resembles a backup singer for a rock band the way she is dressed and is suddenly she is gone too. At the left of my hand there is a clutch of folded money, lots of it. The man opposite picks up the silver spoons/ornaments but leaves me with the Trillium and the Medieval men, and the money, saying only at his parting “it was foretold”. In a way that is true, my tarot cards were read on Halloween Eve (All Hallows Eve) my defining card at the centre being the Knight of Cups (more on this later). But in that reading, and as conveyed by three other friends within hours and days following was the same message – verbatim. I am protected by angels and guardians, human and Divine beings, I am surrounded by great love, that I must allow myself to release the energetic block I have toward wealth (rather than the spiritual and emotional abundance I enjoy, embrace and express gratitude for) and once I release the associate fear (of in having it turning into a world class jerk) I would have “all that I need” and more.  The universe is always sending us messages. I acted on a physical realm one this past Monday morning, and this morning, within a matter of two hours of waking, that action appears to be more than a possibility of becoming my new reality – and staying on indefinitely in Croatia (friends in the United States do not panic unduly I should be back by May to pack up and leave for good if this works out).

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