Postscript on a prolonged dream.

I am drinking chicory instead of coffee. I found a tube of it in the natural section of the market. The caffeine makes me dull. I crackle for a few hours and then dim—much like a glow stick.

My stomach was upset during the entire trip to Toulouse with Clara and Karmen. I could not defecate for three days. Thursday was a full moon, which only means that I am aligned with the cycles. I bled through my pastel blue underwear and wore my dark leggings the entire visit.

My dreams are very vivid. Disarming. In need of being decoded.

Last night, I dreamt I was covered in semen from head to toe. It was raining, and I stayed in a cabin in the woods. I went outside to order food and purchased a sandwich for twenty-four dollars. That part is particular. I was wearing white and lavender in the dream. A long dress that swished and billowed around my thighs. I love fancy clothes.

Semen represents the creative- flooded with desire and intuitive wisdom. It is the emotional, fluid realm surfacing. It is the connection with the divine masculine. It is about losing control and release.

The symbols from this dream:

• wet outside, rain, running water, darkness, dampness, forest

• light, flowing clothes, my hair tied back, my face and arms bare

• feeling full and nourished, feeling sated and free, feeling powerful

• wood, greens, linen, skin, gold, silver, white, lavender

• I am at the center; I am acknowledged.

I have been focusing on water meditations and visualizations. They help me relax and focus on the movement within and around everything. Before bed, I offered E to the water in my visualization. I put him on a leaf and watched the leaf flow down the river. I said goodbye. I don't want it any longer. I am carrying it alone and I have other things to carry. It feels like a burden; it feels unnecessary. It feels detached and I am hopeful for a change that never comes.

It is my own doing and undoing.

I want to invest myself energetically in a few key areas. What is the return on the energetic output? This was my question the whole ride home on the bus. It has been raining off and on for days. There is a quiet clearing. It is cool today, so I will hike to my path at the river and sit for a while. I will offer the water leaves and flowers if I can find them.

This is the term to get organized. I have many questions and no straightforward answers. There is no need to rush. There is a well by my home here in Villefranche and I can hear the water running underneath the stone pathways. I listen to it while I recline in bed.

Things are never what you imagine them to be, so why bother?

How are visualizations different?

There is more intention behind the image. There is a set sequence of events that lead to an outcome- internally; you are moving the energy to create a sensation or encourage an idea to take root.

Today my sadhana and studies begin after four days of being more or less relaxed about it while I was with Clara and Karmen.

I had a premonition on the bus ride to meet them:

• the visions must change. there are new ideas to be harvested, so I must let go of whatever I held on to in the past.

I will move again in 2025, packing up my home in Istanbul. I cannot stay in this country as it is, and there is no other path for me to pursue. I tried the residency and the work permit.

Yesterday, I released Istanbul. I let go of the pushing and pulling I've had inside of me: planning and pursuing. Threads are appearing, and other directions are becoming visible.

It's not clear, just noticeable. I must feel it to free myself. I cannot think my way around the questions. I have to let them root and blossom within my bones.

Belonging

My lifeline is tethered to the audio memos I listen to over and over. Who belongs in this body? Who does it belong to? What can I do to arrive more soundly and safely inside of myself?

Energy expenditure, where I place myself, and who I give my attention must be examined. I am examining whose words you pick up and choose to carry with you through the web of life you are constructing, one thread at a time.

It all takes time. No matter what you will create. Seasons pass, and it may look as if nothing has transpired. However, there is action under the surface. There are conversations being had and people being broken at this very second. I don’t know them. I never will. I have met some of the broken ones, the forlorn folk who give up before they get started.

There are many like this around me. They are happy to pour a cup of coffee and wonder, sitting simply by themselves. Others create their means of controlling their atmosphere. It's all very trite and boring to me.

The same things keep occurring—sequences outside of my conscious design.

When I lay the pathway, they will be made of stone and glue.

I have been dreaming of Morocco—the pink, yellow, and blue seafoam and birds, woven baskets, and tagine pots. Part of me calls it home, and part of me does not know where home is. Some people say I belong in the place I am in and can move every ninety days; it is not a problem for me. I need a wink.

Summer is here in the South of France. The Isle de Coquelicots Rouges. I find red flowers with black eyes on each walk, no matter the direction. North or East, I trace the riverbed. It winds and bends, and I follow. The nighttime is cold and distant. Of the Woman, she says. By day, I sit in the study, perched just so on a narrow green chair. There is yellow and green; I alternate between both. Sometimes, I need someone to step in and freshen up my mindset—a brief interlude, season on hydrangeas.

My sister has been the one to do this for me. Decades later, and I still need her to work through the knots inside of my body.

You are anchored in the physical, she says. And she is true.

Photo source.