THAT DAY

In modern dance class today, choreography practice. We form groups and must invent dances to fit a taped song. Our group takes the beat to be half the speed the others do, and develops only half as much material. Embarrassing!

Oh well, it's still fun and exercise. Not just for my body. For my shyness. Touching and playing with women.

And a still harder exercise: in making mistakes in front of everyone.

At home, I read SF Eye, an alternative science fiction zine. An article says "Good science fiction's nearly impossible now, for there's no established reality anymore, no firm cosmology, moral ideas, political beliefs, or social structures for a writer to play off of." Like jazz, or satire--it's hard for musicians or political humorists either. When anything goes, nothing works.

THAT NIGHT

I'm on an endless quest in a deep wood. It's parklike, with shady grass under scattered, immense trees. Hundreds of miles of forest, whole kingdoms under the trees...

Here live a people who are famed in the outside world for being made of crystal or spun glass! Gem-people... But that's not the whole truth. Here, within their own country, they are living flesh, real people, full of strong magic. I leapt across the border creek, and instantly their glassy flesh opaqued to tan... Well, that's relativity for you.

Later on my quest, I must hang out in City Hall, which is a spectacular crystal palace... I have to wait hours inside, near the city records office. I'm uneasy, expect to be harrassed by cops or politicians, but no one cares. Don't FEEL I have a right to be here, though I know I do. I don't go after the records I want though. Nor run away. Just hover.

But that patience pays off!

When I return to my mortal world, I find I have a treasure: peace of mind! Much calmer.

Days pass, as I consolidate this change inside... It takes some adjustment, being calm after a lifetime of nervousness. Feels good but wrong. But it isn't. I'll learn. Patience

And then a magician from the Crystal Wood shows up! Stalking me into the everyday world.

And not with friendly intent. He says "Your spells covered your escape very well; it took me long to track you. A clever trick, changing your gem-body to that cheap glass body you're wearing. A perfect disguise. But I finally figured it out. You can't escape us."

I wasn't hiding from anyone. I didn't do any spells. My body's not glass, but flesh. I look like glass to him?

I'm scared of this guy, but I hide that. He's got his weak points too. Even without knowing any magic, maybe I can protect myself. Now let's see. He didn't talk with me, just to me. He's projecting cunning onto me. Maybe he's concerned about being seen as clever. Competitive? People like that are scared of making mistakes...

"You have made several mistakes." I say mildly. He tenses, waits for my attack... Ah. In his philosophy, one attacks people who make mistakes! So I'm rattling him just by standing here peacefully.

What AM I gonna do with this guy? And I need to find out about this gem-body... did I have a different body in the Wood without noticing? Who does he think I am? Do I have the powers he thinks? Maybe I use them naturally and unconsciously as a shaman should, rather than channeling them with the spells of a mage.

Or maybe I have no powers at all. But then how did I get there, into that impossible world?

There and back again.

I'm not sure what to do. He's so fearful inside--and such people lash out.

Try to stay calm... Oh. That's what I'm supposed to learn, isn't it?

NEXT MORNING

• Glass people? The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, of course. My environmental illness and social fragility make me identify with Laura in Glass Menagerie and her glass unicorn. The horn, which got broken off, is her specialness, her difference. What's mine--shamanic and psychic dreams? I fear to lose my spirit if I do anything too worldly. Like make a living!
• Glass/flesh = the dream-people I visit may sound like fantasies to you natives of the material world, but they're just as real on their home ground as you are on yours. Assuming dream people are unreal is unjustified. In a recent dream, the Telepath Trees said as much: "Humans think we're symbolic, just mirrors of human's inner lives, but we aren't. We're independent beings."
• The dream warns me not to be lured into so-called 'realism'. Whatever my astral voyaging is, it isn't simple fantasy or symbolism.
• Records office = pastlife memories? In another dream, My Viewpoint, a Mormon ranger tried to keep me from the Lake of Pastlife Memory. I still can't reach the records but now I know I have a RIGHT to them. Progress!
• Touchy mage = probably "Gunsel", a recurring dream figure who's violently insecure. I've wanted to explore this with my therapist. Tell her this dream!
• Glass body = my environmental illness! Things harmless to most people can poison me. Like a "glass jaw" all over.
• Gem-body = my spiritual/astral self, able to travel freely, and powerful, unlike my waking body.
• "Clever, changing from your gem-body to that cheap glass body" = Emily Dickinson, in "We Play At Paste" suggests this life is in order to "learn gem-tactics, practicing sands" i.e. the material world is like glass-paste jewelry (made from sand); but later, we'll use the skills we learned here to cut and shape more lasting diamonds. So errors now don't mean much--this world is just school! A view that's almost the INVERSE of karma!
• Can't tell flesh from glass = today, my friend Lily broke a glass, and got a big sliver in her heel. Couldn't pull it because blood hid the splinter and she's farsighted--couldn't distinguish glass from her flesh!. I tell her "Use pliers and a paper pad", but she said "Pliers? that's a sick joke!" "No, it really works." At last she tried it... and out it popped. Her flesh gave birth to glass.

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