THAT MORNING

Wake in pain. The source is my upper spine, but I can't pinpoint which vertebra; several seem inflamed. Oddly, moving doesn't relieve or worsen it. My back, arm and side just hurt for 20 minutes, then fade back to normal. A duller pain in my lower back persists. That pain at least makes sense--I've been leaning over and delicately working on two illuminated books on dreamwork--painting miniatures! But I just can't stop, even though such tense fussy work endangers my back. Paint two of the last pages in the smaller book, Blackgrounds...

A stressful therapy session. Tell my recent flood of nightmares & dreams about sex.

• A teenager can't tell a boy she likes him, so she writes a filmscript that requires him to grope her--to take initiative so she won't have to.
• A tween girl in a Harry Potter coat pokes me playfully, and I fear others'll call me a pervert; my fears summon a scary dragonfly-bus that tries to eat me!
• Three local actors I think are cute are in plays like Cats, wearing sexy fur suits. But none of them like me. One-way infatuations.
• A nightmare of finding leeches in my bed--and then I realize 'leech' is a pun on 'lech'.

Shelley points out none of the dreams show sexual guilt--it's all just plain fear! Of villagers with torches, in an age of sexual (and of course racial) lynch mobs. She says "your homework is just to notice and change fantasies of sexual persecution. Even if you can't, at least catch & name them as such. Get the problem straight. Not guilt. Fear." Not easy homework; decades of emotional abuse can't heal overnight.

THAT NIGHT

I'm a quasi-heron two meters tall. But I'm not just some oversize Earth bird--I have a big head and brain, and six limbs not four, like an angel--legs, wings, arms. And like an angel, I can fly despite my great size.

I poke around an oval park in the human suburbs, browsing--though I find nothing yummy, just a few bugs and sour berries.

A medieval hunter, though he rides a bicycle, spots me & gives chase, firing darts from a crossbow. But it's underpowered; the darts are no faster than baseballs. Still can hurt, or put out an eye!

I catch his first two shots in my hands--they sting, but no more--and tell him "you won't get these back til you swear to quit hunting me."

"You have some nerve telling your HUNTER what to do!" He sees himself as predator and me as his natural prey. Uppity prey.

Oddly, so do I. We're both curiously casual about eat or be eaten, kill or be killed. It's the way of the world.

Yet he's no fool. He has to negotiate. He can see I'm not a simple animal, not his normal prey--I have a brain and hands quick to catch and keep his darts. Those things are costly! Labor-intensive.

And me? I may still feel blue... but it seems I've finally quit just enduring... slings and arrows.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Arrows: pun on Eros (sex). Recurrent pun in my dreams. So this clown is firing darts of sexual fears! But I can catch his darts--& threaten to confiscate 'em all, if he keeps on shooting.
• I'm a heron-person: also recurrent! I've gotten to interview this quiet, meditative side of me twice now, on Mount Etna-Shasta and in The Herons' Tank, and even been the heron at least twice-- Nukes and Werebirds and Heron Harem.
• ACTION: the dream agrees with my therapist Shelley--keep noting sex fantasies that shift into fear, rejection, or persecution. Be patient; that archer's quiver had plenty more darts! I'll have to gradually, relentlessly impound Eros's power to sting.

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