The World Dream Bank: Twelve Swallows, Seven Hundred Daughters

World Dream Bank home - add a dream - newest - art gallery - sampler - dreams by title, subject, author, date, place, names

Twelve Swallows, Seven Hundred Daughters

dreamed 1972/10/14 by Wayan

The grimoire's formula for flight begins
"Kill ten swallows..." But I won't.
So in the woods, I lure twelve in,
weave and merge them, living--
and I'm the thirteenth thread!
We fuse into a swallow-wing
black-eyed bird-cloak,
iridescent violet and green.
We fly the wood together
to a clearing: court of the Queen.
Some fool invades and kidnaps her!
I battle him "Prince Valiant" style--
Swords bell-clang, until
The villain hoofs it for the ship.
But I'm a storm of wings!
That night as we doze in camp, a thief
takes apart our Volkwagen's wheels
and axles--every bolt!
Screwing the car at dawn, we find
he tore it all to gain a single part--
a small screw-cap, one of four.
"Why'd you do it?" He answers sad:
"For my seven hundred daughters."
Whoa. That must be hard.
I swallow-soar to an icefield,
and showshoe-skate across.
Whoops! The Enemy's after us!
We dive in a tropic sea, and pass,
(with our wide wings) for a manta ray,
fooling enemy sonar and the cynic sharks.
We meet the Princess of the Reef,
and Judy, and Lydia. As I wake,
I wonder who they were.
But then, who was I?
A deeply distractable fool!
What'd I love? Becoming bird.
Sweet fusion! How we feathersoared.
Oh--and the warning to reject
the Old Authoritative Text:
Deep magic isn't cruel.

NOTES

When I dreamt this, I'd just turned eighteen.
Twelve birds: I hadn't read it yet, but in "Memories, Dreams, Reflections" Jung mentions dreaming of a dove-girl associated with twelveness. I've always felt his dream world was familiar, especially the beings he met. His attitude's different, though; he treats dream-folk warily, as symbols or ideas to be juggled and judged--not as friends and peers.
The Grimoire: The Bible denies animals have souls, and uses them for sacrifice. Is Jung much different? He warns "Don't be seduced by your anima." The Western tradition's to rule and use. But I won't kill my dream-birds, or own them. We merge as equals!
The colors: My mom is a painter. That day, we'd gone to see a show of her teacher's work. Richard Bowman was one of the first serious painters to use acrylics, and the first to extensively use fluorescence. His abstracts shimmered with hot colors. I'm sure it inspired the iridescent swallow-wing cloak and the tropical reefs...
Thief with 700 daughters: Richard Bowman and his students, over the decades he taught? He was never rich; sacrificed all for his art. As later, with dreams, did I.
This is Dreamverse #5. This morning my dreams were brief, but I woke nagged by a memory of this early dream, and knew it'd nominated itself for a poem. The bird-people in yesterday's Dreamverse, The Doctor Kills a Tern, about a failure of compassion, surely prompted me.

LISTS AND LINKS: birds - spells and formulas - animal rights - compassion, generosity, giving - shamanic dreams - flying dreams - light and color - underwater dreams - I'm just not myself today! - dreams of being other species - thief! - artists and the arts - dream poems - a second dream of car-repair magic: Engine Genius - Dreamverses project - the next Dreamverse: Animal Heaven

World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sh - Si-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites