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Wedding of Shades

Dreamed by Ithell Colquhoun; undated, but probably pre-1973; plus a similar dream-shard published 1951

INTRODUCTION

This complex poem, by an artist thrown out of the Surrealists for being a witch (no, really!) describes a dream of a shapeshifting lover. Colquhoun is convinced he was no imaginary figure but some external entity. Skeptical? She had reason to think him real: when she woke, her dream-tiger had left marks on her.

Wedding of Shades

When the body becomes crystalline
It is the Bath of Venus
*
I think of him
And right and left my hands
Are full of rosy fire
*
I arrive like a ghost
I move like a roe
Eyes say nothing
Lips are blind
But the air tingles
*
A clear red
I bask in
Red of a wound
Red of health
His radiation
*
I that love clothes
Have to go naked
Not even my thigh
A jewel can wear:
The night side of nature
Is my domain
Where darkness demands
The tryst unadorned
*
The were-tiger's wounds show on the daylight body:
With no embrace there are bruises on my thighs
*
Enclosed by distance
As by a tower
I yield in trance
To a glowing shower --
Origin
Of bloom on the skin
*
I am the untrodden path
Turning far back
That leads beside daylight
Unspoken word unlit moon
Flower unbreathed-on submerged plant
Star unreached-for
Crown of pearls

"Anxious as she was to communicate with other entities, Colquhoun was alive to the difficulties and dangers this might pose... this was an important issue for Colquhoun, as it must be for anyone working with powerful hidden forces. 'Wedding of Shades' (p.84), Little Poems on Hidden Themes (p.56) and The Lamia (p.71) all contain warnings about such contacts, in these cases unfriendly nocturnal spirit visitations. As she explained in an unpublished notebook, 'dreams may produce experiences of the "werewolf" type, the physical body showing marks imprinted on the astral.' The problem with opening a portal is that it may permit two-way traffic, and visitors do not always make desirable house guests."

--Richard Shillitoe, ed.

SOURCE: Medea's Charms: Selected Shorter Writings of Ithell Colquhoun, 2019 (Richard Shillitoe, ed.), p.84-5 + comments p.38. Notebook mentioned is in Colquhoun Papers at Hyman Kreiman Research Centre, Tate Britain, London: TGA 929/5/21/2/12-13.

AFTERWORD

What did Colquhoun mean by a "werewolf" dream? Not dreams of werewolves! I think she just meant "dreams leaving physical traces." This is a rare but real type--out of 40,000 dreams, I've only had two. But two is not zero. I call them 'Natalian' dreams, after the earliest example I know (almost 1900 years ago), by Natalius the Confessor.

As her editor wrote, Colquhoun speaks from experience. Here's mini-poem 5 (of 6) of 'Little Poems on Hidden Themes' (published 1951). Decades earlier, but here too, mystical dream sex leaves marks--this lover bites.


Last night on my left thigh
A purple ring was printed
Seal of what obsession
What numinous tooth.


LISTS AND LINKS: spirits - sex with strange creatures - sex dreams in general - shapeshifters & were-creatures - big cats - shamanism & Wicca - weird weddings - Colquhoun dreamt a spirit seduced a married man: The Lamia - "Natalian" dreams (leaving physical traces) - one of my Natalian dreams left bite marks too: Rattler Banquet - dream poems - more Ithell Colquohoun

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