Fish Dreams

I've always had 'fish dreams' - where the fish are dying, or the water is running out etc... and I can't do anything about it. They always upset me, and in college I had a good friend finally analyze them (she later got a PhD in psychology). She suggested the fish were my hopes for the future - and that the dreams were a sign I was feeling a loss of control and inability to protect those hopes from outside forces. Eriu hit that nail on the head, in my opinion.

I don't get the fish dreams as much anymore, but I still look hard at them when they do appear. I'll always remember a beautiful fish dream, the first where they weren't in danger, and didn't die - and that was after I had made my decision to come here with Mark. Tanks covering an entire room, full of beautiful goldfish, and he was standing there talking to my stepfather. Neither of them knew each other yet, and that dream made a very powerful image. Someday, I'd like to put that image into a painting.

Last night I dreamt Mark and I were moving fish from one tank to another - but the second tank had carnivorous fish in it, and they wouldn't be safe there. We were talking about setting up a third tank (we have been, in real life, as well - it's on the porch), but it wasn't set up yet and we already had four fish that really did need to come out of the first tank. I ended up putting them in a small jar while we kept talking about what would be a better place for them. Again though, they didn't die - they were just in a holding area, waiting to see what we would do with them.


'Expansion of the Universe' (birth of a child)
artwork Oct 21, 2007 11 pm
I hadn't done one of my random-line drawings in a while now, and last night seemed like the time. Some of you might find the above drawing a little explicit - but hopefully not, as the symbols are pretty obscure and hard to distinguish from one another in general. To me it's explicit - but in a good way. It talks about our baby being born soon, and about the growth, life and responsibility coming from that event.

Modeling Clay figures

*philosophy, psychology and art meet here in a personal mythology. Kind of difficult reading*
A modelling clay figure of Cosmic Bear.



Cosmic Bear modelling clay figure

These are the kind of figures and deep ideas I presented in my art show in 2004. I don't really expect others to get the same meaning and realizations out of them as I do. Perhaps they will see something else in the symbols. The worst fears I had at expressing these mythological ideas is that they are not in line with 'religious' ideas. There were those people I knew who couldn't see the difference between talking about these creatures in a mythological sense and believing in them religiously. I feel these 'spirits' or personifications have nothing to do with religion - it is much closer to psychology and examining the very nature of human thought.
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'Cosmic Bear and Fox': These are two 'archetype' characters developed from my automatic drawings. I was drawing and forming Cosmic bear for almost a year before I realized that his story was partially a mythologized version my own history.

Cosmic Bear is brought into the world by Fox, a half-seen spirit who, by her curiosity, created the World Tree out of the dust and dreams of a Sleeping Dragon. The dragon sleeps forever, although not peacefully, and the world grows on his back. If he wakes, the world will be shaken off.

Fox is wise and at the same time irresponsible. She is in possession of Great Knowledge, but never keeps her mind on one thing long enough. She is always whirling, toying with humans and other spirits. She's actually always trying to help, but is often leaving things undone in a Chaotic state.

Cosmic Bear is just one of the things she created. She forms him out of a leaf growing out of herself. She sings to him and tells him all of the great knowledge she has, but he is too young to understand. He is a child, playing and amazed at being alive. Then, she is gone - and he is plunged into a despair. Finally he brings himself out of the cave he was born in and sees the Silver Forest - part of the base of the World Tree that Fox accidently created. He goes to the Silver Forest where he goes through many trials and adventures.

There are several 'myths' I had written that involve Cosmic Bear. Some of them he is a child learning, others he is the advisor or the doer of great things (such as bringing the stars into the sky). He grows to be a great Protector and a 'Wise One' himself. He remembers more and more bits of the Song Fox had sung, and they make even more sense to him as he discovers other things. Then he comes to understand the nature of Fox and takes new perspective on both his creation and childhood and what he has done since.

I see the Cosmic Bear archetype and the Fox archetype in myself. It is by seeing those archetypes we can take their good points of their personality and take warning from their bad ones. Eerily, I can also see elements of my childhood re-expressed through the Cosmic Bear creation myth.

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Another figure. A bit more strange and needing more explanation. This 'creature' is not a representation of an actual living object - but of an internal process. The idea portrayed is that there is something within all of us that brings knowledge from somewhere subconscious, or spiritual.

The bird is a symbol of the messenger or bridge between that other source of knowledge and our conscious selves. There are many myths where the bird is a messenger between the Spirit World and our own world.

This figure has a piece of yarn stretched through the top of the head (knowledge) through the beak of the "inner bird" mask and out the mouth of a human mask which represents the exterior, what others see and what we choose to show them. It represents the receiving, channeling and expressing of deep thoughts, philosophy and myth to bring greater understanding.

This figure is my expression of how the complex and strange exploration of dreams, psychology and myth can feel almost like a temporary transformation. The yarn is the message received and interpreted.



Channeling messages from the subconscious

Other articles:
Pre-socratic philosophy
The Hero with a Thousand Faces book by Joseph Campbell
Use of masks for transformation and mythological retelling
The concept of the myth and psychocultural evolution

Resolution and/or Cooperation

A logograph: (or logogram) is a single grapheme(written symbol) which represents a word or a morpheme (a meaningful unit of language).

An ideograph: (or ideogram) is a graphic symbol that represents an idea, rather than a group of letters arranged according to the phonemes of a spoken language, as is done in alphabetic languages.

from Wikipedia

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02/16/2007 @ noon

Description: These are two very different 'unseen' or 'spirit' forces - yet they are meshing some of their properties into a stream coming out between them (from one's 'paw') There is a sense of overcoming something and yielding prosperity (the flower(s) in the end of the stream).


States of the Protect and Vulnerable 'shields'

Although not particularily about 'protection', this drawing shows several states of the protection shield. This symbol shows up in almost every drawing I make. An empty black circle (or void) is the 'vulnerable' or opposite of protected. This symbol's state (protected/not-protected) is used to both show where certain figures are strong, and where they are weak. It is also often applied to one figure from another by some sort of touch or flow - trying to share protection or wish it upon others.

Positions most prevalent: knees, heels, heart/spine area, foreheads, stomach(womb) area. A shield upon the hand means 'protector' instead of protected. The young usually have voids upon their heels - but there is usually someone in close proximity that balances with a protection shield.

Dream Bag Weaving, old and new

The weaving for the dream bag is continuing along. Here it is compared with the old (and well-used) dream bag, that usually resides under my pillow, so as to lie just under my ear as I sleep.



So, what is in a dream bag? It would be different for every person. I put in special items that I feel are important. My items are symbols representing links to certain people, qualities and structures that are either important to who I am, or to what I am seeking to dream about. Some items stay in the bag for years, while others come in and out depending on the topics most important to me at the current time.

I think dreams are important, especially 'strong' dreams. When I have those 'pay attention - you're here IN this dream and things are happening around you in real-time' lucid-type dreams, I do pay attention - and see what they might be telling me. Sometimes I get an idea of what is important, or wrong, or needing attention in my waking life - that I have been forgetting or trying to avoid. I view the whole dream experience as a subconscious experiment - another way of gathering and sorting information with my subconscious. (For those of you who have read a little bit about my ink art - you will see this connection in their purpose, as well.) The dreams are rich in symbolism and often 'wacky' in their structure -- but usually upon waking I have a 'Oh Wow' moment - where I understand what my brain was saying and what I need to do with this information while I am awake.

So, do I really think this bag, or the things inside it, makes a difference? In other words, why do this? I think, at the very least, it helps make a focus point, putting things together in my mind just before I sleep that carry over, psychologically, into the 'dream world' of my subconscious. I have a very visual mind, as well, so making a visual symbol with attached meanings helps me personally, to carry over, better than simply thinking 'I want to dream about X.'