I woke to the Dreaming for the first time in a long time.

I was back in the cult-church of my youth. I felt the earth shake with every strike from orbit, heard the fire and damnation from the pulpit, read the news on my phone with shaking, terrified hands; recognizing, somehow, that this truly was the End. There was no final chapter, it was being written around us and the last time I’d Dreamed this had been 2010 in a run-down apartment as I watched the sky torn asunder and the earth split.

The cold weight of the veil hung heavy on my head and across my shoulders as I gripped my phone in hands going white and blue from effort and chill. My brother shook me, tried to snap me out and away to go do something, anything, but sit tamely by. I refused. Not out of piety or false modesty, but because I knew I was not yet ready to believe it.

And so I sat, listening to the drone of people behind me as they stayed or left or ran downstairs in despair for coffee and soda and whatever creature comforts had been brought by the congregation. And I… stayed until it was finished.

The downstairs of the church had a stairway, a singular landing, and another few steps down to the basement floor. Plain white and grey “marble” tile, folding chairs and tables, and old accordion-style “walls” that could be dragged from the edges of the room to create classrooms, or meeting areas closed off from the rest of the area. A few were being used as impromptu praying circles, but for the most part the church had cleared by the time I went below.

It seems in Dreams there’s nothing left for me in this space; which makes sense since the Severing I performed, and the fact that I simply want nothing to do with this place any longer, even if I AM dragged back night after night.

I took nothing from them, this time, save the knowledge of who was present and who was missing, and exited the church from below.

I found myself in the parking lot, my small tabby in my arms as I ran along the lilac bushes for the cars, SCREAMING with everything I had for help. She made no move to bite or claw, knowing as I did that all the youths behind me had been torturing her. The leader kept approaching, hand held out demanding her return. I refused. He looked nearly apologetic as he kept coming, saying “But I have to.” I refused a third time, and the world went sideways.

I was back in the basement, cat nowhere to be found which didn’t feel strange. Jeff, Susan, and a few other shadowy figures stood around me, saying things like this was our final chance to do whatever it was we hadn’t yet.

He referenced the local tattoo shop, and also “Who’s feathers say *static*…?” I knew he was referencing my tattoos even though I don’t currently have any with feathers. I was also granted an image of my next ink, the layout, and the words that will be encircling it.

I woke to the sound of an owl outside somewhere in the neighborhood.

Watch Me Rise indeed.

“I come to bring Freedom, and not Peace.”

The light around Them was blinding, as it usually is. I doubt very much that I have ever seen Omnia face-to-face, save once. The distracting after-image of glazed, blind-violet eyes and salt-white hands conceals Their next words- But they are still lingering like the sound of music when the singer has stopped, my head rings with it.

They are a creature of the Grey, even more than I am. The in-between, the always-were and never-was. Humanity, in all its thousands of permutations, its never-ending change averaged into this face, this form, shifting forever beneath that ice-blue robe. White tinged blue like morning snow, dazzling forever when the light hits, with afterimages and impressions that are no more a lie than the Entity they conceal and reveal at once.

If Somnium is my Patron, They are my Parent. A concert-harmony of Light and Dark, compulsion and free will, the rise and fall of the tides led by the ever-present moon and witnessed by the sun. Attended by as many stars and planets as the sky can hold, in all its glory.

Their presence is a firestorm, super novas and rebirth shattering the veil around Their feet and I, when did I fall to my knees? When did Omnia turn “She” and “Mother” in my mind…? That neutrality traded in one moment for the understanding that this, this is as it should be. Freedom, not Peace. Love, in intricacy and not complacency made more so by indolent, insolent demand for sameness.

Omnia is all things. The Divine Parent. Loving Acceptance. Arms open wide to the universe, beckoning.

And here I am, at the feet, bathed in the glow of that acceptance, wrestling with my thoughts and the ride and fall of words that I cannot comprehend. The grey of the hearth is sharp beneath my knees, soapstone and silver falling from my hands. Distantly, I can hear the singing on the River’s edge and the many calling back and forth in song and dancing-

The dreams of the night turning brilliant and blinding if only for a few moments. And it is the mundane that cling now more than anything, now that I am awake. The taste of chocolate in my mouth and the spark of heated metal against my skin… shaking them off and picking up the thread of the Dreaming is harder than ever.

“Freedom, and not Peace. Autonomy, sovereignty, crowns on crowns, unbound and loosed, the world shaken to its foundations and rebuilt. Peace is not freedom, and it comes at the cost of will.”

one-time-i-dreamt:

I was at a flea market and people in robes were selling weird items like lost objects from kids, dreams, memories, food recipes, and other magical things. Then someone started accusing me of shoplifting and I woke up.

We must not look at Goblin Men
We must not eat their fruits….

Yeah you found the Goblin Market honey, good job getting out when you did.

Dreaming 8/27/18

I woke in a clearing that may or may not have been The Clearing.

Every tree was choked in vines and I could hear the shrieking of what might have been only monkeys but might have been something Else entirely. The whole of my vision made it look as though the entire world only existed in shades of brown, green, and grey. I could not see the sky, no matter how I tried to look upwards through the branches, or out to the edges of the jungle. There was nothing but the trees, long and tangled undergrowth and everywhere the same vines choking the life out of it all.

I had left an earlier Dream of the Estate to get here. A pleasant atmosphere and better company for the most part. I had not left of my own volition, I had been compelled. The three men I left behind, and the pews full of people would just have to understand. I certainly felt no shame in their company, nor had I when the pews began to fill as we took our sweet time before or on the altar. Blasphemy is its own sweetness, and I take mine where I can find it some days.

It felt oddly familiar, in the same way that most Dreaming feels familiar. Like I should know where I am, or that it will come to me if I just wait for long enough. I was climbing through trees that were tangled and covered in the vines. Every so often, I found a desiccated animal corpse in the trees, wrapped and choked in vines as if they’d been used as a water source. I’m amazed now, looking back on it in the Waking, that I did not react with more disgust or recoil in horror.

People were talking around me in a language I did not understand but understood all the same. They wanted me to go to the Top; the Tree? the Mountain? I don’t remember or perhaps I never really knew; and talk to Mother.

I did not want to go. I knew even then what people would say of me if I followed where they led. If I did as I knew I was going to be forced to. If I met who I would be forced to meet. I wanted to leave. I found I could not. No method open to me worked despite my struggle.

These people, in skins and leather and weaving, their bodies covered in mud and paint, their hair knotted and plaited ornately and ALSO coated in the same mud or paint were the very opposite of me. No matter what Aspect I wear, or what Witness I am called upon to wrap around me like a cloak, but that is not what made me recoil. It was the known response I would receive should I speak of what happened. I am still being compelled to write about it. To share. I want to leave, but I am Awake now and I cannot.

The next thing I knew, I was halfway up the Tree. Following these People higher and higher; scrambling over root and rock alike. Trying to ignore what is held in branch and vine.

When we reached the top, there was a small knot of people who had made it. Others we’d lost or left behind or they’d given up. Maybe it was the difficulty of the climb, maybe it was the horror of seeing something drained of life before your eyes. I don’t and probably never will know for sure.

We came to a ledge, wrapped in roots, branches covered in lichen and dripping moss like grey-green curtains. We found a pool, set in the face of the green-grey cliff face. The rim came just above my navel and the inside was coated in what looked like yellow ochre. A seeping, poisonous, sulfuric yellow.

In it, a wizened old woman sat, crouched, like a frog. Her wrinkled skin was as brown as the earth beneath my feet, her hair was tangled with more of the vines and leaves, thin and grey and matted down her back and shoulders. When she lifted her head, I could see the vines growing beneath her skin.

In spite of how clear the water was; crystalline and cold; I couldn’t see the bottom. I don’t know whether it was algae, silt, leaves or some other reason; but I could not see the Woman below the shoulders. She looked as though she were absorbing the water, and being absorbed at the same time. Taking from and giving to the Tree and the vines that strangled and grasped at it.

Immediately upon taking this in I was uncomfortable and on edge. I knew what would be required of me without being told, and I had half a mind to refuse. To back away and hurl myself into the void beyond the trees and the cliff face. To find some Beyond to entrust my long fall and eventual death. I knew it would be useless. The trees would never end, and the cliff face was a lie or a supposition- I had not seen the sky since the Dream began.

Instead, the same compulsion began anew and I was driven forward, and the People surrounding me drew back.

When She spoke it was as rough as bark and as thunderous as the mountain’s tectonic energy that had given it birth. As silent and imperious as a deep forest pool. Inexorable. Commanding.

There was no way for me to resist as my arms were, untouched, plunged into the water to the elbows. I wanted to scream. There was only silence.

Immediately there was a pulling sensation, as though blood was being drawn from my veins. The water and the Woman remained the same, no light no red no new change in feeling or expression. I wanted to fight, to pull away, but I couldn’t move! The draw was stronger than iron chains and bound me fast. I could do nothing but struggle mentally and try again and again to scream.

When she released me, I could breathe again. I hadn’t realized I had stopped. She poured more water over my hands, and I saw that hers had the same vines and leaves growing beneath the skin. Her nails were black, and the water was numbingly cold.

She spoke or I heard or I was made to understand that now I was in the water and the water was in me. Chosen, and no way back. Caught, like a rat in a trap no matter what I thought or felt or wanted for myself. Helpless, and both terrified and enraged by it.

Someone younger and narrower of body than I was brought forth. Struggling, water was poured over their hands as well. I neither heard nor understood what was said, if anything. I wonder now, in the Waking, whether the water pulling out and rushing in was to make me acceptable, or wash something else away so I could receive the same, dubious, blessing.

I wonder if that was why I was made to go first.

I have the impression fires and darkness, keeping the prowling things at bay. I know She will eventually be consumed, though she is Older than Old. I don’t want to know. I want to leave. I cannot. I don’t.

I wake to the Dreaming again at the base of the mountain-tree. My hands do not work, and I am uncomfortable beyond measure. It burns in my veins and I want to rip the skin from my hands. It will not leave me, and I cannot leave it. I want more than anything to leave the Dream. I cannot. I don’t.

The earth felt like it was vibrating beneath me, and I couldn’t see; like I was no longer wearing my glasses. I felt crazed. Like I was searching for something. Supposed to do something. Seek something out before it was too late. Something required that I’d forgotten.

I woke from the Dreaming uncomfortable, disoriented, nauseous, and knowing i don’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to deal with whatever aftermath it drags in its wake. I still feel compelled to write out the details and to post it.

I hope this is enough.