In my dream Daphne asks me when I'm going to deal with the back door of the studio. She says that Lyle left a key there, "sewn to the top of the mountain" that is painted on the door. Sure enough there is a key at the top of the mountain and a note from Lyle written in red ink. I start to read it and it mentions Steve and her toddlers and I'm just waiting for her vitriol to begin and I stop reading.

(This part of the dream seems to be about my past, i.e., the back door, what is behind me, the past. Her note, the written word and my own fear of what lies there in all my 32 years of journals I know I'm meant to read again. )

In another facet of the dream, I'm in my studio up stairs but on a higher level than the top of the stair case. I seem to be with students, I am a student. I am immersed in that world but people keep coming into the studio, and I have to go greet them, attend to them. Some, two Jeans, try to come up the stairs and I tell them they are not allowed; to turn around and go back down. There are new artifacts in the studio, things, treasure I haven't seen before. The studio never feels like it's in Norfolk.


Chris and I with Lucy on a leash come into a petrified forest. The trees are fallen and on their side. Down a winding set of natural steps we come upon furniture that's been carved out of the wood. There is a huge, beautiful chaise lounge, like King size, but I think, gee, that wouldn't be comfortable to lie on. Everything is close together. Chris lets Lucy off the leash and I'm afraid she'll get lost, there is another dog off leash as well...

In a convent: myself, one burly, hairy man and three other women are asked to put on the pants that the nuns wear. They are hand crocheted sailor pants and I put them on and they feel and look fabulous. The man has a hard time getting his on and he's so hairy! Beastly, really, but benign. We each wear a different color. Then we're in a kitchen and an old French nun is going to teach us to cook. I'm in the front row, far left seat. She needs my chair and asks me to assist her. Then a woman stands up and asks if anyone is hungry and the classroom dynamic falls apart. I tell them nun that she's lost her hold on the group. Every one wanders off but I really want to learn how to roast a chicken from this woman.

I'm following Chris through a mall-type campus...we look at calenders. We're looking for room 2727 and have to go through a lot of other rooms to find the right one. I almost step into a hole in a red carpeted floor. There are many door we pass through. When I reach his class room, there is a flimsy set of white steps that I choose to pratfall down as my entrance. Everybody laughs, and I know I am loved.

In the dream I dream that I wake up and say, "I must remember this dream". I write the key at the top of the mountain part down with a huge black pencil.

As I lie awake this morning, remember the dream, I recognize that I am being asked to surrender to something higher. Before we went to bed last night, Chris and I were having a conversation about Crowns at the Stage Co. and what a spiritual journey the process of mounting the show has been for him. He referred to the analogy of the top of the mountain; at the base of the mountain are all the choices and pathways and religions to chose from but the journey is up the mountain, not hanging out at the base and once we arrive at the top of the mountain, well, we're all the same and that which we have been seeking is indescribable. The God at the top of the mountain is beyond the breadth of language.

So, as I lay there this morning, remembering a rich and multi-faceted jewel of a dream, I allowed my self to open to that higher level of learning and the one word that came to me was Divine and I felt this flowing into me, from the top of my head, an exquisite peace and knowing that what I seek is so far beyond what any religion can teach me. What I seek is beyond the realm of language. What I seek is....