Show up to get a ticket on a Russian train. I’ve been staying at a hostel nearby so I can leave when convenient. I show up as it’s pulling into the station, but the interface of the ticket machine proves fiddly and I have difficulty working with the Russian interface. I’m trying to select St Petersburg, getting the shorthand wrong, having to swap destination with current location. The train is unusually prompt and pulls away in an absurdly brief one or two minutes. Last time it was in the station for about half an hour. I’m very, very mad, finding myself awake in bed at 6 a.m. I quell my rage with a sleep mask.
In a pool (a specific corner of a pool much like my family’s in my childhood home) doing a baptism ritual for an infant — something to bless America, I think. A wedge of lime is carefully melted down on all the exposed surfaces to make it smooth as possible. The lime is delicately anointed on the baby’s forehead. Perhaps it was my own disinterest, but I wish it had been better explained.
Watching episodes of the old TV show “Avonlea” pen-pal style with my wife. There’s a scene where the plucky kids start on a gravelly Canadian beach and cross an open water channel on a dingy, following the fin of a whale cutting through the water. It’s a scene that I made and filmed myself, somehow. I remember not realizing how pretty summers are in that part of Canada.
Meanwhile I’m trying to explain something to my wife after she inquires how to do it, The solution I attempt is to send her a gray t-shirt, scrawling a message across it in pencil. Proves itself difficult to write on though; I end up making the lines too close together, and the capital letters are too blocky. While this is going on, I think I can hear her listening to Kate Bush songs.
Dream ends with me wanting to get back the three microphones I lent her. She’s never ended up using them, and I want them again to use in programming my code. My wife wakes me up to bid farewell on her way to work, and I inquire about these microphones. She jokingly confirms she won’t be giving them back.
One reply on “Rewatching Avonlea”
Hail to thee, seeker of wisdom! Let us delve a labyrinth of your nocturnal visions, venture within Morpheus’ shadowy realm, and walk sage-guided! For I am the spirit of Artemidorus of Daldis: famed oneiromancer to Ephesians and other Hellenes of the Roman era. Should I be unfamiliar, know I was author to The Oneirocritica. It holds distinction as the only manual of dream interpretation left to the modern era from my time — the time of antiquity. By such phylactery, by its reverend marque, I yet linger amidst mortal realms! And if you permit, I offer my company in re-treading the landscapes of your dream, vista by vista, as scenes of a play unfolding on a stage. I do so cherish to offer insight.
Let us commence with the first scene of your slumbering play, as you find yourself along a distant railway, vexed by machine. This might symbolize a situation in your waking life where you are grappling with something unfamiliar or foreign. The train (symbol of journeys or goals) eludes you by these difficulties. As the steed of steel and smoke arrives with the punctuality of the Fates, departing rightly as swift, in its wake it roils a tempest of frustration. As if painted by hand of Zeus, such events mirror the trials of Tantalus, striving but never reaching, echoing your own struggles.
In the second scene, you partake in a baptism ritual in sacred waters of the piscina. Water, in the language of dreams, often symbolizes emotions or spiritual aspects of oneself. The baptism could represent a desire for purification, invoking the blessings of the gods upon the land of America. Your disinterest and desire for explanation could indicate a lack of understanding about a change or transition in your life. The humble fruit, transformed as Hephaestus’ fire into a tool of consecration, is gently pressed upon infant’s brow; such is potent sign of new beginnings. Yet like an enigmatic Pythia the true meaning eludes. A sincere wish for ken does remain.
Upon the third scene, you and your consort revisit tales heard and seen in youth, echoes of simpler time. The scene as crafted by you, presently or not, may reveal a yearning for creativity or a desire to wield greater control over the course of your life. The splendor of summer in the not-quite-so-distant land of Canada, a revelation unto itself, unfolds before you. Let this vision serve as a reminder of the fleeting beauty that adorns the mortal world.
In the penultimate vision, you travail to inscribe upon the dull cloth of a chiton. A sign pointing to concern in the matters of discourse. The words, though earnest, form a pattern as intricate and profound as a paean inspired by Polyhymnia, mirroring the complexity of expressing deep thoughts or feelings. The melodies of a more modern muse echo in the ether, a siren’s song that may hold the key to understanding… if you or your wife have a particular connection or memory associated with her music.
In the final tableau, night’s visions end with a quest to reclaim instruments of silver-tongued oratory, once entrusted to your wife. Yet, as cock crows and Helios’ chariot ascends, your wife jests that these tools of your trade shall not return. This could indicate a longing to reclaim something you feel lost or relinquished. The microphones, as may be, represent your voice, a voice and ability to express yourself, here sought for noble purpose — to infuse your craft with your life. Is this a desire to more fully infuse such expression into your work?
In my time as in yours, the art of dream interpretation remains subjective and personal; both deeply so. Let my words be but a lantern in the dark. Trust in yourself, for you are the most faithful seer of your dreaming. Ponder these symbols and themes, reflect, contemplate, mull, study, consider, reason, analyze, scrutinize, meditate, ruminate, measure them against the tapestry of your own life, seek your own innermost sense. I wish that may my wisdom cast light along dim paths.
Journey well. Artemidorus of Daldis.