DREAM OF THE MOUNTAIN

I wake up between 5:30 and 6:00 every morning. Old habits are hard to break.

But right before waking this morning I had a great little dream.

I was at this huge outdoor conference right after sunrise. Apparently it was some kind of business conference. There were thousands of people milling about and many had brought their kids with them.

Suddenly a guy walks up to me (I know the guy in real life, and like me he owns his own company) and says, “Jack, let me show you something!”

Then he shows me this (what is to me anyway) small and barely visible spot of oil and dirt on the back of the collar of his wife’s dress. Actually it was mostly on the tag on her dress with just a small smudge on her collar. Then he begins to bitch and complain and fuss about how all the kids running around are mucking everything up and that no one (dry-cleaners for instance) can get or keep anything clean or nice. He’s going to be giving a speech today and he’s really ticked off about others seeing a spot on his gal’s dress that unless I had come up behind is wife and examined her dress closely I doubt I’d have ever seen (and I’m pretty observant – just by nature). Assuming I could have seen it past her hair. Not that I’d have cared if I’d have seen it anyway. It’s was just a little oil and dirt. I’d have just thought that maybe someone had spilled something on her or that more likely maybe her make-up or hair was too oily.

He then asks my opinion on the matter and I tell him, “Well, that kinda thing happens in real life ya know. I mean that’s the way it works, ain’t it?” And I walk off to head back to wherever I’m supposed to be going.

On the way this whole gaggle of little kids (I’d say they were between 7 and 10 years old and mostly boys but some little girls too) run up to me and encircle me. So I stop. One little towheaded boy says to me, “Hey mister, where ya going and what are you doing today?”

So I tell em, “Well, I gotta go to a buncha seminars and talks and lectures and I’ve gotta teach a class later today too.”

They all look at each other kinda disappointed like and the towhead goes, “Ohh…”

So I say, “Why? What are you guys doing worthwhile today?”

And they say that they are going to go “hiking and shoot the bow and play and explore and swim in the lake and that there is a mountain they wanna climb.”

So I think on it for about a half-second and say to them, “Well, screw all this then! Let me go get in my play clothes and I’m coming with you guys. You seem like you actually know what you’re doing.”

And all the kids screamed, “Yay!”

Then I went and got in my jeans and grabbed my gear and booted up like a boss and right before I woke up I was headed with them towards that mountain they wanted to climb.

It was a nice dream, sure enough.

By the way, anyone who really knows me knows that that is exactly what I’d be most likely to do…

 

 

BOGEY ON YOUR SIX

My very first remembered dream, from when I was a young child was of a giant, bright-red, fire-breathing dragon raging from the sky down upon my grandfather’s house (my paternal father’s father) and burning and razing his house to the ground. At the time we lived underneath my grandfather’s house. I was very, very young at the time, barely past being a babe and probably still in diapers (though I was walking) and I do not at that time recall ever even having heard tale of a dragon. Yet I have recalled that dream for my entire life. The dragon both terrified me (at first) and infuriated me (after I saw what it had done). Though in the dream I was very young and had no way to combat it.

 

“FAIRY TALES, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.

“Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, that these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear.”

~G.K. Chesterton: “The Red Angel.”
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G.K. Chesterton: The Red Angel

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SORROW AND PAIN, SORROW AND SHAME

SORROW AND PAIN, SORROW AND SHAME

I had a weird and kinda sad dream right before waking this morning. In it I was attending a military event in which at the end a group of soldiers were singing as part of the event.

There were two guys standing on a platform above most of the others and these two guys were carrying the song. Suddenly the taller guy stepped down and a much shorter and far younger guy (Audie Murphy type guy but with jet back hair and dark eyes) started singing alone. His voice was, well, let me be honest, incredible. Far deeper than you would expect from such a little guy and clear and resonant and so loud he almost shook the building. It started softly but it became a truly rousing extremely powerful song.

But it was not just how he was singing, but what he sang. He was singing an “autobiographical song” about his short life (he was probably only in his early twenties but had seen a lot, and I mean alot) and the lyrics were astounding. Truly astounding. I have tried to remember them all morning (although I remember the music clearly as will compose it later today), to no avail except for a few snippets. If I could only recall them it would be the best song I’ve ever written.

As he sang by the way you could actually see the scenes he was describing hovering in the air about him. He had truly suffered a lot.

Two lines I do recall clearly, from the chorus, were: Sorrow and Shame, Sorrow and Pain.

He repeated them often.

THE KNIGHT OF AGONY AND THE WITCH OF WOE

THE KNIGHT OF AGONY AND THE WITCH OF WOE

 

 

KNIGHT OF AGONY: “Strut of all conspiring women and bald intemperate Witch of thy sex, in these darkest charms you drive me on, and less now than my naked self, I am nonetheless repletely covered in the enchantments of your moist and damning sorcery.”

 

GREAT WITCH OF WOE: “Knight of anguished men, would you my powers any less than to wring from the sleeping Earth of night, and from thy inmost longing lower parts, those burning fires which wake the dead and melt away all obstacled defense?”

 

KNIGHT OF AGONY: “Fie! Acquiteth thou thy e’er contingent ends and thereby make rich embodiment of my piercing hot desire, that all conspire, as I envision, and portend…”

 

WITCH OF WOE: “So shall it be! And with a rueful laugh I grant thee all you hide and seek, though seek you more, and hide you naught. Yet in the attainment of the barren gap between the grasp of man and the groan of ghosts you may still discover deep in me far blacker things in motion, and far more potent sorceries. Now, does this bargain still allure, or have you acted premature?”

 

KNIGHT OF AGONY: “It still suffices, and allures. Now come to me, immortal hell and all, and in thy keen and cold embrace I shall endure…. Thus shall I endure.”

 

_______________________________________________________

 

This morning I arose about 5:30. Immediately the above lines came to my mind, though I have since edited and improved them. I do not know why these lines came to me, but that is a common practice with me, to arise from sleep or a dream with a poem, a song, a story, or an invention in my thoughts.

So it was this morning with the Knight of Agony and the Witch of Woe.

It is part of a piece I intend to make into a short, one act play. Probably for Halloween.

While looking for an illustration or graphic to use with the post I stumbled upon illustration for TH White’s The Witch in the Wood and the Ill-Made Knight. That was not an inspiration for this piece, but when I saw the illustration I remembered the work which I read long, long ago, and found it apropos.

THE BRAIDS OF STRANGULATION AND THE DEAD ROADS – HIGHMOOT

THE BRAIDS OF STRANGULATION AND THE DEAD ROADS

I meant to post this yesterday, for Highmoot, but I was out of the office.

Had an odd dream night before last about a set of murders that woke me up at about 4:00 this morning. In the dream there was a living, malevolent force which, and I kid you not, had twisted the hair of three girls into a weird, almost supernatural looking set of complex braids which I could tell from looking at had been “encoded” in some way. I only saw the partially disentangled braids after the murders had occurred at the various scenes though, so they were altered from their initial appearance. Apparently all three had visited the same salon where the braids had been twisted. Somehow, as the girls slept (all young, in their mid-twenties, and all lookers with no apparent other connections between them) their “braids” had become animated and strangled them in their sleep. All of them however had apparently awakened during the strangulation process. Except for one girl, the braids had slithered down her throat and slowly suffocated her.

Well, upon waking and thinking on it awhile (it was a very weird case and left me with an uncanny and disturbing feeling – you know, like when you’ve witnessed some evil at work and it takes awhile to dissipate) I realized I could use the same idea in one of my Other World novels. So I sketched out the possible scene and here is what I got:

The Samarl of Samarkand (who we would call Prester John) invites emissaries from all of the surrounding people and races to try and get them to ally together (for the first time in thousands of years) against a common enemy and threat he has foreseen. He even openly invites human representatives from the Byzantine empire who have accidentally ended up in his world.

While staying in the capital city and in the palace of the Samarl the ladies of the dignitaries are “attended to” out of courtesy – entertained, feted, etc. including being provided with free clothing for the upcoming counsel (which they are also invited to attend) and having their hair decorated and perfumed. Seven women are invited to be so attended, but one demurs, just out of a sort of uneasy instinct and because her people do not want to be beholding to, and are suspicious of, the Sidh, the Samarl’s folk. On the third night after their arrival all six women are murdered and dead, five by strangulation and the sixth by having been suffocated, all by their own magically woven braids (called Balial – which before this time are considered highly decorative, enchanting, and a sign of great prosperity and Good Fortune). I’ll save the how for both a political and Ilturgical (sorcerous) mystery later in the book.

The woman who refused to be attended survives, of course, but one of the women, the one who had been suffocated by swallowing her own braids, her husband was first killed by his wife’s braid. The murder incident causes a huge uproar in the capital, and a near Civil War breaks out, with some of the represented peoples either fleeing the city out of fear or outright and immediately refusing alliance, suspecting the Samarl or his supporters. A riot breaks out in part of the capital that takes another three days to put down.

This of course has almost exactly the effect that the conspirators behind the episode had envisioned.

But it gets worse. As those ambassadors who have either fled the city or decided against alliance return home they are misled by still more sorcery (Ilturgy) to take “Dead Roads or Dead Ways” (called Iaklits) as their pathways. The Iaklits are actually old and ancient roadways, long abandoned which no one but criminals now use, and even then rarely (because they are considered both useless and haunted), but to the emissaries they seem to be the normal and proper roadways, because of the sorcery and illusions lain upon them.

Upon coming to the still elaborately decorated but partially ruined Chavoeth (a series of ancient bridges that had once crossed mighty rivers) the parties momentarily hesitate and there is a debate. Confused because they don’t recognize the old bridges, but misled by the enchantments and not wanting to turn back they decide to cross. But as they reach the centers of the bridges the illusions fade and the bridges collapse killing many under the rubble but also drowning quite a few in the stinking morasses and fens and pits which the Chavoeth now span. A few survive from each party to tell the tale of both the strangulation murders at Samarkand and of the Iaklits and the traps at the bridges.

None of which has a happy effect upon the efforts of the Samarl (Prester John) to form a Grand Alliance against the approaching enemy.

But all of this happens due to the naiveté of the Samarl and the Sidh, and the other Eldevens (the related Peoples), to understand both what they truly face (they have bred war out of themselves through a long period of unchallenged peace and have become incredibly soft and unsuspecting) and the conspiracy within their own midst. Then rather than recognizing these potential dangers they begin fall to Civil War among themselves completely ignoring the real enemy, both the external one, and the one worming it’s infectious way through their own culture and government.

The Strangulation Braids and the collapsing Bridges and the “Dead Roads” therefore are not just events, they are also underlying metaphors for these facts and weaknesses.

I’m gonna write up a couple of drafts and samples containing basic work-outs of these scenes, maybe starting tonight, but for now I have a nest of wasps to kill and then I’m spending the day with the family.

Have a great day folks.

HAUBERK AND MAEL – A DREAM IN VERSE

I woke this morning with these lines running through my head. Don’t ask me why, I’ve never understood how this crap really works. This kinda thing just happens to me from time to time.

HAUBERK AND MAEL

Jerkin and wainscoat, both fitted well
Shield trimmed with cold steel, hauberk and mael

Bodkin and longbow, employed at range
Pierced through at angles, hauberk and mael

Gorgelet and gauntlets, painted with shells
Baldric beseasoned, hauberk and mael

 

Also there were a bunch of other words and terms in my head (I wrote them all down) some of them archaic, or archaic or foreign versions of better known terms (such as mael for mail) which are also plays on words (mael also meaning bald, shaven, defenseless, blunt, hornless, the Welsh saint Mael, a Keltic name for Ireland and Wales and Brittany, and of course a variation on the armor – mail – yeah, I looked it all up), and weird forms of other words such as wainscoat.

(Which I suppose to probably be related to waistcoat, though perhaps my mind had created a different neologism altogether – wanescoat – a faded or shrinking coat, or coating. It was hard to tell. I didn’t see the verses or words, just heard them as I woke, so I used wainscoat. Maybe it was supposed to be “wanescoat.” Don’t really know at this point what was meant.)

Gorgelet also seems a strange (though poetic) variation on the term gorget (the plated neck armor of a knight) but the word also seems to me to imply something woven over or covering the gorget, like a piece of painted silk or cloth. Maybe a piece of decorated heraldry. Just a working theory.

My “verse dreams” are weird in that way, the way they alter terms and languages and definitions. Oftentimes I create new words in my dreams, and then later on have to figure out what they probably mean, or how to relate them to other or more established terms.

Finally there were also some stand-alone lines that I woke up with, such as, “Great gloppen and gore” but they were not part of stanzas and I don’t yet have any idea of where to put them.

It’s all sominpathy to me at this point.

I have a feeling though that this one is gonna be like pulling teeth. For some reason it wants to be written, but I don’t know why or how to proceed right now.

So I’m gonna let it sit and set awhile in my mind and see where it all goes. And what it might mean.

ASWERMIC

I’ve been having this dream lately about the word “aswermic.” Actually I’ve been hearing the word aswermic a lot lately being spoken in my dreams.

So this morning I looked it up and could not find it in any English dictionary, ancient or modern.

I’ve tried variants as well, different constructions and possible conjugations (if that is the case) such as aswarmic, aswirmic, aswormic, aswurmic, and aswyrmic. Or aswerma, aswormae, aswarmos, etc.

From looking at the variants I thought possibly that the world might be a root term which is possibly Sanskrit in origin, but I can’t find anything so far on it or any of the variants.

If I can’t find anything then I guess it will be up to me to define it and I’ll consider it a neologism.

Why I keep hearing it in my dreams or what it defines or might possibly imply I do not yet know. Maybe it is related to the novel I’m writing, to the languages I am inventing (though it doesn’t seem related to those languages, as aswermic seems Latin in origin, but isn’t, and aswurmic seems almost Sanskrit, but doesn’t appear to be), but so far I have no answer and no joy.

I guess I’ll just have to keep working at it and assume there is some meaning behind the term I’ve yet to discover. In the meantime I’ll work it as a neologism and see where that might lead.

If any of you guys have ever encountered the term, or a term like it, in whatever language, please let me know as I’d be curious as to what it means and from where it originates.

THE DREAMER’S DILEMMA

I’ve recently noticed that I’ve been composing a lot of music in my head. I even woke up with a rather elaborate theme running through my head this morning.

However I’m a rusty composer with very little time to compose right now. Most of my effort is going into my novel, my inventions, and my businesses. So the best I’m able to do at the moment is sketch out a few phrases and motifs.

I’ve long had a dream though of going somewhere for about a year or so and doing nothing else but compose. Man, I’d really like to. But I just don’t have the time.

EVERYONE

Today after working out I decided to take a short nap. Since the wife and kids were out seeing the Transformers I lay down in the bed with Sam (my Great Dane) for a nice, peaceful, quiet nap before my daughter’s birthday party started.

I didn’t sleep long (I wanted to sleep longer but couldn’t) until I woke up with a song running through my head. I heard both the music and the lyrics in my head. My mood was very, very odd. I never get depressed, though I do have intentionally melancholy moods from time to time (which I enjoy a lot), but this song and the music and the mood surrounding it seemed both very depressing and almost foreign, as if it were coming from someone else entirely.

Occasionally I will hear music and song lyrics in my dreams and then when I wake up I will write them down, but this song didn’t really start until after I woke and then it started immediately. As if I were listening to and just becoming aware of a radio on somewhere in the house, but nothing was playing.

And like I said the music, the tone, the mood, it all seemed very depressing to me. But mostly it seemed foreign, like it wasn’t me writing it, but someone else.

Nevertheless after I completed the song I made a Google lyrics search and could find no song similar to it. So I guess I didn’t remember it from elsewhere, it was just an odd, sorta alien song playing in my own head.

Anyway after writing the whole thing down in bed when Sam and I got up I came downstairs to my office and started hammering it out and arranging it properly. And overall I’m very pleased with the lyrics. It matches the music very well, which is moderately slow, rather simple, and sad in tone.

The single lines are the chorus and instrumental sections of the song, whereas the stanzas are the body, so it has a sort of reverse chorus-stanza structure. It may not be completely finished, but as far as I know at this moment, it is.

If you wish let me know what you think of it.

Jack.

_____________________________________________________

Everyone you see is broken-hearted
Everyone you meet is sick like that
Everywhere you go the what-if’s started
Every song you sing seems like the last

Everyone, most everyone, has passed

I wish that I could dream in endless colors
Wish the sun would rise above my head
Wish that I could tell you from the others
Wish that you could hear just what I said

But being me is awful long and lonesome
Being me is hard as hell
Is there any way to beat this road home?
Is there any way for me to tell?

Everyone I meet has their own problems
Everywhere I go it’s all the same
Sinner, Saint, or child we’re all just odd-ones
Waiting for someone else to ease the pain

Seems like everyone knows everyone today

Now let me wander on to where I’m headed
There’s another day must come and go
Doesn’t mean I know, whoever said it,
“Everyone was happy long ago…”