Dream Week!

When I woke Monday morning, I struggled to climb out of one of my classic stress processing type dreams that involved lots of strange creatures chasing me while I tried desperately to find the location of the final exam for a course I’d only attended the first day of the semester.

I was shaking and my heart was racing and I felt all fuzzy-headed.

Not exactly a great start to the day!

This morning, just before I woke, I was having a very different sort of dream. I’ll share it with you the way I learned to do dream work at Pacifica Graduate Institute, in the first person, present tense.

I am in some dreamy version of what is clearly my home. I come upon a door that I didn’t know was there. Reaching out, I turn the knob and the door swings easily inward. 

As I wander through it, I am amazed to discover two bedrooms and two bathrooms and a whole other kitchen. A BIG whole other kitchen! 

These new rooms are not flashy or trendy. Instead, they are spacious and generous and welcoming. And, somehow, they are miraculously a part of our home. 

Amazement is an understatement!

This morning’s dream has followed me all day and I was blessed to find some more insight into it with the help of a couple of dear friends.

First, a phone call with my art-sister and mentor, Julie Steelman. It just happens that we’re working on notions of something Julie refers to as Wild, Sacred Bounty. 

Questions like What do you dream? and What would it take to make it true? and possibly even How much would you have to invest to get it? are floating around in the land of Blossom and Roar. 

As we talked, Julie helped me articulate the deeper desire under the magical rooms’ spaciousness that appeared in my dream.

And, my Muse whispered the perfect way to create an image of it in my painting!

The second bit of insight came from Carl Jung, by way of a timely email from the delightful Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy.

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.

I’m thinking it may just be possible that who looks outside and inside, dreams and awakens!

In any event, my Muse has also chosen an earth eye for seeing outside and a winged, visionary eye for seeing inside, both wide open.

And, as is perhaps often the case, this choice feels both totally right and, well, way more complicated than I had planned!

But, there’s more paint for tomorrow!

For tonight, I find myself wondering what you’re dreaming of… what Wild, Sacred Bounty would look like in your world. (You can leave a comment below, if you’d like to share!)

And a quick reminder that, through August 25th, the Studio Angels and I will donate 15% of my proceeds from all art sales on my Fine Art Marketplace page to Grandmothers Against Gun Violence.

Which, come to think of it, is another of my dreams!

PS… In the land of Intentional Creativity, it’s Work-in-Progress Wednesday. The opinionated Muse, pictured above is definitely a #WIP! (Stay tuned!!!)

 

 

 

Time Travel… Past & Future!

Are you ready for an adventure?

We’re going time traveling! (Never mind, for a moment, notions of physics and philosophy which suggest that past, present, and future are all present now and now is what there is.)

We’ll begin with a quote from a book that is an old friend of mine:

A man and wife are one person in law; the wife loses all her rights as a single woman, and her existence is entirely absorbed in that of her husband. He is civilly responsible for her acts, she lives under his protection or cover, and her condition is called coverture.

A woman’s body belongs to her husband; she is in his custody, and he can enforce his right by a writ of habeas corpus.

What was her personal property before marriage, such as money in hand, money at the bank, jewels, household goods, clothes, etc., becomes absolutely her husband’s, and he may assign or dispose of them at his pleasure whether he and his wife live together or not.

A wife’s chattels real (i.e., estates) become her husband’s.

Neither the Courts of Common law nor Equity have any direct power to oblige a man to support his wife…

The legal custody of children belongs to the father. During the life-time of a sane father, the mother has no rights over her children, except limited power over infants, and the father may take them from her and dispose of them as he sees fit.

A married woman cannot sue or be sued for contracts — nor can she enter into contracts except as an agent of her husband; that is to say, her word alone is not binding in law…

A husband and wife cannot be found guilty of conspiracy, as that offence cannot be committed unless there are two persons.

Which, depending on where you are and how you got there, may explain a lot!

Now, a couple of questions.

What did you notice as you read? What did you wonder?

I’m betting that one of the things you’re wondering about is the source of this quote. I learned it from Carolyn Heilbrun’s magnificent book, Writing A Woman’s Life. The quote itself is from a pamphlet, Married Women and the Law by Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon in the USA, 1854.

It’s true that many of us are in a different place, today.

But, just in case you think we haven’t quite made it to the world we’d like our granddaughters to grow up in… or our grandsons, for that matter… what, then, do we do?

According to Professor Heilbrun, we need to “write” new stories about women’s lives.

Thus, we’re traveling toward the Future which is, in language and people I’m only beginning to know, already possible.

In fact, I have a flock of new friends working together on moving toward what our fearless leader, Julie Steelman, refers to as Financial Sovereignty. And, yes, I’m in a new class! It’s called Blossom and Roar.

We’ve only just begun and yet the connections and ironies are firing in my head a mile a minute.

I’m learning to ask different questions about money than the ones history has deposited deep within the consciousness of many women, even women of privilege, who grew up in families who lived in the days when  Bodichon was painting a word picture of life in the USA.

I’m learning new definitions for corporate financial buzz words that never really worked for me.

And, I’m stunned, in light of recent media attention on child sexual abuse and trafficking, by the materialization of the movie, Pretty Woman, somewhere in my cable TV universe last night, while I was busy pondering these words. Suddenly, a film I’ve appreciated for years, mostly for the journey and also for the final line, feels profoundly more important in the sense of things that need to be conscious.

So why all this today?

Well, because I have two granddaughters growing up in this world. Because it matters. And because the way to change things is to gather together and talk about them and allow them to be conscious. And to set aside any  notions we might be harboring that it’s just too hard or we don’t get it.

And to vote. (Painting helps, too!)

I’ll admit that these thoughts are a bit babbly and not fully processed at the moment, rather like the glimpse of my CODEX painting, above, but thanks for being here anyway! And, for this moment, a slightly edited reminder from my hypnosis training:

Take a deep breath. Wiggle your fingers and toes. Shake off the journeys, keeping only what’s helpful. Come back to where you are and be with you!

 

 

 

 

 

Sue Boardman, Certified Intentional Creativity®
Color of Woman Teacher & Coach