In dreams: Orca in the bathtub

The structures are melting. Armour forged in ice to protect that which was precious and under siege. But whose fortress is this now? Those paused parts peeping through my ribs, they’re unsure. They carry the imprint of what happens when we love too openly, when we entrust what's tender to those who don’t know how to care for it. 

At night, beneath that freeze my bones rattle in the heat. And I can’t sleep on my stomach anymore. Nightmares… dead brothers and mothers. The somatic trickster says, 'Roll over, face me, this must be witnessed… so it can be cleared.' I wake before time has sewn itself back together; sore neck, weighted chest, ash in my mouth. Did I breathe them in, or out? 

It seems I’ve not lost faith, if only it were that easy… And let’s not be naive, faith without fruit is a slow starvation. So slow we might name it strength, then wonder why it doesn’t answer to our call. Funny how long we can survive without nutrients. Clearly some of this is ancestral. 

No, not lost, not regressing… But in the realm few talk about because it’s not pretty or poetic… it’s dry. The magic? Not that by which the eyes can see. You have to use a different vision for what happens here. These are the meeting places for those with whom this world hasn’t caught up. The dissonance? That’s what my cells are screaming about.

Are the exiled warrior and the scapegoated priestess wandering the desert too? Do they whisper into the grains when the moon is dark?

Do their hearts beat for the Beloved like mine does?

And boredom… the shadow aspect of a visionary nature. I came in wired to create meaning, to feel into the glowing embers, to sense invisible threads and spin them into beauty and truth. I don’t do well when everything is grey.

Then… somewhere else far from these plains and yet somehow very close, I dream of orca. Immense, mystic, wild oceanic knowing. The return of Her deep self. The soul who remembers what the mind can’t name. How to hunt without apology. That life can be, but isn’t always, gentle. That pain comes, even to the innocent. 

In one dream she’s in a public pool. No, not a bathtub, but that image was better. Creative license. Still... she's contained. I’m feeding her sandwiches with my trembling hands. Tension, fear, fascination, control... contact.  

Through orca is the power to end things. To be decisive. To track with feeling. To be respected, not because she’s cruel, but because she’s capable of cutting through illusion. The heartbreak of one who carries the medicine. 

Notice my attempts to defend, not from the feminine, but from any distortion of it.

Take my hand, we’ll look from the ledge. Can you smell the gardenias? Oh yes, I’m quite worried if I let her in, she’ll tear me apart. Am I even ready to return with Her to the sea… to swim with the instincts our society tries to pathologise? 

Wait.

Might I rest here from this soul level exhaustion? Don’t bring me the kind that numbs or invalidates my longing. Come with the kind that holds me in safety while I remember who I am.