On the Eve of My Next Adventure

Tomorrow (which may already have arrived in your part of the world) I’ll be driving back from Portland, Oregon to Oakland, California. The trip here from Oakland took 15 hours, and I’m hoping the trip back will take less time. It may, however, actually take a little more time, because I have a new digital camera. I bought it at Fred Meyer (no sales tax in Oregon — yay)! I used it last night to take the photo above of the sun setting over Southeast Portland. I know I’ll use it a lot on the trip back, which means I’ll probably stop more often. I’m sure it will be worth it, though!

I need to make this brief so I can get to bed soon. All my bags but a few are in the car. In the morning I’ll pack up my food and then be on my way. Because of my diet I usually bring food with me when I can. I brought so much stuff I’d need to stay another week to eat all of it! Well, maybe only another four or five days.

My friend and I have had such a great time. Yesterday we went dancing at Sacred Circle Dance, which is held at the Scarlett Ballroom in Northeast Portland. We had loads of fun, even though I nearly passed out from over-exertion. I adore dancing, and I forgot it can be dangerous to do lots of vigorous rump-shaking in 90-degree heat with high humidity. Happily I survived to dance another day, and I want to go back when I come for my next visit!

Getting late here (after 11 pm on July 16), so I need to sign off for now. I’ll write again in the next few days and let you know how my trip went. Thanks for reading.

~Love and Blessings,
Selene~

Deep in the Portland Night

This gorgeous photo is from http://www.thegalleryinmtshasta.com/

I am writing at this moment from the kitchen table in my best friend’s apartment in Portland, Oregon, the City of Roses. Just now it is also the city of stifling heat, and it is 3:40 am Portland time and I cannot get to sleep, so I decided to blog. I hope I’ll be able to get through this post, which is iffy because I am connected via my laptop to my friend’s high-speed access. The signal registers as “very low” when it doesn’t cut out altogether, so I’m glad (and lucky) to have it at present.

I’ve been here to visit my friend several times, and this visit is the most exciting by far. I drove here from California on July 12, a fifteen-hour oddyssey that will live vividly in my memory for the rest of my days on this Earth. I had never made a car trip longer than four-and-a-half hours before this, and hadn’t ever thought I’d be able to do such a thing. Just surviving the road was exhilirating! I cheered and whooped aloud in the air-conditioned quiet of my car when I reached the sign on I-5 North that read “Portland 430 miles.” I drove through Shasta National Forest with tears in my eyes, moved by the breathtaking beauty I saw and the deep connectedness I felt. Shasta is unquestionably a sacred place. I’ve heard other people talk about Mount Shasta and surrounds with awe and reverence, and now I understand.

Whenever I got groggy on the highway, I took psychic side trips. At one point during the drive, I noticed that the windows of my car were streaked and dirty and thought that if I happened to find a car wash, I’d like to get my car cleaned. Then I forgot about it. As I was driving past one of the Redding, California exits, I received a clear psychic message: Turn off here. I took the exit and, at the end of the off-ramp, the voice in my head said, Turn right. I did so and continued down the road, which I did not know the name of, for about two miles. As I came to a four-way intersection, the voice told me, Turn left here. All the time this was happening, I thought I was looking for reasonably-priced gasoline because my tank was getting a little low. I kept driving, and all of sudden, there it was: an automated car wash! It happened to be on the same side of the road I was, so I turned in to the driveway and got in line. After my car was beautifully washed for the very reasonable price of $7.00, I pulled out of the lot thinking I needed to turn left, because that direction would take me back to I-5 the way I had come. Lo and behold, there was a sign on my right that read: “Interstate I-5″ with an arrow pointing down the road that ran next to the car wash. I had never been in the town of Redding before, so I know I didn’t find these things by memory. And if it was simply luck or coincidence, I still know I am blessed, and that there is a power greater than myself at work in my life.

It is getting very late, so I think I had best get back to bed and see if I can get a few hours of sleep. I have much more to tell about my trip, and will do so when I get the chance. To tell it all now might take as many hours as the trip itself, and I need to slip into the world of my dreams.

I trust you are all well, those few of you reading my words. As always,

~Love and Blessings,
Selene~

Exploding Tennis Balls

I had a dream two nights ago featuring –  you guessed it! — exploding tennis balls. Some strange being whom I could not see kept throwing tennis balls into my house. They would explode and take out entire walls or blow pieces of furniture to tiny bits. I kept moving to another room to avoid them, but they kept coming.

At one point in the dream, my husband joined me. We were together in a room that had large blue plastic tubes running around the walls. Tennis balls began rolling through the tubes and landing in various locations in the room. This time, however, my husband and I picked them up and tossed them out a nearby window. Someone had told me that if I tossed the tennis balls into the ocean, I could lessen the impact of the explosions.

As it turned out, the ocean was too far away from the window. I tossed my tennis balls as far as I could, but they landed in the grass instead. My husband’s landed in the grass as well. When they exploded, the resulting fire began to eat the grass away, and I knew that the land would become barren and nothing would grow there ever again.

That’s about where the dream ended. There might have been more but it is fuzzy enough to be irretrievable at this point. One thing that seems obvious in the symbolism of the dream is the idea of self sabotage. No doubt the unseen entity tossing exploding tennis balls into the rooms of my house (which, for me, always represents my life) is my inner saboteur. I am very familiar with her. Over the years I have sabotaged friendships and job possibilities. I know that, for the most part, I am over this behavior. Apparently my subconscious is trying to show me that I still do it is some ways, and perhaps there are lessons to be gleaned from these incidents.

Water usually represents my subconscious mind in dreams, and I find it very interesting that we were trying to return the exploding tennis balls to, in effect, their place of origin. I need to sit with this one a while longer to discover if there are any further messages or symbolic meanings. I’m also sifting and searching through my life to see where I might still sabotage myself. I know that becoming conscious of such behavior is the first step to changing it, and I am happy at least to be on my way.

As always, thank you for reading. I appreciate your presence.

~Love and Blessings,
Selene~