Nightmare animal allegories, inter-dimensional poetry, a personal prayer and astral homework

You think you have one shadow, but you have many.

Lunar phase:🌛 First Quarter Moon in Aquarius ♒︎

Happy Halloween and Day of the Dead.

This newsletter was sent in sync with the current lunar phase, so I am catching you in between the holidays.

Is it blasphemous for me to say these are my high holy days?

The veil is thin these next several hours. Here is a personal prayer for this time:

I am still.
I am quiet.
I leave long
pauses
in between thoughts
for the other realms
to say hello.

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NIGHTMARE

🐖 The dying pig mother and her suckling piglets

The image above was created using text prompts on Midjourney. I didn’t want to create anything as photorealistic as my dream, but I will describe it in detail below.

Nightmare, August 29, 2022

I rarely have nightmares. Not all dreams evoke positive feelings, most are perplexing and paradoxical, but never this gruesome.

I come across a mutilated, dying pig mother. She is bloody and there is a litter of piglets suckling her. She is deflating and losing all of her life force. I want to help, but I don’t know what to do.

If her piglets continue to feed off of her she will flatten and die. She needs time to rest and recuperate, but the piglets are too young to wean off. They won’t survive without her warmth and milk.

There is no happy ending for this event, which makes this a nightmare.

The gift of this gruesome imagery arrived when I realized I am both the pig mother and the piglets. I can be draining and co-dependent and I can also give and give and give of myself until there is nothing left.

Love needs boundaries. When I feel imbalanced or unhappy in love, I ask myself who am I right now? Am I the dying pig mother or am I the draining piglets?

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ANIMAL ALLIES

🦭 The waterless seal

Dream, October 24, 2022

I found myself regressed in an apartment belonging to my mother and ex-stepdad. The water bill was past due and I was told I could not bathe myself in their home. As I was packing my stuff to leave in search of a shower, I discovered a very dry mama seal floundering in the bathtub. I said, “I don’t care how much it costs, this beautiful creature needs a lot of water,” and I turned on the shower full blast.

The seal is a creature that can exist both in water and land — symbolizing perfect harmony between our inner world and the external world. As a totem a seal represents our creative and imaginative faculties. This dream felt impoverished and imbalanced but I could not let my seal spirit friend sit in an empty bathtub.

Spare no expense for your soul or your imagination or your dreams.

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ASTRAL HOMEWORK

Night terror hate mind-dump

I woke up at 11:54pm on Saturday, October 29 with the message that I should be doing a nightly “Night terror hate mind-dump.”

Usually my astral homework is not as aggressive-sounding, but the purpose of these divine “assignments” seems to be to help unblock stuck energy and emotions.

So last night before bed, I did it. I created a note on my phone and I listed all my nightmare-inducing stressors. After I wrote them out I stared at my list and read them over and over until they seemed ridiculous and irrational.

Then, I let out a deep breath and let myself fall asleep peacefully, without the weight of these invisible terrors.

FYI, “Chona” is my dad’s 4-year-old English bulldog who is perfectly healthy, but who I often worry about for no good reason. Here is a picture of her insisting she is a lap dog, taken on my 38th birthday:

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INTER-DIMENSIONAL POETRY

🦘 New issue of Phantom Kangaroo

Poetry is the language of my soul and Phantom Kangaroo is my sacred text. I publish poetry and art that I find surreal and eerie and speaks for the subconscious or the parts of us that don’t have voice yet.

The new issue is now up and free to read online. Print issues are available here. Below is a sample spread.

This issue is darkness and softness. This issue is what if being born human is not enough. What should I become next?

We transform and transmute and it is never enough. The devils inside are clanging at our doors. The faces we hide peek and peer through us — asking to come out and play. You think you have one shadow, but you have many.

And it’s not that I’ve lost my grip on reality, but that reality is slowly losing its grip on me. Still, we must all keep our cool. Pretend we don’t know this is a puppet show.

This issue is not make believe. It is alive and weird and true. As always, I’m grateful to all the artists and poets who contributed to this issue.

I piece my soul together with their words and visions.

Contributors: Jessica Khailo, Jasper Glen, Savannah Cooper, Sarina Frauenfelder, Robin Gow, Jay Dye, Hannah Wonagsegid, Emanuela Iorga, Joan Mazza, Lorelei Bacht, Sarina Frauenfelder, Kim Ramos, Uri Bram