Converted to Love: A Valentine’s Day Dream Poem

Jewish Girl Takes Communion

God says I can. So I do.

“The wafer is the body

Of love. The wine

Its desire.” I eat

This body. I drink

This blood. My heart

Is thus converted.

© 2014 Tzivia Gover

(from 12-2-13 Dream)

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“Jewish Girl Takes Communion” is a dream poem. The poem is simply the transcription of a dream I had. With minimal editing the dream becomes a poem. Give it a try, and post your results here!

Bunny Dreams: What does it mean when you dream of a pet? (CV*)

Honey Bunny

When my daughter moved away a couple of years ago, she left her bunny with me—“for a couple of weeks,” so she said at the time. And so, I have become the keeper and companion of an adorable, overfed, dwarf bunny.

I often dream of Honey Bunny (my daughter named her). I dream that she’s on the loose, or I’m chasing her through the house, or reconstructing her cage. I once dreamed another animal had come to steal her water …

When we dream of pets we are sometimes dreaming of parts of ourselves that are instinctual, or those wild parts of ourselves that have been tamed. A dream of a pet can also point to a desire for affection.

Rabbits in particular are said to represent luck, fertility, taking chances, and more.

Pets that appear in our dreams, like everything in a dream, have something unique to tell us. Perhaps the best way to find what message they have come to deliver is to ask them directly through active imagination or journaling.

Recently I spent a few moments exploring what Honey Bunny might want to show me. This is what a quick writing exercise revealed:

This Bunny

The color of lavender before it blushes

With glassy eyes that track changing light and sleepy shadows

Dreaming awake of a world without bite.

With the voice of no voice

She tells me:

Be gentle

Trust

Wait.

–Tzivia Gover

[In addition to being a reflection on a dream symbol, this poem is also part of my effort to write 30 poems in November as part of Center for New America’s fundraising campaign for literacy. Click here to sponsor me and donate to a very good cause!]

To write a dream poem about your pet:

Z Imagine you are the animal.

Z Enter into an imaginary dialogue with your pet. You can focus on your pet as it appears in your dreams, or as it exists in waking life.

Z On the page, imaginatively interview your pet. Ask what it loves most, what its purpose is, what it fears most, what it desires most, and what it has come to tell you.

Z Arrange the answers to these questions into a short poem. Edit out any unnecessary words and what you are left with might just carry the essence of your pet’s nature, and the hidden gifts it has to offer you.

You can do this exercise whether or not you have dreamed of your pet. All animals have something to teach us about our selves and our place in the world.

 

I wonder if Honey Bunny ever dreams of me.

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*Corner View is a weekly appointment each Wednesday, where bloggers from all corners of the world share their view on a pre-arranged theme. This week’s theme is Pets. Start here to visit more Corner View blogs.

Self Portrait in Dreams

According to common wisdom, every part of a dream represents a part of the dreamer: Every villain, lover, fool, and queen; every animal, each stick of furniture, the weather, the walls … all of the symbols, colors, and images … represent various parts  of you, the dreamer. In this regard, every dream is a self portrait.

Self-portrait taken during a Dream Conference in the Netherlands a few years back.

Dream report 10/2/13: I am walking with my daughter through a field. A mule is is bucking furiously, and I tell my daughter to run down hill to the shelter by the sea and to wait for me there.

Self Portrait in Dreams

I am the mother. I’ve been doing my job for so long,

I could do it in my sleep: I protect, I correct, I implore.

Run! Run! I say. Downhill to the shelter, you’ll be safe by the sea.

 

I am the girl. Curious, unafraid. It’s my way

to explore. Dumb mule can’t hurt me. Nothing can.

Nothing can. I whistle my tune through the dark. Then I run.

 

I am the field, straw-colored and stark. I stretch

and I grow, sigh out stalks of long grass.

What goes on above me, I let it all pass.

 

I am the mule, and I’m bucking mad,

bucking angry, bucking all that is wrong. Buck you

and buck you and buck everything, too.

 

I am the hill. I bow to the sea. I bow down to ease

the way for her feet. Her feet flying faster and faster

with my help she’ll be free.

 

I am the shelter, a simple structure of wood

Here to hold firm against the wind and the rain.

And if you’d come inside I would hold onto you, too.

 

I am the sea, at the foot of the hill. I’ll tickle her ankles.

I’ll hold your wondering gaze.

I’m the end of this story. The bucking stops here.

 

You are the mother, the mule and the field,

the girl, and the hill, the shelter, the sea. You are the dream

of all of these things—that are dreaming

of me.

© 2013 Tzivia Gover

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This poem represents the 12th poem I’ve written this month in an effort to write 30 Poems in November as part of a fundraiser for immigrant literacy. To sponsor me in my Poem-a-Day challenge, please visit: http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/Tzivia/30poems

Ever been kidnapped by a dreamer?

kidnap poem

(after Nikki Giovanni)

ever been kidnapped by a dreamer?

i’m a dreamer and i’m gonna kidnap you

gonna hypnotize your hypnogogic reverie

put you in my archetype, my anima, my animus

or maybe, or maybe, wrap your in moonbeams

lucid you with lullabies

snooze you to xanadu

i’ll rock you in recollection, rescue your recurrences

nightingale your nightmares

light your cigars, board your train

wake you with my love song.

yeah, I’m a dreamer.

i’m gonna kidnap you.

© 2013 Tzivia Gover

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This poem represents the 3rd poem I’ve written this month in an effort to write 30 Poems in November as part of a fundraiser for immigrant literacy. To sponsor me in my Poem-a-Day challenge, please visit: http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/Tzivia/30poems

Through the Looking Glass–poetically

English: Old make-up mirror. Deutsch: Alter Schminkspiegel. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This fall I participated in a Psiber Dream Conference, where dreamers from around the world presented papers and entered discussions about the extra-ordinary aspects of dreaming, from lucid dreams, to mutual dreams, remote viewing and precognitive dreams.

The theme this year was “Through the Looking Glass” and a few of the papers I read suggested looking at mirrors as portals within the dream, then entering these portals to discover other amazing worlds.

I tried for three nights in a row to find such a mirror in my dreams. I came close on several occasions, but never was able to get lucidly aware enough to actually travel through a mirror into a different dimension.

Nonetheless, I did manage to write a poem about one of my near misses. The poem turned out to be a portal of its own into other realms of thought and imagination.

Through the Looking Glass

My smile melts,

skin sags, folds,

lets go of bone

just before it disappears

into the mirrored plane

of a dream about to end.

Let me be the beauty

that hides within.

But words can’t keep pace.

A new dream begins.

© 2013 Tzivia Gover

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My poem “Through the Looking Glass” represents the second poem I’ve written this month in an effort to write 30 Poems in November as part of a fundraiser for immigrant literacy. To sponsor me in my Poem-a-Day challenge, please visit: http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/Tzivia/30poems

#2: Pastry and Conversation with Cindy on a Night When the Veils are Thin

She looks good

Spiky hair, frosted,

The way it was between bouts

Of chemo. I call out to her

And we take seats in some cafe

Where we eat pastries and get caught up.

“How long can you stay?” I ask.

It’s good having her back

Talking, the way we used to in the office

When we’d sit at the lunch table

Stuff envelopes, complain about the boss.

She’s doing that now: complaining about her boss.

“In heaven? You have a boss there?” I ask.

She nods. I begin to wonder.

“You did make it to heaven, right — ”

She brushes the question aside.

“Heaven basically sucks,” she says.

She tells me she has a little house there, a job that almost pays the bills,

and lots of people to talk to.

“Then death is just like life,” I say.

I’m pleased to hear it. I want to keep doing this

Living thing. Sitting in my dining room, say,

Looking past a vase of yellow lillies

Out the window where a chipmunk scurries up a pine.

“Pretty much.” Cindy exhales the words like a mouthful of smoke,

“Except without your loved ones,” she adds.

“That part really does suck,” I agree.

I take a bite of my Danish. “You’re sure you’re in Heaven?”

I want to ask, but Cindy gets up. Her boss only gave her so much time off,

she needs to get back. That damn boss again!

Just like always.

Mother Sits

Alone at the table
Too tired
To do her job
And so, the fresh
Cut flowers are not
In vases brightening
The dreary rooms
This is one house
She won’t decorate
Into cheerfulness.
Those days, it seems,
Are done.

Dear Donkey: Asleep after debating Truth with S

Dear God, I pray.

You might just as well say

Donkey, you reply.

Little Bear

Little bear playing with a blue razor blade.

Take that blade away!

Little bear’s eyes

turn black and big like olives

When you squeeze him.

Squeeze him in the middle.

Squeeze him on the left.

Squeeze him on the right.

Watch his eyes darken and grow.

Little bear needs a place to rest.

I’ll make him a Snugli with my belt

And carry him where I go.

 

Rose Revisioned

A red rose inked
in delicate perfection;

a green vine wraps itself
around my wrist.

A new dream blossoms
across my hand.