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!

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

“DREAM DICTATION: Character Sketch”

I posted recently about my experience at a dream conference about creativity and dreaming. At that conference I presented a paper about the intersections between dreaming and creative writing. I explained that dream incubation is one way to use dreams in the service of writing (or any kind of problem solving). So, last week I incubated a dream asking for help with a story I’m working on. Read on to learn what happened:

She’s someone’s mother, the woman in the kitchen baking bread.

Two loaves a day, she says, and hands me a bit of golden crust.

She’s a character in the story I’m writing, one I hadn’t met before.

The protagonist’s mother, just back story, it seems. I’ll have a look around, glean

a few defining details for my prose. I see clay pots, painted, empty,

on the upper shelves. But no potted plants. Is that significant?

Her pantry is a light-filled room, painted cheerful reds

and yellows, and packed with jars and cartons: cornmeal, flour,

all the staples you’d expect to find. She’s happy in her kitchen,

effortlessly handling those cast-iron pans. I should help out, and not just stand

around. But, there’s not much I—having no flair for the domestic arts—can do.

I could help empty the dishwasher, at the very least, I muse.

But no, I’ll go home and write this down, instead.

I leave her house, and quickly lose my way. I turn back to find her place,

again—but can’t. Too late, I realize: I don’t know her address, or her name—

this character, of my creation.

© Tzivia Gover 2013

DR 5-31-13

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To learn more about my dreamwork practice, schedule an appointment for dreamwork, purchase a dream journal, or buy a dreamwork gift certificate for friend, visit me at Third House Moon.

Related articles

• New England Dreaming (Out & About in the World of Dreams) (allthesnoozethatsfittoprint.wordpress.com)
• The (Newly Revised) “Third House Moon Dream Journal” Is Now Available (allthesnoozethatsfittoprint.wordpress.com)

When Dreams Blossom Into Poetry (CV: Flowers)

On Saturday I will be presenting a paper about the connection between  writing and dreaming at a conference on Creativity and Dreaming. (There’s still space available if you want to come join us!)

One of the things I’ll be discussing is how many stories and poems begin as dreams.

My dreams often get translated into poems. As this one did:

Pink Flower Dream

After years of separation

we embrace

alone on the dance floor.

Let’s go, you say

and we twirl.

Who cares what others

will say or what it means

to be dancing, again. Just swing

with the music. A man lifts

a flower from a nearby pool–

blossoms vining up the stem–

and hands it to me. You take it

to your nose. Inhale.

 Together we sit

with the flower.

from July 26, 2012 Dream Report

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Corner View is a weekly appointment – each Wednesday – created by Jane, where bloggers from all corners of the world share their view on a pre-arranged theme. 

L is for dream LINES (CV)

sometimes a line from a dream

lingers in the imagination

lovely, literary; it doesn’t want to be analyzed, doesn’t want to be any longer than it is

let the line be

let it lead you

listen:

DREAM LINES/Love Lines

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she writes her phone number in watery symbols I can’t translate

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A man offers a soliloquy about love while submerged in a swimming pool.

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We wake entwined in each other’s naked limbs, in our little sunk-in bedroom. Above us, passersby wave and say hello. We wave back, then turn and kiss some more.

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these lines landed from various dreams I had in December of 2012

What dream lines linger in your mind?

To learn more about your dreams and how to understand them, contact me.

Joanne chose this week’s them, “Starting with L” as part of Corner View, an international network of bloggers who post on a common topic each week. To see more Corner Views beginning with L, start here.

Just a Box of Dreams (Artists Wanted)

Lately I’ve been dreaming of my sister and me in and around water together. I’ve been sharing the dreams with her and she said she could picture them as little poems in boxes, and maybe some artist could paint them and I could put them all together into a book. That’s a beautiful dream of a project. In the meantime, I’ll share one of my little dream boxes with you. And if you decide to paint it, well, all the better. Dive right in!

Dream Box: Swimming with My Sister

I’m swimming with my sister. Swimming with ease through an uphill river passage connecting two large lakes. Who will inherit this buoyant blue? This sapphire wonder? My sister will. And who will she bequeath it to? Our mother, she proposes. Or me, I suggest. No matter, I’ll have it someday, anyway. For now, here we are, swimming.

Dream Poem: The Moose

Though I lived for ten years in terrain where they were often spotted, I’ve never seen a moose … in waking life, that is.

I dreamed of this one sometime last year. The vision was beautiful, sad, and compelling…and it has haunted me since.

Image via Wikipedia

The Moose

Awkward in her grace

She stands, garlanded

With scars tattooing

Majestic flanks. The air

So deep. The earth

So far. Regal in a country

Of suffering, strength swallowed

By the emptiness around her.

© Tzivia Gover 2012

According to Animal Speak, by Ted Andrews: “When moose comes into your life, the primal contact with the great feminine force and void of life is being awakened. It is an invitation to learn to explore new depths of awareness and sensitivity within yourself and your environs.”

Forgotten Dreams

Image via Wikipedia

“Where do forgotten dreams go?”

J. Allan Hobson, Dream Life: An Experimental Memoir, pp. 175-176

 Where Do Forgotten Dreams Go?

They sleep in endless seas

Dissolve into the orange gold horizon at dusk

Rise with the sun over distant lands

Wander like toothless men over mountains, following behind burros laden with their heavy packs.

Forgotten dreams shine through the eyes of your long lost ancestors, and the children who were never born.

They peer into a universe you never thought possible.

 

© 2011 Tzivia Gover

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Learn to recall your dreams. Contact me for a dream consultation.

A Poem to Dream On (by Glen Downie)

Image via Wikipedia

the creatures

caged in your sleep

may the great beasts bless and protect you always

the bears of loving kindness

the wised Blakean tigers of wrath and the horses of instruction

Dream untroubled by paradox of proportion – the ladybug bigger than the cat

the mouse as large as the elephant and wearing pants

In their all-forgiving silence may they love you in ways we fail to

these friends of first refuge

the peaceable kingdom where the lion lies down with the lamb

 by Glen Downie

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@Molly: Thank you for sharing this poem with me!