The Herring Chair

I have started a new dream painting based on a dream I had the night before last.
The dream was about my baby leaving home.
My daughter just graduated from high school and will be going to college in the fall away from home.

She is debating on leaving earlier to try to get a job at Disney Land. She basically grew up at Disney Land. We lived very close until she was 5, and now my parents live in Anaheim.

In the dream she was heading out to catch a boat that would take her away. The boat was about 2 miles out and people were taking rafts and paddle boards out to it. My husband got on one of the rafts and was saying goodbye to her, but I missed the raft and every other boat that was in the water. My daughter got farther and farther away and I had no way of getting to her. I looked around and found a Lazy Boy chair floating near the entrance of an alley, I got in and proceeded to paddle my way out to sea. But when I looked down my lap was full of fish. I threw the shiny silver fish out by the handfuls, but there kept being more. My attempts were futile and I finally gave up and looked down the alley where there was an area with old Sesame Street toys from my childhood. (Ones that I had saved for my daughter and that are now passed on to my sister's kids.)

The boat that was out in the water was a Ferry that was surrounded by fanciful characters and mer-people. The chair that I found was a desert mauve corduroy Lazy Boy that was my parent's chair, and the chair that I rocked my daughter to sleep on every night until she was 4. The fish in my lap were herrings. That is important to the dream's meaning because my maiden name is Herring.

The River to Heaven

Before bed my daughter showed us a YouTube testimony of the man who spoke at the event she was at last night. He shared of his near death/actual death experience in which he was in a "river" on the way to hell. When he came back to life he was a changed man and has been prechin' about it ever since.
With that in my mind, and with various other people from my morning at church swirling around in my head, this is the dream I had:

I was in a kitchen with several people from church, and my mom. Jada (a little girl at my church)was running around the kitchen island and I was brushing the crumbs from the party onto the floor so that I could sweep them up. After I swept the kitchen (around people's feet) I took Jada and her brothers down stairs where the laundry room was. Through a window we could see a huge tidal wave coming. I told the kids that we should get back up stairs to their mommy quick! We all ran up the stairs and just as we were coming through the door at the top of the stairs, the wave hit. Instantly we were all gone, no pain, no turmoil of the wave, nothing, just all of a sudden floating down this vast river. There was water as far as I could see on either side of me. I couldn't see anyone else and I wondered if I was dead, or just in the sea after the wave. Then a light came over the horizon in front of me and flooded my vision with it's reflection on the water's surface. I was overcome with the biggest smile of my life. Then I saw a rope stretched across the expanse of the sea with square flags every few feet that had pictures of Disney princesses on them. I saw Belle on a flag that also had my name written on it. It said "Ms. Mikie Spencer" right above the bust of Belle in her yellow ball gown. (Belle is "my" princess. She is the one I look most like, and was a nickname that my ex had for me.) I passed directly under the flag of Belle and on down the river/sea. Then there was another rope with the same flags across it... and in the distance, another, and another. I had no control over the pattern that I was floating in and I was going faster and faster down the river, but I always passed directly under the Belle flag with my name on it. I got all giddy thinking about how perfect the aim of my floating was. I knew that God was guiding me. I also knew that this was the river to Heaven and that each princess picture represented another person. I could never see the end of the water to either side, and the flags were every couple of feet all the way across the water.
I woke up briefly and rolled over.
When I fell back asleep my dream had changed and I was going around asking people I knew who their favorite princess was. I was looking back in my memory to remember if I saw that princess on the rope or not.

I know there are not as many Disney princesses as there are girls going to Heaven, (in my second dream two people answered "Hermione" when I asked them who their princess was,) but this is dream language, not reality. It's obvious to me that my mind needed to think of princesses and that's all it had to pull from. They needed to be personal, and I can't think of one woman I know who doesn't have a "personal" princess. I know my daughter's princess is Sleeping Beauty. I have two friends who claim Snow White. Who do you claim?

The dream was very satisfying. The happiness (both with my smile and my giddiness) was overwhelming, but peaceful at the same time. I love dreams like that!

"Upstream"

Well, it has begun.
I have officially started my first "dream painting".
I actually started three yesterday and trashed the first two.
My husband encouraged me that I can't expect to get this right on the first try. I've never done it before... It may take time. I shouldn't assume that the first one I do will actually go into the show in August.
So I cut myself some slack and started another one thinking that it may end up in the trash too.
The painting I'm working on today is a dream from two days ago.

The dream went like this:
My friend Olivia and I were in an elevator trying to get to the 5th floor. There were digital clock type things sitting on pedestals around the elevator. Each one displayed the #5 in some way. I kept pushing the #5 on all the various screens and buttons, but we never went anywhere. At one point we pushed 7 accidentally (because the numbers on the clocks changed)and went to the 7th floor, but we stayed in and tried to push 5 again. The time was moving so slowly that Olivia started to deal with a lady behind a bank desk about her house mortgage (all inside the elevator). Finally we got out at the lobby which was a huge room like at a train station/mall with white marble floors with black tiles interspersed. Ahead of us down a long grand hall was a man dressed like a guard of some sort with another man in a trench coat standing/floating above his head. I announced to Olivia that the man on the guard's head was an angel. We saw the grand staircase to our left and decided to use it to get to the 5th floor.
As I walked up the stairway I was no longer with Olivia. My dad was with me. The stairway was now outside and it zigzagged like a typical outdoor stairway with gaps between the stairs. To the left of the stairs was a waterfall. At each landing the waterfall had a small pool about 4-5 feet long, just like the landing. There were coy fish swimming up the waterfall like salmon going upstream. At one of the landings I stopped to rub the scales of one of the coy, soothing it, trying to let it rest. Then I let it go again. At the next section of stairs I noticed that a red nose pit bull was swimming upstream. She was trying her hardest to make it out of the waterfall, but just like the coy, she was going up, not down. I knelt by the side of the small pool and pulled her out of the water. Then, pit bull by my side, we made our way up to the 5th floor. In the room, the dog rested. I was thinking about the pit bull's energy level and how she must be so used to swimming all day that she may be too high energy for someone like me. She was all muscle. There was no fat on her body, and you could see her ribs. At least for now, she was tired and would be resting for a long time. The scene changed and I was now bringing my new dog secretly down the back stairs (metal, like a fire escape, but not like a ladder) to go to the bathroom out back by the dumpsters. I found an old chain and a bike lock and made a leash out of it. I also found a small contraption that looked like a shower head from an old motel. At the bottom of the stairs on our way back up an old janitor stopped us and asked about the dog and the chain. He claimed that the chain was his and of course that I was not supposed to have that dog. He asked for the shower head contraption. It was supposed to tell the history of what it belonged to... in this case, the dog. I was scared that it would show that the dog belonged in the fountain, doomed to struggle all of her life. But instead, as he opened the top, by turning it half a turn to the right, it just let out a shot of air, no history. I was free to go and take the dog with me... though I did give back the old chain and bicycle lock to the janitor.

As I was painting just now, I was overwhelmed by the emotion that I had seeing this poor pit bull swimming upstream. God gently whispered that He too cared about the mistreatment of the pitties around the US. Pit bulls and their mistreatment is a subject near and dear to my heart, because my baby, my precious 4 year old dog, is a pit bull. He is brindled and beautiful. It breaks my heart that pit bulls around the country are being killed because of breed legislation. Others are being fought, others are just misunderstood and feared. The dream was obviously about the struggle that pit bulls face, but what about the rest of the dream?
Well... the coy also swimming upstream speak to me of my other friend Barbara. She has coy fish that will let you pet them (well, they let her pet them). She is dealing with an "upstream" battle now, and though I'm no real help, I can provide a small rest.
The part with Olivia in the elevator is dealing with her wanting to get to a place of redemption. 5 is the number of grace, redemption, provision, and the like. We tried and tried to get there in the elevator. She even took time to go to the bank while waiting. But in the end we had to climb stairs. The easy way was put on pedestals... but it didn't work for us. As we charted our course in the grand hall we saw a guard with an angel. I had to point this out, it wasn't obvious to Olivia... but it was comforting, and it was inspiring. It sent us on our way. Now why she wasn't with me on the stairs I think is just a break in the story of the dream. I didn't need to dream about Olivia anymore because MY part with her was done... Now I was on my own stair climbing journey. My dad being with me, was just a picture of God with me, helping me to help my friend, and the pit bulls.
The old chain and the back stairs to the dumpster were symbolic of me just using trash to care for the pitties. I don't "DO" anything. I just post about them on facebook, and say nice things about them to people. There is no real sacrifice on my part. The fact that no history showed up from the "shower head contraption" speaks of a clean slate. God's perfect plan for these dogs is to not have a stereotype attached, no prejudices. I'm left with the question, now what? What do I do with that?
Well... at 12:00 I'm heading over to play a game with Barbara and her daughters.
My husband just yesterday asked which charities I would like to give to. I have never given anything substantial to a non-Christian charity, but I think this year I will be helping the pitties in a bigger way.
As for Olivia, I'm not sure I need to do anything. I'll have to talk to her and see how it's going. ;-)

Floating and Peeing

OK, so I had a very strange but cool dream last night.
There was more to it, but this is the only part I remember.

I was sitting on the potty, peeing, when I started to float upwards. I pulled myself back down to the toilet seat because I was not done peeing. As soon as I let go of the seat, I started floating again... still peeing.
At that point I thought about what was happening, and realized how cool it was that I was floating, so I went with it. (Mind you, this entire dream is feeling VERY realistic, and at this point, I think it's really happening, because the setting is exactly my house. It's as if I got up in the middle of the night to pee... which I do often.)
I floated to the ceiling and was bending forward so as not to hit the ceiling. I was still "seated" but rolled forward. I floated into the bedroom (still peeing) and woke up my husband. "Look, look, I'm flying!" I said. (All the while, peeing on the floor, the bed, everything.) He woke up and looked up at me. He wasn't impressed; he was more concerned that I was peeing on the bed. So I floated back to the bathroom. It was at this point, before I actually made it to the toilet, that I realized I was dreaming and woke up to roll over.

As gross as the continual pee thing was, I had a blast floating around my room. It felt so real, and I am thankful that I got to experience that.

As for meaning. I would almost surely conclude that it has to do with my weight struggle. I am feeling good about my progress, but I am still majorly struggling with the discipline of it all. I am getting rid of a lot of wrong thinking, and other stuff that I'd equate with piss. :-) However, even though I'm floating (which is awesome), my husband is not impressed; he's more concerned with the "piss" that is coming out, which is unpleasant.