Dream of the cross

A dream of several nights ago continues to beat its wings through my days. It's such a profound dream to me that I don't want to forget it.

A real-estate agent on the West Coast had been trying to sell a property for $50,000, but she couldn't because the bungalow was inhabited by a dark spirit. And so I travelled to the house to help her.

On the hardwood floor of the livingroom-cum-kitchen I crouched down. On the north side of the floor I drew the first stroke (top to bottom) of a cross, and felt deeply at peace. I knew that making that stroke invoked peace, and I could feel that peace in my whole body.

Then I drew the second stroke (left to right) and I could feel joy in my whole body. I knew that making that stroke invoked joy. The true meaning of the cross was peace and joy, and drawing it invoked peace and joy. The symbol itself radiated peace and joy.

Where peace intersected with joy it created unconditional love. The center of the cross is Love.

I drew these symbols of peace and joy on the four directions which gave me a sacred space of pure love. I asked the realtor to stand on the northern symbol. She intuited what I asked rather than heard me, as if she couldn't see me in the room, but suddenly felt an urge to take a step backward. She became part of the sacred space of peace, joy and love.

With us standing in the sacred space, I breathed in light and let it flow from my hands. The light flowed to the dark entity and surrounded it. By breathing in light and letting it flow from my hands, it gently lifted the entity out of the house and into the arms of angels. Then I cut the cord from the entity to the house.

Immediately I woke up, and propped myself up on my elbow. Peace and joy and a center of Unconditional Love - the true meanings of the cross. And drawing the symbol creates peace and joy. It radiates peace and joy.

These concepts have colored my mind ever since.

Home Farm Here We Come!

Although we've got the vegetable plot in, there's a yearning to address. And this is a yearning to take our little patch of earth into production.
[My dog Jessie, the Best Dog in the World. I only have to think of what I want her to do and she'll do it.]
Although we're flanked by beaucoup houses whose owners may not appreciate the smell of sheep, goats, and chickens, the township planners say the neighbours will just have to get used to new aromas! All those years of dreaming of our own farm when we vacationed in Italy, of eating the delicious mild pecorino cheese, of fresh eggs, of seeing farms on two acres in fervent production, with each nook a place for something to grow, might now be ours.

It seems so sad that the earth here isn't put to good use now, that we watch the grasses wave to themselves, never to be cut for feed or to give nourishment to goats, who will also eat the thistles. But that is About to Change.

Today I talked to the farmer at Stratford Ecological Center who - amazingly - said he used to be in business helping people like me set up their little farms. That the first step will be a soil sample, and a US Geological survey report. Then, when his piglets and lambs are a bit older, he will come by our property and have a good look at what can be done.

Exciting! Home Farm, here we come!

Fairy Sue's in love with The Land

I've never met someone in love with a piece of land. But the way fairy Sue talks about her property in Hocking Hills is like someone talking about her child, or her husband. 'The Land' as she refers to it, is a character in her life. Like a long-distance lover who's rarely in the room, she talks about the gorge, the grassy hill, and the campground where she pitches her tent with all the dreaminess, excitement, and tenderness of a first crush.

Although she's given the land a feminine name - Melethwyn - I think of it as much more male. He's even got faults - swathes of poison ivy and hordes of ticks, particularly in the spring and late summer. He's got his inaccessible places, and the places where she loves to lie - for instance the big, flat mossy rocks by the stream where she puts herself flat on her back and wriggles, working out the knots and kinks. Or the downed beech tree across the river bed, a place to shuck shoes and play high-wire artiste, a sunny patch in the forest canopy for staring up at twilight to the emerging big dipper.

She's jealous of him too, and careful which friends she lets in on this great love. It's an honour to be invited by Fairy Sue to take the hour-and-a-half trek down to The Land, and test your SUV's 4-wheel capabilities through hood-high grasses, down a steep grade, onto a track marked only by a slight deepening of green which only Fairy Sue seems to be able to see. She's broken an axle against The Land, and on our last trip her uncomplaining Toyota had to sit it out at the shop with a mysterious oil leak, probably concocted by the Toyota's uberangel when she started throwing camping gear in the back.

I enjoy The Land, in the way that I enjoy talking to a handsome and amusing married man at a party. That is, I'm as happy to wave goodbye to him as I am to see him again, and happy that my friend is so ensconced in her love. She doesn't need much when she's on The Land - her plastic jerry-cans of water, tp, some food. She sits for hours on The Land with her two Jack Russels, drawing magical creatures, and seeing magic in all the happenings - from the hooting of a barred owl, to the deer trekking through, to the birds calling through camp. It's all For A Reason, and part of the magic of a lover so strong as The Land.

Ollie contemplates ripping us off

Ollie came to meet me one afternoon in the front office of the newspaper, a tiny foyer with industrial carpeting and plexiglass windows. We could see the advertising department trying to keep the paper afloat with endless telephone calls, nose-pickings and screen-watching.

A girl walked out of the heavy, metal door carrying a plastic shopping bag. She tootle-ooed her friends saying "do you want any sarnies after I drop this off at the bank?"

Ollie lifted his wrist and stared at his watch. He said to me, deadpan: "Does she do this every Monday at this time?"

I may have been an ingenue but I'd watched enough cop shows to know what clicked in his brain. "Don't you even think about it," I told him. "I know exactly where you live."