Two Dreams

(It's not clear to me in detail what these dreams signify, but both intuition and logic say they must belong in this blog. What else would I be dealing with right now, however symbolically?)

I have had two sequential dreams about involvement in an environmental group. I woke up this morning after the second, which enabled me to remember both.

They took place now, only I was still involved with the organic food co-op [long disbanded] that Andrew and I were in during our early days in the Caldera. I was doing something which didn't happen then — I was going out regularly towards Tyalgum and collecting potatoes from a grower, to take to the co-op to sell. [No-one from real life.]

In the first dream, I encountered a meeting about to begin in this grower's house, hosted by him and his wife. They'd brought a lot of chairs into the living-room, and people were getting settled, many of them people I knew. (LH comes to mind.) The host's wife was named Nettal; she was a gracious older lady. We talked a while about the issue. [What issue? I don't now know, only that it was obviously of great importance to the community. I'd like to think it was fracking but I truly don't know.] I was pleased but not surprised to see my good friends Mo and Al come in.

Someone (I think the host) gave a short talk, then we were all shown a DVD on a fairly large TV screen. We watched with rapt attention, taking it very seriously. Needless to say, I don't remember it now. I think the dream faded out after that.

In the second dream, I got a bit lost on my way to the grower's and went too far. On one of those bends on the way into Tyalgum I decided to go in the gate of a property I saw and enquire for directions. I met a delightful couple, no longer young, who grew potatoes too. With great enthusiasm, he insisted I sample some of his potatoes, raw, with the dirt just rubbed off. I did, to be polite, and it was wonderful: crisp and tasty. They introduced me to their several friendly dogs, and we had a nice visit before they sent me on my way with clear directions. In conversation it became apparent that, although some of our ideas were a bit different, they supported the environmental group's aims.

So it was no surprise to see them at the next meeting. We greeted each other like old friends. When Mo came in, she took me aside and said, 'I see you were with [unremembered names of this couple]. I prefer to hobnob with Nettal and Peter Garnet', indicating our hosts. [Names unknown to me in real life.] This was obviously a friendly warning against getting too close to the other couple, but there was no opportunity to find out more. People were taking their seats.

I sat next to Mo and Al and some of their other friends. My friend Katie arrived and sat nearby. During an interval for coffee and cakes, I got up to say hello briefly to someone else. When I came back, Katie was in my seat, deep in conversation with Mo. Someone else (LH?) observing my confusion, picked up Katie's handbag from where she'd been sitting and put it beside her, then indicated to me to grab the chair Katie had been in and bring it over next to my friends (who, still talking to each other, were oblivious of all this). I hesitated, as there were a few empty chairs, including one child-size, but all looked a lot less comfortable than the one I'd been in. This mattered very much to me.

While I was hesitating, trying to decide which chair to choose, the host came along and picked up the empty ones, several at a time.He put them off  to  one side, behind the others. As the movie was about to resume, I hastily went and sat in the nearest of these empty chairs — somewhat separate from the rest of the people. No-one seemed to notice, too engrossed in what was happening onscreen, but I felt isolated, awkward and sad: a misfit. [Something I often felt before I married Andrew. I only just realised, writing this, that being with him took that feeling away for 20 years — even at times he wasn't physically present. Even when I was away in Texas for five weeks. Evidently he gave me huge validation, beyond what either of us understood.] 

Then I awoke.