I went back to sleep this morning and remembered some dreams when I awoke again around 8 AM. In one, I was riding a bicycle on a highway going to some city. The highway forked and I went to the left. I wasn't sure if that was correct so I got off the bike to use my phone to look at map. I moved to a dirt shoulder between the forks that went down to a ditch. I could see highway signs on each fork. Later, I arrived driving my car at a place in another city, perhaps, Savannah, GA, where I was going to perform as a solo artist at a combination music store/event venue. I parked the car and went into the venue where I met some people who worked there. Other musicians were also going to perform and there were amplifiers and other gear lying around. I set my guitar in its case down on the floor.The wedding of a black couple was in progress at the front of the large room. Food was being served at the reception and I wondered if it was OK for me to partake of some sandwiches. I went to look for my Gibson acoustic guitar which was in a hardshell Gibson case and it had disappeared. I was distressed of course and I started looking all around the place until I determined someone had taken it. I found myself in a concrete corridor that led outside to a loading zone. I walked all around the building. While doing this, I took out my cell phone to call someone but the phone was very hot and it immediately broke apart and spewed out steaming liquid. Eventually I found my way back inside where I began to explain to someone at the store what had happened, mentioning how I had gotten the guitar at a police auction I had gone to with Kate Pierson in Athens. "Yes, that Kate Pierson," I said proudly. I noticed I was relatively calm and composed discussing how someone had stolen my prized guitar. Although I was in a strange place without my phone where I didn't know these people, I felt they would try to help me.
Wednesday, September 29, 2021
Tuesday, September 14, 2021
Roy Bell
Roy is one of my best friends of all time. We were part of the small group of "Athens High Hippies" who hung out together on the steps next to the school auditorium from 1968-1970. There's an iconic photo of that scene in the 1970 Trojan yearbook with Ken Van Eseltine, Keith Strickland, Roy, myself, and Guy Wright (below).
Everyone except Roy eventually left Athens and dispersed across the country. Roy stayed on and through a long progression learned carpentry, married his fabulous and amazing wife, Debbie Craddock Bell, had two lovely daughters, and became a highly accomplished builder whose work is simply beautiful. We remained friends and got together from time to time. Through the emergence of e-communication, social media and my many trips to Athens from around 2005, we continued our friendship and spent many lovely hours visiting and driving around Athens and the surrounding countryside.
Roy is one of the best people I've ever known, smart, compassionate, industrious, generous, artistic, caring, loyal, a fiercely loving parent and grandparent, a friend to all dogs and cats, and just generally wonderful. As he'll tell you, Roy's family of origin was extremely dysfunctional and he suffered much emotional abuse and humiliation from his alcoholic father prior to leaving home around age 16. I've often said I'm much more impressed by Roy than I am by myself, both of us having managed to succeed in our professional and personal lives, me with the help of many advantages, Roy in spite of numerous daunting obstacles.
I had a dream last night in which Roy and a group of friends came by unannounced to my parents' house and picked me up to go to a high school reunion. I thanked them sincerely for thinking about me and mentioned that I had been planning to call Roy that day (which was in fact true in real life). I got into the middle back seat and found myself next to Roy who was sitting on the driver's side window. More people got in and I made a joke about how he'd have to sit on my lap. However, that didn't prove necessary. We drove away and I saw Roy had one of his small dogs on his lap. He allowed the dog to get on his shoulders, drape its body over his head and stick its head out to the window to enjoy to wind as dogs like to do. I thought that was so cute I would take a photo of it with my phone. I only recall a little more about the dream- I was walking down the hall at AHS to the party with a couple of male friends and I encountered some women including Brent Shuford Gunn who was standing on a chair or something making her tower above me which I joked about as I gave her a hug.
I had thought yesterday I wanted to call Roy to see how he's doing. Roy has had serious cardiovascular problems as well as diabetes. He's had several close calls with cardiac episodes that were all treated quickly saving him from a likely fatal heart attack. A month or so ago he has an episode of esophageal varices suddenly bursting causing him to have severe bleeding into his throat. Again, Roy got timely emergency medical care and survived the episode. He learned this condition is associated with cirrhosis of the liver and is fairly common in advanced diabetes. I did call him this morning and we talked for about 30 minutes. Further testing has revealed he indeed has serious liver damage such that he might require a liver transplant in order to survive much longer. He goes back in a few weeks for follow up at which time he expects to find out what his prognosis and options are.
It was good talking to Roy. Naturally, I am most concerned as are many, many other people who love and admire Roy. This prods me to plan a visit to Athens in early October to see Roy and my other dear friends from this fleeting life of ours. Who knows how many more opportunities he and I will have?
Tuesday, September 7, 2021
It doesn't matter if
Monday, September 6, 2021
The rest of the song
It doesn't matter where the time goes/It doesn't matter who we come to be/it only matters that I love you for you/ and not for me
What to make of all these dreams?
In my late youth around age 20, I stumbled upon Carl Jung's Man and his symbols at the UGA bookstore, this event leading to a radical altering of the trajectory of my life in a way that eventuated in all of the material and social success I've enjoyed. Jung made sense to me of the human race and inspired me to take up collegiate studies and pursue graduate school and a career as a psychotherapist. Before embarking on that career path, I bought heavily into his concept of the unconscious as a mechanism of inner guidance that communicated with the conscious psyche via dreams, fantasies, spontaneous ideas and even through meaningful coincidences such as picking up the book and glancing through it and, later on, seeing an article about Ginger Adams receiving an undergraduate reward from the UGA Psychology Department. I became a popular amateur dream analyst for my friends, impressing them with my skills and insight.
My formal studies in Psychology led me away from depth psychology although the concepts (inner guidance, characters in dreams and fantasies representing parts of oneself, the process of individuation leading to psychological wholeness) and methods (active imagination) I had internalized remained important elements in my professional thinking and practice. In my 37 years of practice, I utilized dream interpretation and active imagination extensively with good results. In my creative work since 2005, the concept of the Muse lurking in the background and gifting me with words and music represents an extension of the Jungian idea of unconscious guidance from within.
All of this brings me to the question of whether I should engage intentionally with the frequent images and stories that come up in my dreams. I'm not very satisfied with my daily life since retirement and I know how to think about and work with dreams; so, why am I not giving these cryptic gifts more of my attention and energy? It might help and it can't hurt, can it?
Here's what I have to work with today- the song I wrote about in the previous post and some dreams I had this morning. What I recall of the latter is:
I was seeing patients in my clinical practice. Two couples showed up at the same hour. One consisted of a man who saw me individually bringing his partner, whom he wanted me to meet, to the session for the first time. The other was a couple who came together, ostensibly for work on their relationship. I decided to see them all together and take them on some kind of therapeutic outing. Next thing I knew, we were riding horses on some kind of unpaved path. We stopped and I dismounted. My horse seemed to shrink into a pony the size of a medium-sized dog. Someone, possibly me, picked the pony up and hugged it as we commented on it's cuteness. Next, we were at another office and one or both of the couples decided to consult a different kind of professional, a woman practicing something having to do with speech, in the middle of our therapy session. I considered this, thinking aloud that I was OK with this if they wanted to but they would need to pay my fee plus the fee the other professional charged for me. That's where it ended.
I am getting ready to use the leaf blower to clear our patio, so I will return to this material later on today (or at least that's the plan).
