Nevada City, California - December 21, 1994 - Winter Solstice Dream
I am in the twilight of dawn in my maternal grandparent’s backyard in Simi Valley. I am standing next to a barn. Two heavy-set Native American Women approach me. They are a mother and daughter and the mother’s name is Margaret.
Without saying a word we enter the barn. The walls of the barn are lined with shelves filled with Native American artifacts. The daughter begins taking items off the shelves for us to look at; as she takes them down she hands them to her mother who then hands them to me. The first few items are beaded leather. I sense that they are very ancient, they are fastened to cloth-covered boards. I notice that the bead work is done in four colors only: sky blue, red, yellow and white. The beads are cylindrical shaped about 1/8 of an inch long and half as wide.
The daughter hands her mother a drum stick. I notice it is not ancient. As the mother takes it she says: “I don’t know why we didn’t recognize this as sacred before.” I intuitively know that the daughter made the drumstick when she was to be married. The drumstick is made of the lower section of a deer’s leg. Only the hoof (the end for hitting the drum) is exposed, the bone is covered in a sleeve of bead work done in the same four colors as the older bead work except it is out of modern seed beads. The mother hands it to me and as I am holding it, a gray wooden drumstick carved in the shape of the lower section of a deer’s leg appears in her hand. A large round, flattish drum appears nestled between her knees. She hits the drum once with the drumstick and the sound causes my womb to vibrate. This is the oddest sensation, I giggle and say “It tickles”. The mother looks me in the eye and says: “This is the sacred sound.”
I feel a great wave of emotion rising within me. I acknowledge the emotion, but don’t let it out. I turn to the daughter and ask her to show me a symbol of emotion. She takes a piece of ancient bead work from the shelf. It is a bird done in two colors: dark aqua-green (turquoise) with just a few red beads in the wing tips and tail. In my mind’s eye I see the bird in the sky over a pool of water. The bird dives straight down into the water, disappears under the water briefly then emerges flying straight up into the sky.
End of Dream
I feel a great wave of emotion rising within me. I acknowledge the emotion, but don’t let it out. I turn to the daughter and ask her to show me a symbol of emotion. She takes a piece of ancient bead work from the shelf. It is a bird done in two colors: dark aqua-green (turquoise) with just a few red beads in the wing tips and tail. In my mind’s eye I see the bird in the sky over a pool of water. The bird dives straight down into the water, disappears under the water briefly then emerges flying straight up into the sky.
End of Dream
