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Flowers and gardens

Dream flowers. Flowers are odd things--they're sexual organs, after all, fulfilling a vital function, yet they do it using two qualities we think of as sophisticated, refined, exclusively human: beauty and co-operation. Do we really think animals don't enjoy those shapes and colors? Yes, they associate them with food, or sex, or both... but so do we. Beauty says something: come here, you're welcome, here is pleasure, here is life. And the cooperative nature of flowers may explain why we associate them with love and peace: they're a reminder that the natural world isn't all tooth and claw. That there's another way.

Beyond sex, beauty, and cooperation, my dreams sometimes use flowers as a symbol for a fourth thing that has no common name: epiphany, maybe? Oasis? Climax ecology? I mean those times, and places, in a complex universe inevitably containing vast stretches of filler, when something extraordinary blooms. A galaxy, in a matrix of dark matter. An oasis, whether in a desert of sand, or ice, or pavement, or depression. A meeting you know will bloom into love. A moment when an ancient deadlock comes loose, when change can happen. The opposite of a catastrophe (those moments, like comet-strikes or a predator's pounce, when an intricate pattern dies). Both epiphanies and catastrophes are inherent, in any system complex enough to live in--like a universe. Extinction... and flowering.

RELATED TOPICS: fruits and vegetables - beauty and ugliness - flirtation - sex - community and cooperation - disasters - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

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ALLORGY: by Wayan; 1983/4/1, an allergic love poem.
In spring the young allergic longs for the lusty world but cannot join the All-Orgy...
THE BIBLE REDUCED TO FLOWERS: by Wayan; 1994/9/8, a dream of the future.
In the future, books morph as they crawl round the web, till just the popular bits are left...
CAUTION: YOU TOO COULD BE CENSORED
CELEBRATE BOTH: by Henry Sultan, 2005/6/26, a painting that blends two dreams
At a snake-weaving party I flirt with my anima, who tells me how
the cake fell off the roof. I think “At last we’re really connecting!”...
THE CHANGED RIVER: by E.M. Martin; 1914/11/25, the quietest apocalyptic dream on record
Humanity improves a river to death, so the river just disappears. Ominous since it’s the river of nature, time and God...
THE CHAPARRAL OF TIME: by Wayan; 2008/10/21, a timetravel dream-poem: Dreamverse #36
I snorkel over time-reefs to an era of talking animals--but why crash on the head of rocker Suzi Quatro?
CHASM by Nancy Price; 1948, a telepathic nightmare.
The scenery's so lovely my mother walks off a cliff! As I wake, a neighbor falls out a high window...
"CLIT!": by "D'Jeanna"; 2009/9/11, a breakthrough dream after coming out
The day after my mom outed me to my dad, I dream a great storm has passed and everything's just glowing...
CYCLOTRON OF FLOWERS: by Wayan; 2015/9/13, a surreal dreamscene done as an imagist poem
Night. Rider and mount gallop in a ring, leaving a luminous spiral wake of glowing
flowers. Power builds, but when the spiral gate opens, where will it lead?
DOCTOR WHO AND DEATH: by Wayan; 1984/6/30, a hopeful dream of betrayal.
Dr Who, that lovable BBC alien, grows a sappy flower-face and
allies with Death. An alarming turn-around! What's he up to?
CAUTION: GOOD DOCTOR GOES BAD?
DOOR OF ETERNITY: by Marie-Claude Girondé, early 2000s, a painting on dreamwork's layeredness.
"If you put an ear to the door of books and the doors of the night,
if you pay attention, you can hear the conversation of poets..."
DREAM FLOWERS: by Kathleen Raine, between 1953 & '65; a dream florifying dreams
I dreamt I was given verbena sprigs--from my mother, I'm told. But am I me, Persephone, or all the daughters given love by all the mothers?
A DREAM OF ROSES: by Kathleen Raine, between 1965 & '71; a colorful warning dream
I walked a vast rose garden, but all were Ophelia's yellow blooms of love forsaken; not one was the color of love's true flower...
ELEPHANT WITH A LOTUS: by Queen Maya, 564 BCE? a prophetic Buddhist dream
After 20 years without a child, Maya dreams devas carry her to a holy lake, wash her...
and then an elephant carrying a lotus flower enters her right side. She knows it means...
CAUTION: DREAM OMITS TINY DETAIL--IMMINENT DEATH
ELF CIRCLE; 2011/3/19 by Wayan; a complex advisory dream.
After trespassing in a staff-only part of Faerie, I'm cast out.
Only I'm cast like a seed, meant to grow a new elf circle...
FIVE HEARTS: by Wayan; dreamed 1989/1/11; sexy psychic unicorn dream-comic (text only: FIVE HEARTS)
I'm a nurse pulled through a glowing well to a world ruled by a five-hearted unicorn, who wants me to...
CAUTION: NUDITY, SEX FANTASIES, LONGING, MELANCHOLIA
FLOWER CONVERSATIONS: by Larry Vigon; 2004/1/12; a surreal psychedelic dream
Worms rappeled down from my ceiling. My friend says "I've had great talks with those creatures."
They became flying flowers exuding a gas that, if you napped, let you have wonderful conversations...
FLOWERHEADED CAT: by Wayan; 2005/8/17, two bizarre, sexy, advisory dreamlets
My co-worker flashes a lot. Her boyfriend helps--flaps her skirt up to bare her pussy. What's their agenda?
In a dream-sculptor's studio, I pet her lily-headed cat, who purrs. I think "At least her pussy likes me..."
CAUTION: EXHIBITIONISM, PUNS, PETTING
FLYING FISH AND LOTUS: by Katherine Metcalf Nelson; 1983/4/10; a dream of quiet transcendence
I catch a magical fish and let it go. A friend and I consider higher learning--and we don't mean academia.
My friend lays a lotus in a chair on the beach. A man baptises in sunset water, shining like a certain fish...
GALAXY FLOWER: by Wayan; 1992/10/28 digital painting of a (nondream) vision.
My take on what Georgia O'Keeffe claimed she was up to with those giant flowers...
GARDENIAS: by Laurel and Frank, 1979 or before, shared marital-advice dreams
Laurel and Frank each dream the gardenia in their bedroom went
neglected & unwatered, but with care is now blooming again...
GEOMETRY OF DAWN: by Bruce Kawin, c.1983, a sexy metaphysical dream?
My anima sends me on peculiar journeys--smoke rings, islands, conversations with a stone--
but at last it's just us. She has something more she wants to teach me. On that bed...
CAUTION: ASTRAL COME-ON
GIRL IN THE WATER: by Wayan, 2000/10/7, twin dreams on... dreamwork?
In a California with no Gold Rush, wild deer carry a girl over the San Fernando hills to a secret dream-pool...
Then in a Japantown hotel lobby, that girl floats meditating in a huge aquarium, as local gossips lie about her...
GRANDMA LILY: by Wayan; 2023/6/18, a dream on... dream interpretation?
I wake in a suburb with Dire Wolves next door. I'm told an herb will appease them.
But the local herbal expert's a regal talking lily--and can I speak plant-language?
THE GREAT DREAM by Victoria, between 1988 & '94, introduced by Gayle Delaney; a sex dream on creativity!
My husband's sweet, supportive, but not that attractive. It's my brother (meaning creativity) who
gives me oral sex to die for, as my parents quarrel and a chorus chants "Ecstasy, ecstasy"...
CAUTION: INCEST
I HELD THE SUN ROSE: by Wayan; 1989/6/18; digital painting inspiring a dream inspiring a 2nd painting.
After I drew this I dreamed I was chasing stars with a long-tailed friend, and in the end we caught the Sun...
CAUTION: MILD NUDITY
ID FLOWERS: by Wayan; 1989/10/8, a dream of wish and fear
The villagers warned me not to walk in the alien graveyard; for at night, the Id flowers wake...
IRISES: by Frederic Mistral; 1834, a four-year-old's ecstatic dream
That day Frederic, craving irises, fell in the water three times. At night he swam through an iris paradise...
LILY OXYGEN: by Wayan; dreamed 1984/1/19, drawn 2000; a strong psychic dream.
I'm Emily Dickinson reborn in 2100 as a breeder of hydroponic lilies, till my dad drafts me as
an Arctic energy-prospector, where I meet a ghost, a fiery Beast, a new me, and the girl of my dreams...
CAUTION: QUEER-POSITIVE, NUDE PROSPECTORS, GNOMIC DICKINSON QUOTES
LITTLE NEMO: by Wayan; 2005/2/6; a little rant on the first dream-comic.
Windsor McCay's dream-comic Little Nemo is gorgeous but plotless & passive. Or is it? Dreamwork is gradual...
MAMMAL FLOWERS: by Wayan; 1991. Digital painting on recurring dream situation.
Since I dream I'm an animal a lot (or I'm an animal that wakes to find it's human a lot) hands fascinate me...
MANATEE: by Wayan; 1989/5/12-1992; digital nondream painting.
Beauty's link to status and privilege bothers me. The pretty get perks (or parks), while we uglies...
CAUTION: BREASTS, BEASTS, AND A BLOOD FLOWER
MELTDOWN VALLEY: by Wayan; 1993/2/13, a dream of scrupulous balance.
A park in San Francisco has melted into a bizarre mutation-zone. Its guardian is a lonely elf-woman...
CAUTION: ELF NUDITY
MOM POPS: by Wayan; dreamed 1983/8/5, a dream of bursting your inner critic
The flood sickens my fuchsia bush. My mom says my fuchsia is hopeless,
but I make up a treatment. When it works, well... read the title.
CAUTION: PUNS, EXPLODING MOM
MOON BLOOMS: by Wayan; 1997/7/22, a dream on traces of love.
Everyone has a personal moon. At first, mine disappointed me, till a bard dumped his trash on it, and...
ODE TO PSYCHE: by John Keats; 1819, a poem based on a dream-encounter
Keats met two winged lovers nesting in the woods: Eros and Psyche, the last Olympians, worshipless...
PICK ME!: by William Dement's daughter, 1959 or '60, a not-yet-two-year-old's dream
I went into her room one morning before she awoke and saw her eyes moving. Suddenly she said,
"Pick me! Pick me!" I woke her and she immediately said, "Oh, Daddy, I was a flower." ...
PIRANDELLO'S BAT: by "Anonymous #22"; pre-1963, an absurd predictive dream
I dream of a garden in Italy. Arches, roses. Then a bat flies in! Next day I open a book of Pirandello's plays, to find...
THE PLANTER OF SEEDS: by Victoria Goro-Rapoport, 2011, print based on recurring dreams
I often dream I'm lost in a strange city, wandering the unfamiliar streets
in search of something unknown, and possibly unknowable...
READABLE DREAMS: by Wayan; 1989/10/12, 1992/9/1-9/18; a 3-year meditation on treating dreams as art
How do we make dream narratives readable, when so many
readers are brainwashed to think they're nonsense?
RECOIL: by Wayan; 1995. Digital portrait of dream figures.
Puzzled me why I (the girl on the left) was so outraged about the gift of a perfectly nice levitating flower...
CAUTION: NUDITY, INGRATITUDE, WITCHCRAFT, ELVIS
SEX FLOWER: by Wayan; 1996/11/8, clay & acrylic sculpture, 9" tall.
Robe or petals? Head or lilybud? Face or tongue or clit or slit? An eerie hybrid of person and flower...
CAUTION: SOMETHIN' HAPPENIN' HERE, BUT WHAT IT IS AIN'T EXACTLY CLEAR
SPLIT THREE WAYS: by Wayan; 2010/8/24, a quantum dream of overwhelm
On the freeway, my car and I split into quantum possibilities. I steer both entangled cars
till I split again--now I have to steer three cars with just one pair of hands and eyes...
SYLVIA, OR, PUN-DREAMS: by Hervey de Saint-Denys, early 1860s? 4 dreams of French puns
A comet grows hair, a girl named Rosalie becomes a bed of roses, writing in a beautiful
hand appears on a beautiful hand, and Sylvia becomes a talking forest bird...
TRIBUTE TO JOAN MIRO: by Wayan; 1984/2000. Erasable crayon, 14 x 17", nondream
Nearly abstract but not quite. The snake, the quill pen, the secretary bird, and the rose.
UNICORN SURGERY: by Wayan; 1996/5/2, a warning dream.
After over-editing a weird poem to Silky, my night mare, I dream that
well-meaning surgeons think a unicorn's a defective horse, and try to dehorn her...
WINTER DREAMS: by Jenny Badger Sultan; winter 2004/2005, a painted series of color-dreams.
After teaching a class on color, I had a series of vivid dreams
about color, and tried fusing them into one painting...


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