Blackbird
Recurring dreams, 2002-2005?, by Anna Halprin as told to Patricia Ariadne
Certain themes and symbols have repeatedly appeared in Anna's dreams over the years, but few with the haunting regularity of the blackbird. Anna squeezed her eyes shut and grew quiet, as if to collect herself. "You know, the blackbird appears in my outer reality as well as in my dreams," she stated. "Several years ago, just before I received a phone call informing me of my best friend's death from cancer, the tree in front of my home filIed with crowing blackbirds. And when I was in the hospital with cancer, my husband reported that a blackbird had nested in this same tree. He was terrified for me until he witnessed a hummingbird chasing the blackbird away."
When Anna returned home from the hospital, she dreamed that the blackbird came to her in a dream to ask her to fly away with him. When Anna refused, replying that she wasn't ready, the blackbird insisted that they make an agreement for a later date. "The blackbird told me that he'd be with me always," Anna recounted, "circling around me to remind me of the pact to one day fly away with him."
Since that time, Anna has had many visits from the blackbird, long considered messenger of hidden truths, giver of omens, and soul-carrier. "At one time," Anna acknowledged, "I was quite fearful of the blackbird. But now I recognize the blackbird as a friend and guide." In this regard, she dreamed:
I was at the ocean, dancing around a beach fire. At the end of the day, the sea came to take the fire into itself. The blackbird began to repeatedly fly in a figure eight pattern around the fire on the shore and then over the ocean. Then the blackbird flew in the direction of the Sea Ranch, leading me to my private beach retreat. Next, the blackbird flew toward my home and my community, directing me toward my social contacts and obligations. Finally, I found myself on the blackbird's back, and we flew together through a window-like opening in a granite cliff near the ocean. I soon asked the bird to take me back, as I judged that I had gone far enough. It felt good to me that I could go as far as I wanted, but that I could decide to come back.Anna inferred from this dream that she was in transition. She saw her life choices clearly laid before her: she could retreat to the Sea Ranch to be in her private creative world, to be close to nature and to her unconscious for replenishment and renewal; she was free to be with family and community, and through her work endeavor to make social statements and contributions; and finally, she could choose to fly through the hole in order to connect with her spirit guide...
Very thoughtfully, her husky voice firm, Anna offered an additional reflection. "I have an intuition that when the time comes for me to die--when my work here is finished--I will go with the blackbird through the hole--and I won't be back."
SOURCE: Women Dreaming-into-Art: Seven Artists who Create from Dreams, by Patricia Ariadne, (2006, Galde Press), p. 66-67
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