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LILY OXYGEN

A TRUE STORY
Emily Dickinson reincarnated, standing among her hydroponic lilies. Words: ''THESE are my introductions!'--Emily Dickinson, handing an interviewer some lilies.' Click to enlarge.

Being an Account of a Clairvoyant Dream, with an Excellent Moral for Shy Persons.
by Wayan Chinese character; Wayan's signature. Person radical on left, simplified bird radical on right.


Dedicated to the victims of the Miike Mine Disaster in Japan,
and to all beings who breathe.


I repeat: this tale is true. Most quotes are paraphrased, and all names have been changed (except the Miike disaster, which was public), but this apparently clairvoyant dream happened as I've shown it.

Chris Wayan


ROOTS OF THE DREAM


The Day before my Dream, I read too much Emily Dickinson. I was left with this Conviction: it's amazing Emily was never Arrested, considering her Habit of packing a Loaded Volcano. Such Eruptions of Raw Passion into that Yankee Chill! Like Erebus fuming into the Antarctic Sky. Her frustrated Passions awakened memories of my own First Love, Cary Ricas: upstairs in her room, swollen with Longing, reaching in Desperation... she guided me just inside her, and then... Winced. Pain of a Virgin, willingly Embraced. But I couldn't bear to cause her Tears! I stopped and went home in Shame. Later she left a message, that she found a Rougher Boy to do the Deed; Virgin no More. In my Shame, I thought she Mocked my over-Tenderness, Missing her Hints she'd like a Rematch. And so I Hid, Cried, wrote Poetry, and... Lost her.
frost-flowers on the window
My life, like crystal Vines,

Crawls on Winter Glass.

Too wounded by a Breath

For love or Human Race.

Free to bloom I am--

On given Ice Stem.

frost-flowers melt under my breath

So I asked my Dreams: "Am I like Emily--too Sensitive to Reach for my Desire?" That night I was Answered, in the Following Dream.

I trek across the frozen sea to the ice domes of Thule. Click to enlarge.


THE DREAM OF LILY OXYGEN

My family's been in the energy business since my great-grandfather (oil in California). My grandmother was one of the first psychics to hunt for geothermal fields. We grew up hearing her legends of "The Beast" waiting under the northern ice. My mother froze to death looking for it, when I was four. I don't remember her, just my father's chronic sadness when I was very small.

I look like her:fragile, private, a bit haunted-- another brilliant, troubled princess, okay? I've heard it all my life. I think it's this resemblance that's kept him so awkward with me, buying me things, instead of...

I have her Gift--but I loathe prospecting. I like poetry and genetics and melancholia and raising hydroponic lilies: I bred those translucent bonsai lilies that bloom for over a year in their glass cubes. My father says I'm ignoring my true calling. But he also claims I'm just as tough as my mom, that I get away with acting like one of my hothouse flowers because I look delicate. Wrong! I really am fragile: I just collapse under stress--get visions and weird allergies. Yeah, the 21st Century Vapors.

Heart-shaped portrait of me at my desk in a princess gown. Words by Emily Dickinson: 'I tend my flowers for Thee - Bright Absentee - my fuchsia's Coral Seams - Rip - while the Sower dreams--' Click to enlarge.
So... this winter... the Thule Strait cryonics industry was booming, and our projections showed under two years before the powerflow spread too thin, squeezing the whole region. If we could find and tap the Beast, we'd be popular as well as rich. My dad had it cornered, if not pinned, and he started to nag me. I'm the best psi he's got--and for once I found it hard to tell him no. A single deadhole that deep would cost him more capital than my lily lab ever has. And if I went in, at least I wouldn't have to rough it: the zone was under a summer dome owned by the Ricas, our friends and rivals in the energy sector. Cary might even be there! So... I said yes.

A Spy in the House of Love...

So, I sort of invited myself up to see their hydroponics. They had room--winter in Thule isn't too popular. I took my stylish ski parkas and blushed and played princess. I even ripped off Emily, bringing lilies as my introduction. None of which was acting, whatever my father says! I love flowers, poems, nice warm domes (and arms).

I sweet-talk my way into an ice-mansion in Thule. Words by Emily Dickinson: 'I know some lonely houses off the road a robber'd like the look of.'
my father's spirit looms behind me, but he's rooted in my own hair. Words by Emily Dickinson: 'I am afraid to own a soul! Profound - precarious property'. Click to enlarge.

So they welcomed me, took me in, showed me caves full of flowers. I slept in a deep, gorgeous gallery of mutant iris and bee-balm, all hibernating of course, since the Ricas celebrate the solstice in the sun lands. So much like my lab! I want to meet the artist--Cary, I suspect. I'd trade for these maroon plumes. Though , as I look more closely, I see they're built on my own work. I stretch out among their scents. And smell... the Beast!

SO deep, no wonder they missed it... but one fault's oozing nice hot luscious magma up to a level that's just tappable. My father was right! I sneak out, down the dark halls, toward the deepest tunnels--but then I stop.

I can't. Fear? No. A psychic barrier as hard as glass. So... I return to the iris lab, sit zazen, close my eyes, and send my spirit out. No one will suspect the lily girl among the flowers. I rise and look back at her--skinny little rich girl--no!--a greyhound--like Holmes! On the scent! Come, Watson!

But something's wrong with my astral body. Terribly wrong. Big, heavy... I look down to see... a blurred beard, huge veiny hands and a tangled blob of flesh like some parasitic octopus on my crotch--a PENIS? I'm a MAN? Horrified I've gotten tangled in a man's dream, I turn to re-enter my own body, little bird suddenly so dear--and then I stop. The barrier's gone! The way's open to the Beast.

I feel wild. Why not let the dream take me... where it wants?

I gaze at my hands, and know them. My father's hands! I'm him. Well, it fits--it's his quest! My delicacy won't work down in the lava zone. But my father's hands reach out to the Beast's lair--lined with permafrost and mud, watercave veins, then crunchy strata stacked like pokerchips...messing around like a kid in the mud. My reluctance to grub around in the hot zone is gone. This is fun! I thrust deep into thermal strata below the dome; Cary flies in and scolds me in fury. Words by Emily Dickinson: above: 'A quiet earthquake style - too subtle to suspect'; middle 'the solemn -  torrid - Symbol - the Lips that never Lie - whose hissing Corals part - and shut - and Cities ooze away'... and at foot 'She dealt her pretty words like blades.' Click to enlarge.

I find and widen a sweet little fissure leading down straight to lava. Hot red wet--I love it! Like sliding a finger inside me--better, inside Cary! Oooh! And then a ROAR and the whole dome heaves. That fault was a live one. The Beast's awake.

What have I done?

And then Cary stands before me, enraged. She flew in? To see ME? (Does she think I'm my father or me?) She screams "How dare you prospect in our dome! You'll pay for this quake!" I open my mouth to say "I'm sorry" and freeze. Behind Cary, the ghost of my father beckons, translucent as a fish, and beaming. He's terrible at soul-flight, yet here he is to cheer me on! He points down.The Beast! The hell with property laws! We're on the trail of ENERGY!

Then strata grumble and a hot wind storms up from below. Cary's right! I went too deep, freed too much. Nitrogen's rising. The Ricas dome pumps nitrogen down for heating--it won't corrode like hot oxygenated air or leach toxins like water. But the heat-swappers have burst...

Then the BIG quake hits. Hot stifling gas boils up from the deep. It cools some as it comes, but it's so low in oxygen when it reaches us that people faint where they stand. My own body slumps face-first into lilies. Cary holds her breath and sprints through the heat into the lab at the hall's end.

In my spirit body, I follow her in. She found an oxygen tank and cracks it, sips air. Quick thinking! She snaps "Was your find worth dying for? We're trapped here!" She's right: unless fresh air's released soon, the people in coma will never wake.

And then, the miracle. I sense someone stir. In the garden, my own body opens her eyes, raises her head. Blinking groggily, but awake! How...? The flowers! My hobby's saved me. The lilies produce enough oxygen to sustain me--just barely. My spirit can see but can't speak with her--took all the psi with me.

I rise from my faint, revived by oxygen from my lilies. Words by Emily Dickinson: 'This is the hour of lead' Click to enlarge.
All the psi? Not quite! My body picks up a crystal egg--the carrying vase for a sprout. Root hairs permeate the egg's clear gel. The pattern's as familiar as the veins on my spirit hands--what IS it? A fault-map of the Beast! My body saw it all, dreaming, and somehow impressed the pattern onto this embryo. An engram! Intuition shouts that if I can just hold that map in our united hand, I can find a way to save us all. But I also sense my spirit can't leap the gap. Up to my fragile body to bring it to us.

But how can she do anything, without me, her spirit, to guide her? We're only half a person each. But it's up to the canary in the mine now.

How can I draw her to me?

The way comes reluctantly to me--because I hate it. Cary's gonna be furious! My spirit reaches down and slaps that fault again, deliberately.

The cave quakes, rocks fall, and I run for it. Words by Emily Dickinson: 'The WOUNDED deer leaps highest!' Click to enlarge.
A vicious heave ripples up from the Beast. The walls crack and roar. The garden-cave door splits, death floods in. My other self grabs the egg and runs for the lab-- not seeking her spirit, just guided by the same split-second reasoning Cary made. I may hate mining, but cave-sense is in my blood. The lab door slaps open and I leap to the air tank. With a rush and a gasp, we merge! I, we, look deep in the egg-map. We nudge a spot. This quake cracks the oxygen reservoirs (as well as, unfortunately, a lot more walls) and fresh air starts seeping in. Drunk on sweet oxygen...

And I know I've changed forever. Fragile flower no more!

I'm so ecstatic I could kiss Cary except she hates me. Trashed her stately pleasure-dome. The Ricas sue of course, but my dad pays serenely, since we'll tap the Beast within a month.

It'll take several more before Cary will forgive me but she'll end up in bed with me yet--if only to find out just what happened when I apparently merged with my father's ghost! I can do the rest on my own--my Ice Age is over. I won't allow my sensitivity to drive me into solitude, as Emily did. Am I too damn precious to love--a narcissus? Maybe. But I won't change to suit Cary--or my father. I'll find a girl with a taste for hothouse flowers like me. Because we're the breath of life and don't you forget it. Everyone in the Thule mining disaster was saved by my lilies! Lily oxygen. "Energy," says my dad, "is worth a mess." I guess!

Except--I must be honest. All that happened one year ago, and ...

Cary and I, a couple now, examine what was made with the energy I freed. I designed our gowns, by the way. Words by Emily Dickinson: 'Between the FORM of life - and life - the difference is as great'... Click to enlarge.
Today, Cary and I cruised a high-fashion Price Club, a century-old one with real linoleum and forklifts and cashiers and everything! So this truck lands with the latest cryonics from Thule, just in time for the Solstice give-away. I felt a certain pride. The packaging was gorgeous. Inside... garbage! It just shows off the new tech without doing one useful thing! Not just me either: I hear someone mutter "Fluff!" and a skinny woman yells "Where eez conTENNNNT?" I wonder "Did I go through all that just so people can make still MORE junk?" And on that note, I woke.
I wake to find my dream of one person surviving a mine-collapse in an oxygenated pocket really happened during the night! Words by Emily Dickinson: 'We dream - it is good we are dreaming. It would hurt us - were we awake - But since it is playing - kill us - and we are playing - shriek - what harm? Men die - externally - it is a fact of Blood - But - we are dying in drama - and drama is never dead.' Click to enlarge.
I went out to the kitchen and read the morning paper--and gaped. "Miike Mine Disaster in Japan" read the headlines. Workers were trapped in the mine, no air. The company piped in oxygen from above, hoping to help them. But rescuers found only one survivor, who'd discovered a small pocket of oxygenated air and held out for 25 hours, alone! Eerie.

It makes me wonder if my dream-self's psychic gifts are literal, not a metaphor!

I just don't know.


WHAT I LEARNED FROM LILY OXYGEN

A Glass Menagerie, like her lilies, Emily's poems, or my own dream-tales, can save your life when buried Beasts boil up, driving you to act out old dramas. Such floods may be corrosive and passionate (oxygenated), or paralyzing (de-oxygenated). Either way, your Glass Menagerie not only sustains you but may furnish the egg, the key to your Beast. Let instinct find it; Emily was right. You may smash walls getting that key, but it's worth it.

I hold a glass egg, sprouting a hydroponic flower that's the key to my psyche. Words by Emily Dickinson: 'Instinct picking up the key dropped by memory.' Click to enlarge.

Or is it? Tap the deep fountains of your life--and use your new energy to dig deeper into your rut! Work on, my fellow Americans. "Energy is Eternal Delight"said Blake--so boost your productivity.

Cultivate your flowers until...

A shocked, bearded man stares at his hands. Words: 'Can this be Me? DON'T PANIC! Blessed Be!' Click to enlarge.


I'd like to thank:
Emily Dickinson reincarnated, standing among her hydroponic lilies. Click to enlarge.
What Inn is this
Some, too fragile for winter winds
*A Wounded Deer - leaps highest -
I taste a liquor never brewed -
*Safe in their Alabaster Chambers -
I like a look of Agony,
Wild Nights - Wild Nights!
I shall keep singing!
I felt a Funeral in my Brain
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
*I know some lonely Houses off the Road
*If your Nerve, deny you -
I reason, Earth is short-
*The Soul selects her own Society
The nearest Dream recedes- unrealized-
A Bird came down the Walk
'Tis not that Dying hurts us so
I know that He exists.
*I tend my flowers for thee
*After great pain, a formal feeling comes -
I had not minded Walls
We grow accustomed to the dark
I heard a Fly buzz
*She dealt her pretty words like blades
I would not paint - a picture -
I started Early - Took my Dog -
*We dream - it is good we are dreaming
To fill a Gap
There is a pain - so utter
*A still - Volcano - Life -
It would have starved a Gnat -
I cannot live with you - Chinese character; Wayan's signature
Split the Lark - and you'll find the Music
Sang from the Heart, Sire
He scanned it - staggered -
Except the smaller size
*I am afraid to own a Body -
*Between the form of Life and Life
Time does go on -
These are the Nights that Beetles love
*After a hundred years
There is no Frigate like a Book
Not with a Club, the Heart is broken
Your thoughts don't have words every day
A Route of Evanescence
Those - dying then,
In Winter in my Room
To make a Prairie

I dreamed this January 1984;
hand-wrote, xeroxed and hand-painted the first edition as a Christmas gift for a couple of friends, December 1984;
left my own copy in a drawer for years, then redrew and printed it as grayscale, April 1996;
colored the illustrations and laid out this Web page in 2001;
made it dream-white on night-black and retouched the illustrations in 2012.
Time and growth are slow, but strong; the summers of the Hesperides are long.


LISTS AND LINKS: I'm Just Not Myself Today - gender-bent dreams - literary dreams - Emily Dickinson - the future - lesbians - flowers - breeding & genetics - quests - ice & snow - dream homes - energy - the underworld - fathers - breathe! - urge & impulse - miracles - transcendent dreams - predictive dreams & ESP in general - economics - oops! - disasters - love - decades later, a dream of Cary: Pointed Ears, Pointed Dream - comix - round & nonrectilinear art - pencil

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