Snow and ice melted and refrozen behind the building next door

Picture of "frozen shut" back entrance on my block

Last night I dreamed strange basement noises!  I woke up to visions and imaginings of a bright green dragon thrashing and thumping down there. 

This building's basement is nicknamed 'the dungeon' by the property management company's maintenance staff.  Once I recommended charging tourists admission for 15 minute tours of it as a House of Horrors. 

The stairway down is under a padlocked outside crawlspace door on under my back window.  I have a key just in case I need to get to the circuit breaker panel. 

I knew I had dreamed and imagined the green dragon as a shamanic experience.  But, of course, this morning I ventured down into 'the dungeon' to investigate anyway.

Everything seemed as usual - a dim, dank, musty, labyrinthine mess.  Shifting into a light trance I wandered through the cluttered rooms, blurring my eyes on purpose, tilting my head leftwards and rightwards, sneaking side glances all around. 

But nothing jumped out at me or struck me as unusual.  Just as I was about to climb back upstairs I was drawn towards the northeast corner directly under my sanctuary. 

Then I spotted a cardboard box I had never noticed before, all by itself, up high on a built-in storage shelf.  Coat hangers and papers were sticking out and it did not look interesting enough to bother with. 

The business tenants of this building do not use the basement for storage.  So I supposed this box had been left behind by a previous occupant of my space, which is leased as an apartment to allow this historic building to keep its 'mixed use' zoning (advantageous to the owner, somehow).

I reached up and over the side and pulled out college course notes and a geology textbook, and then felt a bumpy, pottery-type surface.  When I tugged this irregular object out, I was delighted to find myself holding a bright green ceramic dragon!

Maybe last nights dream-commotion was this mini-dragon signaling its desire to reside in the sanctuary room instead of under it!           

Raccoon visited!  My colleague The Tortoise Cat has yet to update her blog and tell of her Raccoon adventure, so I will share my side of the story (that I already tweeted) about a visit from Raccoon on September 13th, a Sunday morning.  Tortoise Cat is a sweet, bold, fierce little kitty, but a reluctant blogger. 

We both savor the fresh, night breezes of summer and we start early and stay late.  As the weather permits I sleep next to the screen door, most nights from June through September.  It is the next best thing to stretching out under the urban light filtered clouds or stars.  Tortoise cat sleeps on a chair nearby or watches for mice and other critters through the screen.

In the wee morning hours Tortoise Cat was fussing to go all the way outside so I let her sit on the steps, attached to her longer backyard string, lying back down but remaining restfully alert, just in case.  Too soon I heard her yowl and jumped up, though I was not too concerned.

As I opened the screen door to peer out, supposing she had tangled her string in the deck chair already, a terrified, medium-sized Raccoon shoved me aside and rushed in!  By the security floodlights shining through the window I stared, thoroughly amazed, at this hefty young fellow who was sitting up on my bedding with paws stretched towards me, mouth opening and closing, with what looked like tears moistening the dark fur mask around his glistening eyes. 

I cannot say how I knew this Raccoon was a male.  Tortoise Cat and I have met the neighborhood Raccoon family and are somewhat aquainted - at a distance.  We catch sight of them often, stealth-ambling past on the way to or from the dumpsters, usually between mid-night and 3AM.  Raccoon mom is huge compared to her two bulky 'teenagers' who I (somehow) take for brother and sister.  The three littler ones who run behind?  I have yet to get any notion of their genders.

"Hey, little guy", I said, "that Tortoise Cat is LOUD but she's tiny.  You're almost 4 times her size, so muster up your courage, young friend, and hurry back outside so your folks won't worry!"

My Raccoon guest appeared to agree and crawled cautiously back into the doorway and peered out, but froze when he saw the Tortoise Cat still blocking the steps.  I called to Tortoise Cat to be courteous and make way for Raccoon's safe passage by, but, as usual she did not comply, and stood (well, actually she sat) her ground and began emitting a low, eerie, rumbling, surround-sound synergy of moan, groan, and growl while her eyes glinted and glared. 

Then Raccoon uttered a trilling screech, crawled onto the railing, jumped down, then scurried gracefully through the bamboo bush and back into into the safety and comfort of shadowy shrubs and darker corners.  His mother and siblings must have been waiting nearby.

I was wide awake and this encounter happened in ordinary reality.  Yet, as Raccoon is a long-term shamanic helper, I know there were messages and gifts in this visit.  I realized how great a privilege this was and I feel highly honored.  One night (or day) soon I will remember a shamanic dream with Raccoon and learn more.

Allowing poetry to dream into me is a shamanic way I used to practice more often. This free-verse poem - as it might be called by some - dreamed in with September.  It seems more than a wee bit weird and nonsensical to me but that is the kind of poem I usually get. 

Years ago I used to receive and write a shamanic free-verse poem every day - or, rather, words blown and strung together like this.  Because I didn't call my shamanizing by any s-word or this sort of composition poetry when it started happening back in childhood.  A high-school teacher assured me I was writing free-verse poetry but I called it 'word-juxtapositions' instead. 

I don't recommend this as a once-a-day spiritual practice.  It is too intense and does not make enough ordinary sense, and the temptation to re-work it into a more comprehensible form can hit hard. 

As a shamanic poem I take this (like all the rest that came to me) as a whole, as a way of spirit-delivery of healing and transforming power, a container holding answers to prayer, that I don't need to (and should not try to) decipher or translate.

Shamanize as a kaleidoscope, on the chaotic tension...

between earthy limitation
just humming along
and cosmic springing-free, then

howl outlandishly...

between shaking containment...repetitive recombining of primary and secondary multi-colored building blocks
...and the next black and white, silver and gold, big-bang rainbow catastrophic surprise,
this universal serendipitous system of mercurial methods, always revealing itself

as just ordinary points

yet cosmic egg sets, of zeros and ones, set spinning around this expanding, accelerating circus circle,
though each radiating waving particle point of (visible and invisible) fields of resurrection is already spiraling probable
simultaneities inwards
 
and outwards...an infinity of infinities...

of infinities of orders of infinities...of parallel, perpendicular, tangential, and oblique yet ordinary, everyday, sharp fuzzy lines...
expressing worlds of thoughts, words, and deeds as complex designs of weaving
yet raveling multi-directions and multi-dimensions, eventually creating...

your Shaman Costume!

Oh let me only touch this flowing, glowing
super-asymmetrical, inexplicable, webby resonating deep space, material-energetic, earthy garment for a moment...
as the shaman passes amid the wild pressing crowds of expectant, jubilant confusion within me,

and wonder forever over the seamless holey wholly hol-y healing feel of it...
shimmering, glimmering, mysteriously holding and releasing so many sparkling arrays of vibrating

cooking vessels simmering uncertain, as yet undetermined, transformations

harmoniously jumping, falling, tumbling, dancing up and down and on and off this cliff,
or edge, or humpty-dumpty wall...singing into this abyss
thereby dream-seeding all of

this earth...the deeps, the seas, the lands, the skies...all commonplace,
known and unknown, sacred places...each stuffed with primary quintessentials,

every one of them hatching and scattering into wand-points

all over again, the same as always...
like never before.
(Patterns rattle, drum, and take steps while fringes fly...!)

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LAST very long!  They were soon assimilated or forgotten, then seemingly seamlessly replaced by the ordinary shamans who we call shamans today.  The original shamans didn't...

1. Bow to authorities
2. Stick to old stories

This is why whatever shamanic teachings you receive through books, DVDs, workshops, gatherings, apprenticeships, mentoring, courses, and any of the ways that shamanism is - that is, that shamanic ways or shamanisms are - passed on are really, mostly or partly shamanistic, meaning not quite shamanic (not quite meaning 'almost but not quite' all the way to 'not by quite a lot').  The original shamans have all been magnified by space-time then stuffed into spacey-timeless myths, or they are perfectly unknown in this world, lost to consciousness through history's mists.

The original shamans are universal yet singular, living in the neighborhood but are not of it.  The original shamans are NOT the keepers of stories - they receive and keep stories only in order to be the shifters of stories and the dreamers of new stories. 

Many of the original shamans drew followers even though they kept saying "Go away now!  Go on, go YOUR way.  Go be your own shaman!"  Except that the original shamans hadn't heard of the word shaman. 

Many of today's ordinary shamans suppose that they are already living and representing the secret circle of the original shamans.  But supposing is sub-posing, placing under, and that's just another kind of shaman-istic.

Shamanistic is as far as you get on the way of the shaman if you insist upon bowing to authorities and sticking to old stories - regardless of how many shaman-techniques you learn and initiations you receive, no matter how powerful these are.  And shamanistic can be life healing and transforming enough, for now - or not. 

If it's not...then DREAM an original shaman, within yourself, and dream your ceremony of giving away all your stories, and dream your next step after giving up on all your sources of authority.  Then forget it and shift on.  Or shift on and forget it.  (Repeat this as necessary.).

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Wow!  Before dawn I woke up in mid-dream...wondering why a loud anachronistic circle of ancient Stoics, Skeptics, and Cynics had been shouting at me back in a mix of lifetimes during the Golden Age of Greece.  What do these philosophical ancestors of mine want this go round?

Even weirder, I was remembering, a pale speckled parrot-like bird with a stoical expression had been perched on top of a severely pruned tree at the center of the circle the whole while, talking stories with happy endings, all but drowning out anyone else.  This strange but wise and old bird often barked and head-tilted side to side to punctuate the performance. 

"All religion is for the birds!" is the only - unusually pedestrian - message my brain kept chirping as I searched for deeper meanings and profounder interpretations.  This sketchy dream scene is all I recall but I suppose more will come back to me later.

Or, maybe not.  Other messages might have arisen from my inner well of knowing and been delivered though symbolic packaging while I was being distracted. 

Or maybe my new bird buddy will reappear and tell more.  Or 'all of the above' might happen, bit by bit, and I will accept it - no matter what - as part of the wondrous fun of life.

 
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Pre-Posterous:  I said, "No way I'm signing up for another blog!"  But then I did, out of curiosity:  There was no way to see how Posterous works without signing up.  This is my first (and possibly final) test Post-Posterous.

I'm ghost writing and business planning today.  I have an eBook and many web pages of my own that need far more than just finishing touches.  And I MUST begin advertising in ernest. 

If you want to meet me, tweet with me.  Or, let us Squidoo!  Here's my blogspot which I will update soon.  Wonders of consciousness shifting and scitech exploring keep me wondering, questioning, and questing.  Quest-I-On! 
 
How's your weather?  It's been gray, rainy, gusty, and chill here in Milwaukee.  Today, the final day of August, the sun is shining, ivory-toned fair weather cumulus clouds drift calmly, and the winds have quieted down to a whisper. 

If it rains where you are, let there be bright rainbows spewing blessings of quick silver and green gold!

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