In late 2006 I had a dream. It was one of those powerful ones that sticks with you and resurfaces again and again with new meaning. I knew some sort of creation was incubating with it and in fact, I had tried to create something from it a couple of times without success, so I let it be for many months.
I brought the dream writings and a few images along with me to Penland the spring of 2008 just in case something came forward to create with it. Indeed it did! I spent most of my week there cutting the Tyvek images you see on these three panels. Once home, I completed the backgrounds and mounted them.
While it’s always difficult to articulate a profound dream in writing, the Reader’s Digest version follows: The dream depicted my abundantly creative child self asleep while my adult self – both masculine and feminine aspects – sorted through life. At one point, a rabbit ran through the space where we were and, of course, we were really surprised. The child woke up and we saw that the rabbit had a blue paintball in its mouth. Awarenesses abound!!
A little history…when I was three years old, I took a red crayon and a stool and drew floor to ceiling rabbits on all available wall space in every room in the house. My dad never scolded me, but rather had my sister (15 years my senior) scrub them off and he just said, ‘Ellen, honey, we have lots of paper. Please just ask for some the next time you want to color.’ You’ll find these red rabbits on the first panel of the Rabbit Dream piece. (I have since apologized to my sister.)
More history…for me, a blue paintball means two things. First and most eloquently, blue is the color of creativity as well as the throat chakra. And when it’s carried by a rabbit which is often a representation of productivity, it’s double the self expression of sacred feminine creativity.
The second paintball meaning for me is less pretty as it reflects what had really happened in our household just prior to the dream. Paintballs are filled with paint and fish oil, so when ingested, they pass through quickly and with much color! We learned this when our curious dog ate one (a blue one filled with red paint) and then about 10 minutes later spray painted, so to speak, purple blotches of abstract art on our carpet as she ran throughout the house surprised as heck at what was coming out of her. So, while the color blue and the rabbit is significant in the dream, it was that paintball that drove it all home for me. Basically:
Clean out the crap and start creating and plan to be surprised as heck at what comes out!!
