Dreamways

Friday evening I had the pleasure of seeing and hearing the self-described "post-folk band from Latvia“, IĻĢI at Denver’s folk music bastion, Swallow Hill folk music center. This Latvia-based group, alive and kicking for 26 years, has been at the forefront of keeping Latvian folk music alive. In contrast to other ensambles that interpret the vast Latvian folk song repertoire in traditional styles, Iļģi have made it their challenge to transform this folk tradition into something living and evolving, rather than a museum piece.

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Sleep Dream.   I am in Colorado Springs, at the Carter gas station that was located less than half a block away from the Union Blvd. house. I am my current age. It is daytime, pleasant weather. As I walk into the station, I think how odd that I don’t know if I ever went into the station while I was growing up. The dream station sells a lot of stuff, like gas station stores do these days. I walk to the back corner and am very surprised to see that there are Latvian items on a table.

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Sleep Dream.  I am in a village somewhere in Latvia, standing on a hillside, looking out at a winding dirt road that rises and falls over several other hills, passing below where I stand. It is a sunny summer’s day.

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The expansiveness of dreamful life never ceases to amaze me! Dreamful ness constantly reminds me that the boundaries I like to think exist between wakefulness and sleep are nothing more than an imagined construct. Reality (whatever that means!) seems to indicate that sleep dreams and wakefulness dreams inform each other. Nothing is isolated.

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Sleep Dream. I am in the family house in the Springs. It is the same scenario as in the dream Marv C. at 2515 N. Union . Perhaps it is a continuation of that dream. I am walking around, really looking at things in the house, considering what to keep and what to dispose of. I go into the kitchen, which is different than the waking-world room I knew. On top of the counters above the sink are various objects d’art: bowls and vases. They are quite lovely, with bright colors. It is clear to me that Zaiga purchased them.

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Sleep Dream. I am at some sort of rustic mountain resort. It is outdoorsy and funky, like a summer camp or dude ranch. It is a sunny summer day. I am my present age. It feels like a Latvian gathering. Perhaps I’m at a 3x3 seminar. Someone hands me a “thank you” card sized blue envelope. I have no idea who it is from. I open the envelope, unfold the blue paper note inside and see it is covered in a not very tidy handwriting. The content is in Latvian, but quite garbled. I really cannot decipher what is being said. It is like word salad.

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Sleep Dream. I’m with Inta In Riga. It could be spring; there is slushy snow on the sidewalks and streets. It is a dream city, not corresponding to the wakeful one that I know. It feels pleasant, not threatening. We are walking around with no goal in mind. We go to a funky small grocery story. At the cash register is a fellow who looks like Susan’s father in Desperate Housewives: chunky; gray hair, a jowly face, his demeanor is sour. It think to myself that he is probably Jewish. We sit down at the front of the store to wait for M.

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This road trip has left me filled with strong and clean energies. Such an amazing sinking-in of the insight, that, truly, Home for me is not about attaching to any one particular space and clinging to it. This is the Zaiga paradigm, whereby NO space on the face of the planet can be related to in a loving fashion, since Home is defined as 1930’s Latvia. The Irony of her doing everything in her power to prevent me from taking root in the U.S., and in so doing, she replicated upon me what the Powers That She Loathed did to her. Except that I was NEVER allowed to take root.

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Sleep Dream.   I am at the Cedar St. house of Grāvele. It is sunny, spring. I’m in the kitchen (which waking Vitauts doesn’t at all remember) by myself. The space feels odd, but not at all threatening, a bit sterile, like no one really lives there, like a motel. There is going to be some sort of Latvian gathering there. In though the back door arrive half a dozen or so people. A tall and hefty fellow comes right up to me, smiling tentatively, as if he knows me. I’m not certain who he is, but feel OK with it. He holds out his right hand.  read more »

Friday night F and I went to a show at Plus Gallery. First I talked with San Juan‘s Vincent C. Turns out he co-owns some clothing stores - que sorpesa! He’s some level of buds with Igor. (It stuck me later that part of Lannie R’s and Gabi C’s hostility toward San Juan has to do with issues of class, that Vincent and Craig do move around in different circles. I can hear the ladies; „Who do they think they ARE?!?)

Then, a totally unexpected meeting: Indra J. came up to me. „Vitaut!

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