Ode to lissome pulchritude

 

Above all else, at all times, it is absolutely imperative that I be inspired.  This dream was one of the most beautiful, uplifting adages of sheer inspiration ever experienced. 

It was the second dream, on Sunday, March 26, 1995, while the Moon transited both Aquarius and my tenth house. 

                                                <O>

While in flight – yet another blissful flying dream – I flew up to an incredibly old city whose style was classical.  There was an immense structure here; it made me immediately think of Palais Richelieu. 

It was singular in stature though not rectangular.  Furthermore, it was easily four times as large as Palais Richelieu.  Over time, it had had wings added to it.  This was a multi-hilled city with different strata of growth that reflected the soul age and cycles of the city’s rise and fall as the centre of an ancient civilisation. 

I was then up on the landing, of an old palatial building, where I looked out to the outer Palais Richelieu-like colonnade some distance away and below me. 

There I saw a multi-tiered and elaborate fountain.  To have looked at it made me think that this was more so like Rome than Paris. 

The tallest pedestal from the fountain was closest to my balcony and atop which stood a marble statue.  It was of a most beautiful man.  The statue slowly rotated, his right shoulder leading, such that as it was viewed head-on his body rotated from left to right. 

It was in the style of an Auguste Rodin sculpture; more so it evoked the mood of Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker.  The subject of the statue had the same mood as the iconic thinker – stoical. 

The model was young and incredibly beautiful.  This was such a lifelike rendition that it was uncanny.  Instead of being made of the white marble of Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni’s^º David, it was actually Caucasian-toned – a sienna, pink-hued statue. 

This was so arrestingly lifelike that it made Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni’s masterpiece seem juvenile, even amateur, by comparison.  This was so very realistic and beautiful that it was simply incredible. 

To have been able to find stone of this particular hue was simply awesome.  Isis da Braga was, off to the left, on a far balcony.  She criticised the obscenity of the statue merely because the subject was nude. 

I was stunned by her ignorance.  She simply lacked the capacity to appreciate the aesthetics of the work of art. 

The lissome subject had a robe self-consciously draped across his slight potbelly.  Below the thin fabric, you could see his long, uncut cock – it was so lifelike. 

Every detail of the fabric-draped cock was impressive.  The veins in the statue’s cock clearly stood out.  The unevenness of the foreskin and the demarcation of the cock’s head, below the foreskin, were brilliantly, rousingly and realistically rendered. 

The downcast eyes were suggestive of him drying himself, after a bath, and became self-conscious of his nudeness on self-inspection.  The statue’s rotation, atop the pedestal that towered from the fountain way below, was so slow that it achieved the effect of his self-consciousness. 

Making voyeurs of everyone in a 360 degree arc of him, the pedestal’s deliberate slow rotation left him exposed as intended.  It was such a stroke of genius, on the part of the artist, to have affected this. 

The slowness of the rotation and his shy, self-deprecatingly held head evoked the desired emotive response in the onlooker.  There were even green-blue veins, just below his rose-coloured, blushing face’s skin, which vined up from beneath his square jaw then disappeared beneath the cover of his strong cheekbones. 

During the statue’s revolution the veneer of pink – flesh-toned stone – was graded such that it beautifully caught the light.  As the statue rotated, there were times that the play of light against the stone created a sense of translucence to the apparent skin of the partially nude, lissome male. 

This was so realistic! 

The statue was the zenith of a gâteau-like structure.  Way down below were the serene, sapphire-coloured waters of the enormous fountain. 

I did have the impression that below the surface of the fountain’s water were all these long-bodied, red and brown dolphins.  These were in excess of eleven feet and were definitely not a species of pygmy Fin whales, if you like. 

*Somehow, I was arrived at a very highly evolved and ancient civilisation.  If it were to have existed here on Earth, it would then have predated the ascendancy of Egyptian civilisation – which I am convinced began more than 50 millennia ago, despite what the present scientific consensus may indicate. 

However, I did have the sense that this was a civilisation which existed here on Earth – long ago.  There are simply no remains of this particular civilisation any longer available. 

Ancient Rome architecturally comes closest to what this massive metropolis accomplished.  It was such a stratified city with millennia of long dormant architectural ruins serving as the foundation of subsequent renaissances. 

This was a truly great civilisation and it was much like the ancient, massive metropolis which I visited in that momentous dream back, on July 9, 1993 - in which I saw architecture on a scale that towered above anything in this present age. 

Seeing then in that dream, in July, 1993, both what seemed to be Paris’s Grand Palais and Petit Palais – on a scale that was truly colossal – was phenomenal. 

I think that cities such as that, on July 9, 1993, and the one encountered in this dream have much to do with their being astral plane cities. 

After all, the massive metropolis that I visited, on July 9, 1993, was where I would meet Merlin.  It was a city that was more ancient than any on this planet; it seemed to be set on an Earth that possessed a population that was at least 17 billion strong – that should be 70 billion. 

These dreams attest to the astral plane being a very densely populated realm in which cities do exist.  Indeed that there are astral plane civilisations would make perfect sense. 

These metropolises would serve to give astral plane habitués a sense of continuity and grounding when between lives.  As such, they can be said to be ‘anchor points’. 

In these densely populated, architecturally stratified metropolises, discarnate souls can become artistically inspired and pursue lessons between lives that help to form the bonds for an upcoming incarnation set in a similar physical plane civilisation. 

So for returning to such aged metropolises between lives, one can readily recall the ties that bind and become refamiliarised with the karmic strands from past lives – strands which perhaps one would like to address in the upcoming incarnation. 

Each of these astral plane metropolises represents places of inspiration.  They are anchor points where discarnate souls can explore their creativity. 

This was plainly evident in the dream, on October 6, 1992.  In that dream, I flew above a sprawling, ancient metropolis.  On arriving at the large complex, I alighted and explored an arts complex wherein there were artists learning to paint. 

Still, there were others who were there to learn and enhance their musical appreciation, in the light-filled, cathedral-like concert hall.  In the same concert hall, of all persons incidentally, was Glenn Gould.  He played the most glorious interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach imaginable. 

Here was Glenn Gould, who is presently an astral plane habitué, further exploring his creative genius while providing inspiration for others on the astral plane. 

Quite simply, there are further chances for growth both creatively and – most especially – spiritually in such locales.  This is what these massive, astral plane civilisations represent. 

These metropolises provide the structure necessary, for souls between lives, to have a sense of connection, grounding and continuity of study and growth that are relevant to both past and upcoming lives. 

Karmic issues are reviewed here while some lessons and issues chosen to be addressed in upcoming lives.  These astral plane civilisations serve, I believe, as repositories of all that has reincarnationally gone before. 

Everything experienced, in past lives, were embedded in the livelihood of these massive metropolises. 

For returning to the astral plane, between lives, one could become that much more knowledgeable of past lives.  This was afforded by the resonant touchstones that the stratified metropolises contained to earlier, past lives. 

They – these marvellous metropolises – serve as anchor points to the past. 

                                                <O>

©2013 Arvin da Braga

Moving within to embrace the essence of self

 

On the eve of the fifth anniversary of Merlin’s passing, I was recently relocated to living in the exquisite splendour of Vancouver and its arboreal giants.  Thus it was that on the anniversary, I visited a beautiful crystal store on Denman Avenue. 

There, I purchased a number of new crystals with which to work.  To say the least, I wasted little time rushing home and taking to the collapsible pyramid where I began working with the newly acquired crystals. 

As the Moon transited both Gemini and first house, while working with the new crystals for the first time, I would experience the most lucid moments of essence contact. 

This transpired when meditating in the collapsible pyramid.  It was Saturday, November 19, 1994.  This meditative experience would seamlessly drift into the most lucid vision while in lotus position in the pyramid. 

                                                <O>

*Yesterday, as a celebration of the fifth anniversary of Merlin’s passing, I went out and acquired a couple of crystals.  One was a very large, five-pound-plus, clear, quartz crystal.  The other was a wand, transmitter crystal. 

Seated in lotus position within the pyramid, which I had aligned to the magnetic north pole, I sat facing due west to Vancouver Island and beyond to the Pacific Ocean. 

My clear, quartz crystal in the right hand and the new, wand, transmitter crystal piercing the apex of the pyramid, I placed my left hand on the newly acquired, large, quartz crystal which sat in a clear bowl that was filled with distilled water. 

I felt my body become resonant to the frequency of the newly acquired crystals.  Then, sure enough, my upper body at the solar plexus began thumping.  The thumping occurred while my body rhythmically swayed back and forth in the upper torso from side to side. 

This was totally involuntary; it had a waxing and waning definite cycle to it.  Throughout the experience, my lids had been closed as I allowed my mind to open up while expanding the spirit. 

Then my inner vision expanded and that led to the following experience while fully awake and seated in lotus position. 

                                                vDream one.  Unexpectedly, I suddenly felt as though I were moving at great speeds.  Just as unexpectedly, I saw a single, large, stone pyramid from the air while I hovered in flight several hundred feet in the air.  The pyramid sat alone in the desert. 

The pyramid sat a bit to the left in the night-reigned-over desert.  Bronze-coloured it was with some traces of sand-coloured limestone in places. 

I then saw a low-backed, dark wood, dynastic throne appear which sat empty atop a high dais.  This sat inside a large, imposing hall which immediately reminded me of the one that I encountered in the dreams, on Sunday, September 4, 1988. 

From my perspective, on high, I saw the throne and dais slowly revolve in a clockwise direction below me.  Next, I saw the pyramid again and still at nighttime. 

It then became bathed in a shaft of intensely rich, blue light.  The pyramid then tremoured; it caused my body to resonantly, involuntarily quiver. 

As the experience unfolded, the stone pyramid which was way below in the nighttime desert opened up at its apex.  The four sides had simply moved some 10-15 degrees, closer to ninety degrees, than they had been when joined together forming the apex. 

Again, I was then in the near-dark hall where I watched myself seated in the regal chair.  Here I wore a robe of gold with scale-like petals. 

A pyramidal headdress, made of pure gold, weighed me down as my legs were gathered beneath me in lotus position – exactly as I had been seated inside the pyramid and fully cognisant of the fact that I was neither sleeping nor dreaming. 

The blue light, which had poured onto the pyramid, now fell down through the ceiling of the great hall.  Directly in an untrammelled shaft, it enrobed and bathed me. 

Here, as in the waking state, my body undulated to the feel of its touch.  I rather enjoyed the drink of the massive energies being poured through me from this shaft of light. 

I seemed as if Thai Buddhist, gold-leafed statuary although there was no mistaking the fact that I was definitely alive.  As if in slow-motion, I was dancing with my body swaying to a rhythm that was primal, a rhythm that was born of the soul itself. 

I felt so elevated in my spine, each vertebra fully stretched and properly aligned, as I sat in lotus position in both bodies and dimensions.  Throughout all this, I must repeat, I was fully conscious and aware that I was neither asleep nor dreaming. 

I then saw the closed, sandy pyramid sporadically strobe into view, as I continued the process of healing the spirit. 

                                                <O>

©2013 Arvin da Braga

Trans-species communion

 

*I laid there deeply leaden, though fully conscious, while meditating prior to sleep.  I suddenly felt as though I was being stabbed in the throat.  There was a massive energy drain at my throat yet it seemed too that, perhaps, I was being choked. 

Lying in the meditative/sleep position, on my back, my hands were on my crotch while being situated in the pyramid.  No matter how much I tried, to will my arms to move, the effort proved futile. 

There was nothing that I could do, to reach my hands up, in a bid to stop the pain at my neck.  Truth be told, it was more so as if my hands were bound. 

I wanted to be able to do so much, to be able to sit up, thinking that perhaps my tongue was dangerously sliding down my throat.  Eventually, I was reassuringly able to make my hands up to my neck. 

Eventually, the oddity of the experience would shortly thereafter dissolve and allowed me to calmly slip into the dreamtime. 

                                                <O>

In this the first dream, I was up on a hill at the water’s edge looking out westerly to a very brightly sun-drenched, green sea.  It was definitely here on the West Coast as I looked to the Pacific; the energies were of this place – Canada’s West Coast. 

I could feel that there were several persons to my rear.  In my left hand, I held a staff.  Next, I pointed a large, powerful, foot-long-plus, quartz crystal out to the left and south. 

With that, I began hypnotically droning what can only be called whalesong; it was quite potent.  It seemed as though I were channelling through the chorus of two or more discarnate cetaceans.  This song was multi-toned; the song was a rolling base. 

There was, too, a built-in echo effect to it all.  Myself, I was amazed that the human voice could affect several, vastly different octaves all at once. 

A man to my rear was rather pleased; he kept on encouraging me to keep on singing.  As a matter of fact, he quite so reminded me of Yoshiki Feld-Ito. 

It soon became obvious, in spite of the reflective glare, that the ocean – before and way below me – was slowly transforming into a series of large, expanding rings. 

The water within the wide rings tremoured; it was as though it was being magnetised by some powerful, dynamic force.  The water within the rings bubbled a lot – air bubbles hungrily escaped on breaking the surface. 

Each of these rings was equidistantly placed and in a neat orderly fashion.  These were, in fact, not unlike the ringed bubbles which a pod of humpbacks would create during a feeding frenzy of plentiful krill. 

The water was not, however, as disturbed as during such cetacean social behaviour.  The rings were each several times larger than the humpback whales’ feeding ring. 

This was a transformative experience of trans-species communication and magical healing. 

*Here I was the old warrior-shaman just as I had been in that dream back, in mid-July 1983, when living in New York City.  This was at the point where my Chiron was transiting my natal Mars, to which it forms a square, as part of my grand mutable square.  END. 

There was a point during the process when I could make out the movement of the larger-than-normal whales.  They were slowly circling just below the surface. 

During the lengthy process, they had never once risen above the surface.  None of them had dorsal fins like Orcas.  I was never able to catch their faces – not because of the distance between us rather, it was due to the disturbance which the sunlight affected. 

There was no doubt, from where I stood, that I could at will see them in great detail just below the surface.  The light bouncing off the water’s rumbling surface, however, obstructed a good look at them. 

The light’s kaleidoscopic dance, across the transformed face of water, created a musical resonance to the entire experience.  It made it, as it were, that much more magical. 

*The fact that I had been experiencing trouble at my throat chakra, prior to slipping into full sleep, clearly served as a prelude to what shortly was about to happen. 

It was the first dream had; it was most lucid and vivid.  As soon as I began dreaming, as it were, everything was already in motion. 

My throat problems seemingly were all about opening up that area – fifth chakra – so that, on slipping into the dreamtime, I could best utilise my vocal chords. 

By so doing, I could best become engaged in this trans-species, magical moment of healing, energy transference.  A very highly evolved dream experience this was. 

                                                <O>

On Sunday, April 10, 1994, the preceding marvellously lucid, shamanic dream occurred.  At the time of this magical dream, the balsamic Moon was in Aries transiting my eleventh house. 

Naturally, after having had this dream, I then awoke and walked over to the Vancouver aquarium in Stanley Park to quietly commune with the beluga whales there – of whom I had grown especially fond. 

                                                <O>

©2013 Arvin da Braga

Establishing contact!

 

On Tuesday, November 28, 1989, I had the second dream contact with Merlin after his passing.  By this point, I was so thrilled at having had the encounter days prior that I was no longer tortured by the longing to dream of him. 

In the dream, I was rather lucid; I was alone.  The Moon transited Sagittarius and my seventh house as I lay sleeping.  I awoke into the most loving dream contact with Merlin after his recent passing. 

                                                <O>

I excitedly moved towards the phone to place a call to Merlin’s room on the eighth storey of Wellesley Hospital – not the room where he was moved to and died.  Rather, it was the room where he had held up for several weeks until the day before his passing. 

*Merlin had been relocated as the nonagenarian in the bed next to him had begun the dying process.  This occurred within an hour after Merlin had returned from long hours in surgery.  It was quite a noisy affair; the old man’s railing, expiring breath could not be ignored.  END. 

As I dialled Merlin’s room number, by now more familiar than our own, I thought,

‘What exactly am I doing, dialling his room?’ 

Before I could hang up to think, to doubt, along came Merlin.  I don’t even recall hearing the phone ring but Merlin’s familiar voice cooed across the abyss that now separated us.  I heard him say hello.  It was the warmest, most intimate embrace imaginable. 

He telepathically communicated with me.  Merlin actually entered my mind; I could feel and smell him.  He was so intensely real and experiential.  Merlin still sustained the magic, indeed.  I could, too, clearly see him. 

His aura was being drowned out by an intensely soft, blue light.  It was a light that was fluid and rhapsodic.  I couldn’t believe what I was experiencing.  I was so overjoyed that my body trembled. 

Merlin was as real and as familiar as ever he had been.  He immediately slipped into his usual, funny, charming self when cooing,

“Hello lambs!  How’s this lamb doing?” 

My heart broke in a thousand and one places.  Whereas normally the sound of Merlin saying just those words would send me roaring with delight, I was now left catatonic.  I was too besotted with the sweet elixir of his very magical, elfin soul. 

I instantaneously thought,

‘Why pray tell had I not thought to call Merlin’s room before in the dreamtime?’ 

It made such perfect sense. 

‘Where else would Merlin not be but where he had spent the last several weeks of his life nesting, as it were, before departing for adventures and lives up ahead?‘ 

It was such a clever ploy of Merlin’s because, as I came to in the dream, I found myself in an unfamiliar room where the dominant object was the phone.  It simply cried out to be used and, of course, I exactly knew to whom I had to place a call. 

As we were telepathically harmonised, I thought that it was so sad that here was Merlin still thinking that he was alive and thus he was hanging out at the hospital. 

My thought was fleeting and though I assumed secret, it could never have been hidden from him.  Before I could be corrected by him, I knew that the phone simply was a convenient medium for our contact now that physically it was no longer possible. 

Our thoughts were our prime mode of communication.  I would project my thoughts to which I could feel Merlin experience and react.  Then he would reciprocate by sending a responsive thought-image, accompanied by telepathic words.  It was most intimate and immediate; it was expedient. 

Concerned for his state of awareness, I thought of his body – his cadaver – as I saw it and visited with it by crawling into bed, hugging, kissing and saying goodbye.  The image of him being very dead in the waking state was instantaneously relayed to him. 

Merlin responded aloud in my mind,

“I’m doing very, very fine.  I had a very, very good night.” 

Of course, it was understood that when he mentioned having had a very, very good night that he was referring to his transition – his passing.  Merlin then asked me not to look back on my last contact with his body, with his cadaver, as he laid there in bed lifeless on the morning of his passing. 

The thought that he sent me was that I should not connect the cadaver with him; it was but an illusion for it could never approximate what he now experienced. 

Shifting the focus of the interlude, Merlin inquired as to how I was doing.  He was so familiar, so genuine, so casual and real, too. 

Moving on, he teasingly asked if I was being a good lamb.  I reacted, stirred by the strength in his voice,

“Listen to your voice, Merlin.  How strong you are… don’t you realise that all this time, you could still be alive?” 

“Oh but Arvin, you don’t understand, I’m very much so alive.  I’m very much so alive here in this world.  I’m more alive than I’ve ever been.  Besides, you know, it happened when it was supposed to happen.” 

This was a very honest conversation.  When he said that last remark, of course, I had a thought of him making it to the washroom around 23:30 the night before his passing. 

When Merlin said that, I knew as much.  I recalled having said to friends, at the time of his passing, that it simply was no longer viable for his energies to be focussed in that body.  He was right and I knew it to be fact. 

He sounded so strong and it was the Merlin and the energies of Merlin that I had always known.  As we spoke, as it were, I knew that he was not currently focussed in a hospital bed.  Though I had placed the call to Merlin in the room, at Wellesley Hospital where he had held up for several weeks running, he was no longer there. 

As we communed, Merlin shared that he was looking forward to getting together with me soon by which, of course, he meant doing so in the dreamtime.  For having spoken to him, I now had a strong telepathic bond with Merlin.  Too, I had vicariously experienced where he now experientially was. 

He was in a beautiful space which was like a spiritual spa.  It was a place of renewal and rediscovery at the level of soul.  He was wondrously fulfilled and I was better off for having been in touch with him. 

“My god Merlin, you were so goddamned-assed incredible!” I ecstatically shouted letting my lover, my mentor and my elfin-dream magus know how terribly proud of his noble, just-concluded life that I was. 

He glowed more warmly, more radiantly, enjoying my love for him.  He then continued on, for a bit more, before taking his leave of me.  Merlin began inquiring after the cats: Zora and Whoopi. 

Then as an afterthought as he read my thoughts, as I sought to inform him that since his passing that I had resumed speaking to Elektra Skanczchowicz, he preempted me by alluding to it. 

Instructing me, he coyly said,

“And say hello to the Ratpuss!” 

With that, Merlin and I parted. 

I had placed the call to Merlin because I had earlier been outdoors watching a performance.  I had become very self-conscious because everyone there was paired and I wasn’t.  My isolation, my aloneness, had left me painfully aware of Merlin’s passing. 

I had abruptly left the performance because I was not able to enjoy myself.  So I decided that though it would lead nowhere that I would get home and place a call to Merlin at Wellesley Hospital.

Ratpuss, of course, was a reference to Elektra Skanczchowicz whom Merlin appropriately characterised as a shit-disturbing neurotic. 

                                                <O>

©2013 Arvin da Braga

A vision of things to come

 

About 21:00, on Saturday, July 23, 1988, the Moon transited both Scorpio and correspondingly my fifth house while Merlin and I were seated in the living room.  It was two days after his forty-first birthday celebrations which had been intense, wonderful and filled with a whirlwind social activity. 

Merlin, while we sat together, was doing what gave him the greatest pleasure; he was reading a novel.  I was pouring through the remains of the print-heavy, Toronto Star newspaper. 

There was the usual quiet while both of us were fully engrossed in the words.  Zora, our alpha, female cat, was lying on the coral-pink rug across the room.  This same rug Maxime Gascoigne-de Montigny, Merlin’s oldest and most loyal of all his friends, had presented to us two Christmases earlier.  

Zora looked on through bored, half-closed lids at a rather persistent Whoopi.  The latter kept up a hard-nosed attempt at getting between me and the paper. 

Although her hypnotic purring was hard to resist, I ignored her.  I sensed a shift in my focus.  I had the urge to close my eyes and sleep.  

It was a moment that was somewhat like a cool, longed-for breeze off the afternoon sea.  I drew on a breath and pulled the paper up to self-consciously block my face from Merlin’s view. 

However, this was more.  I immediately sensed all the signatures, chief among them sudden drowsiness, which presage a psychic bleed-through.  Some visionary dreamscape was being birthed unrestrained. 

At such times, as spirit unfolds, reality becomes drowned out by the crashing surf of realities far greater.  Undeniable and unstoppable, such realities – pregnant with unimaginably surreal visions – hungrily scream their way into vivid realism. 

As it had occurred years earlier, in October ‘82 while we enjoyed tea at the Museum Café on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, so too another dimension intersected our shared reality.  Just as then, my fecund greenhouse began giving birth to another vision.  

Once more, my spirit surrendered becoming focussed elsewhere.  My feminine principle was aroused as my visionary water broke and begun hosting new life in the midst of our tranquility. 

I could sense both the cats and Merlin being keenly aware of my metamorphosis.  Stillness descended as a portal opened, to birth this new vision, yet all three chose to remain passive… attendant. 

The pull was stronger than my resistance – I wanted to say something to eclipse the awkwardness of the silence befallen us.  It was not to be. 

Before my refocussing vision, the newspaper’s black print liquidly bled away and dissolved.  It soon was washed away and drowned into the pool of white paper.  

My gaze submerged and was instantaneously, lucidly refocussed inward. 

                                                <O>

At once, I was engulfed in a rich vision.  Colours here, predominantly green, were soft and dew-heavy.  The scene was a mélange of our backyard, at Cabbagetown’s 20 Amelia Street in summertime, magically folded with the lushness of the backyard just outside Harella’s bedroom door of the Crab Hill house of my childhood. 

There was a liquid, heavy feel to all the plants, all hushed and indefinitely suspended, between lulling breezes.  It had the effect of creating an ambiance free of time’s progression.  Merlin and I were seated in the yard, on the white lawn chairs of 20 Amelia Street, facing each other knee-to-knee. 

Behind us, just off to the right, was James Tramble.  As ever, he was large, nurturing and silent. 

Merlin held a paperback novel.  Just past his right shoulder a large leaf protruded that was not unlike that of a Christmas cactus’s.  The leaf was curved in such a way that it peripherally distracted my attention.  So full of presence was it that the jade-green limb seemed more so an extension of my lover’s totality. 

Merlin was doing most of the talking.  He put the book in his lap and his hands began gesticulatively darting about the heavy air.  He drew me in, as ever, weaving his magic.  

Crouching over, I lovingly placed both my hands on his bony knees.  I was appreciably smiling enjoying his soulful company.  Hands cupped, I dipped in and stole a drink of the warm, smoky, hazel-blue-grey pools that mirror his soul. 

He caught me.  We blushed and then he reciprocated taking generous gulps from my own besotted, papaya-seed-succulent, brown, soulful pools.  Soon, our eyes’ glow grew warmer. 

Both of us now more intricately enmeshed in each other, Merlin continued on.  From time to time, he nervously snaked his right hand up through the air.  He scratched the area of his ribs which, months earlier, had been clipped, probed and invaded during surgery. 

At that time, in the waking state, the surgery had been to repair a collapsed left lung.  I chose to ignore the quirk and focussed, more than ever, on his soulful eyes. 

Control visibly gave way to panic.  His brows furrowed, Merlin shifted his nervous twitch to the neck muscle which progresses upwards and ends just back and below the right ear – the sternocleidomastoid. 

His eyes lost focus.  I veiled any sense of panic by anticipatorily raising my brows at his storytelling.  Too, I stayed myself by dismissing his nervous scratching as being related to his now fairly mild eczema. 

Drawing on a quick breath, his eyes glowed transfixed.  All sense of time and motion simultaneously dissolved into synchronised oneness.  Suddenly, time and motion became harmonised with the apparently suspended plant life all about us.  I had no way of controlling this new shift in my awareness. 

His frail, AIDS-ravaged, anorexic body slowly crumbled into deep, sustained contraction.  His mouth O-shaped, Merlin’s lids slid silently shut as his body pulled his head forward and down. 

James Tramble, my trusty, astral guide, soulfully sighed expressing his quiet joy at the beauty of Merlin’s passing.  His presence fortified me; it made me brush aside the sense of panic that made my eyes wildly and frenetically dart about, horror-struck. 

I reached out to catch the forward fall of Merlin’s body into my arms.  I embraced him as his head slipped past my face and came to rest on my right shoulder.  Somehow, born out of knowing, I began rocking back and forth cupping his cool, moist head in my right palm. 

Past the quiet nurturing of James gently stroking me on the back, I sensed the tremour of nature about me.  All nature seemed moved by the thunder of my mournful wail.  Tears, copious and molten, made their way snail-like into the confusion of hair and clothing. 

All of nature seemed to close in on us, enveloping me womblike, as though to absorb my pain.  Its soothing aliveness made me suddenly fall silent, aborting my noisy breath, allowing the tears to gracefully flow. 

The silence was so loud, in its stark finality that I cried out.  A final stabbing breath, in protest of the inevitable, was all that I could muster.  A greater reality than my selfishness aborted my mournful breath, from my very soul, with vacuum ease. 

James’s touch remained as knowing as my measured pulse. 

Just then, I sensed a transition in Merlin’s form where cool beads of sweat became moistly sandwiched between the sides of our heads.  In unison with James’s caress, I began caressing Merlin’s moist, matted-haired head. 

Dewy hairs making contact with my clammy palm began detaching from Merlin’s scalp with ease.  Arresting the motion, I alertly blinked – sharpening the focus of heavy-lidded, tear-filled eyes.  The moisture-heavy plants ahead now seemed more removed yet, somehow, waiting. 

I noticed that James no longer caressed me.  I noticed too that my tears were no longer flowing.  There was a subtle shift as Merlin’s stilled body became energised.  As I continued embracing him, Merlin’s body gave off a hum that vibrated my entire body throughout. 

Not only was it an audible hum but energetically it was light as well.  I felt the hum of his body creating a soft light from beneath his skin.  The light emitting from his face was the most intense.  I felt it at the back of my head. 

While pulling back, Merlin’s body seemed to assist me.  My body froze again.  My whole face: eyes, brows, contorted to give strength to my mouth locked in a suspended ‘O.’  It was much as his face had contorted, moments earlier, when he had collapsed on expiring. 

Merlin transformed… my awareness expanded… I caught a glimmer of my lover’s very soul.  Here before me was a face that was large and soulful with a thermal glow just below the ivory-white, liver-spotted skin. 

I stared at what seemed like the waxed, harvest Moon, while just comfortably above, in its measured fall for the horizon.  While I became lost in the experience of feeling Merlin awaken into new life, my whole body near-imperceptibly quivered.  This closely, within intimate embrace, I was face-to-face with the very soul of the elfin-dream magus. 

Stunningly, before me was a face void of features, just a series of gently folding slopes as though viewed from high above during a flying dream.  Yet, a serene smile warmed me.  Lids though closed and non-extant veiled eyes that warmly made exquisite love to me in trace nanoseconds; love most rare that filled me up. 

Here now was a face so old, so ageless that it defied time itself.  Time became reduced to some altogether, ill-formed, blurred and redundant reality construct.  I smiled at the thought and soon my happiness matured to a sweet, slow, flow of tears… 

The face shimmered and the light, emitting from beneath Merlin’s transformed skin, intensified the glow.  It transcended the short distance between us and correspondingly ignited a transformation in my dreamer self’s molecular structure. 

I began moving forward at great speeds crashing into Merlin; the whole process seemingly willed by him.  Crashing into Merlin’s transformed self was exactly like crashing into the arboreal, light being’s portal during the Boxing Day, 1972 moment of illumination. 

At that instance, though fleeting, I simultaneously experienced the recall of two prior dreams.  They were the two dreams in which I had encountered the same soulful, planet-like, cetaceous being.  Assimilation! 

                                                <O>

There was a chirp, which was the familiar dominant signature, as Zora staked her claim.  I opened my eyes allowing them to tune in to the hard focus of our collective reality. 

I self-consciously lowered the paper to find Merlin looking back at me with the same veiled intensity.  It was as though he were simultaneously wondering if I, too, had just had the same experience. 

His eyes were large, clear and dreamily hypnotic.  Worries dissolved into acceptance as both of us acknowledged that, between kindred spirits, genuine communication occurred exclusively beyond the mere façade of words or the waking dimension’s linear flatness. 

Zora seized the opportunity and continued her rivalry with Whoopi and jumped from the floor up onto my lap.  The weight of her brought home how thoroughly drained the vision had left me.  Again she chirped, in a bid to pull my focus exclusively in her direction. 

I abandoned the paper to caress her instead.  Whoopi, no doubt feeling dejected, made her way to Merlin on the other sofa.  As we both took the time out to silently caress the cats, I further assimilated the dream.  

Naturally, I had returned from one dimension to another my mind fully focussed.  I was just as lucidly awakened as when dreaming moments earlier.  The power and the beauty of the dream impressed me. 

Those very familiar eyes, which illumined my life and that had seeded so much growth, had permeated so many dreams.  It was growth which began, six years earlier, on that magical, October eve in Manhattan.  

A dream came true when meeting the most magical eyes which now warmly glowed at me from just across the room.  Merlin, magus and all nine parts intellect got up to join me.  

He kissed my right cheek and asked – in that gentle, shy voice, so very familiar by now – if I wanted to go squinge up with him.  Indeed, cuddling with this magical, old friend was worth birthing my way across dimensions, time and again. 

Together we waded into the liquid folds of the red bedding.  Quietly, we embraced, intimately passing an eternity lost in our love one for another.  We had just returned from dimensions deep up in the visionary surrealism that is the greenhouse – spirit.  

There we had engaged in sublime communion soul-to-soul.  After all that, we soon slipped into true, restful sleep. 

                                                <O>

©2013 Arvin da Braga

*The photo is of Merlin on Christmas day 1988 – his last Christmas celebration.  

A stately affair.

 

I was upstairs in this all-wooden, tiny, Japanese temple; it was daytime outside – very bright and sunny.  I was an observant party to a Japanese funeral. 

A Japanese widow had entered the packed shrine; she was younger.  Totally numb with exhaustive grief, she obviously was in a state of shock.  Her husband obviously had unexpectedly died. 

The deceased had been older than her though still young. 

There was an old, tattered briefcase present which was a definite favourite of his – since it had been presented to him in childhood.  It had stood before the casket at the altar.  His surname was Yamaguchi and his first name Kenji. 

It was a very wonderful ceremony. 

I was there as an observer; it was a glimpse into an important life that was in some way connected to me.  I really wasn’t an invited guest for I was, in fact, an interloper.  However, I had the distinct impression that no one could, not surprisingly, have seen me.  I was invisible throughout the dream’s duration. 

There were a great many important business luminaries in attendance – a great deal of Japan’s senior, industrial tycoons and scions.  I found the casket to be very small; it was almost that of a child’s.  However, he was simply a very diminutive man though clearly powerful. 

He had suddenly died.  Nonetheless, I couldn’t quite figure out if he had died in an accident or had suicide.  Perhaps, he had suicide because he had been implicated in one of the nation’s biggest scandals. 

It had seemed that he had been covering up a massive debt problem for his corporation.  As a result, when the current recession had brought to a head the problem with his corporation’s true financial situation, his own personal fortunes were wiped out. 

However, he was clearly from a very aristocratic Japanese family because every noble family was present – including all the heads of the nation’s important corporations.  This had shown a great deal of support and loyalty, only afforded someone of noble birth, in spite of the fact that he had really fucked up. 

This scandal had been, however, too massive a blow to his pride.  I had had the sense that he had died of massive internal injuries.  It was hard to say whether he was in a vehicular accident in which he suicide.  Conversely, perhaps, he had taken a sword to his stomach à la Yukio Mishima or had ingested narcotics. 

Regardless, it had not been a very pleasant death.  When intently looking at his very rich, oak casket, I had gotten this information.  This temple had large high beams and was styled in the classical Japanese, Shinto temple manner.  The temple was easily close to a millennium old but definitely more than half a millennium. 

Though it was very tall a structure, the level between the three storeys was quite low-ceilinged as compared with the vaulted heights of European gothic cathedrals.  There were minimalist elements in the temple’s design that are not, in particular, found in gothic cathedrals. 

There were no seats here, of course, because in the Japanese tradition one decorously knelt on the matting about the temple.  For being up in the balcony, I was able to have moved to one of the beams on the second storey.  There was a small opening, on the second storey, that had looked out to the outside. 

From that vantage point, I was able to have looked at the casket as it had left the temple after the highly ritualised ceremony.  There was a lot of incense and chanting priests. 

The funeral party was solemnly gathering outside.  They were getting into place to attend the burial grounds and the second phase of the funeral. 

There was a tall White male there who was preparing the casket to be taken away for burial.  It was very moving; I felt great compassion for the widow. 

The widow wore a beautiful, very expensive, floral silk kimono.  The predominant colour was a bluish-green that was very imperial with lots of beautiful, wonderfully placed flowers throughout. 

It was uplifting.  The kimono was mandarin-collared.  She was held up on the right by a woman and an older one on her left.  The beautiful woman was simply drunk with grief.  She was overwhelmed and clearly numbed while in a state of deep shock. 

This was an otherwise very strong woman but this episode had totally unhinged her life – all her plans were now dashed.  It was not just a matter of having lost a husband, whom she had much loved, but she was now without a life. 

She was without her ticket to her social stature.  This was a woman who had been bred and groomed, at which she incidentally had quite well succeeded, to be a powerful society wife. 

Unlike her Western counterpart, she was not necessarily going to be able to remarry.  There was, for her, no cachet to having had all that past experience.  In her society, there wasn’t going to be any likelihood of socially rising, phoenix-like, as had Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. 

I felt such deep compassion for her.  How could I not have?  After all that I had been through with Merlin and having lost him.  I could have had no other response.  This was one of those universal experiences that indelibly bind us all together, in a sense of community, for being human beings. 

I had stood there and poured my entire self into her.  I sent her intense, focussed energies to bolster up her spirits.  I had wanted her to have survived this, to have gone on, to have discovered aspects of self and strengths that she couldn’t possibly have known she had had. 

The woman simply couldn’t cry anymore – she had, long before the funeral, lost her ability to.  For all intents and purposes, this was so wholly unacceptable, she had simply checked out and temporarily gone to the astral plane to best insulate herself from this utterly stark nightmare. 

She had totally removed her spirit from being in the body.  It was too painful to have felt anymore.  So for all intents and purposes, her ego was subsumed while her body simply functioned on automatic. 

This was all so very imponderable to her that she had checked out.  It was not as though she had been crammed with pharmaceuticals to keep her tranquilised, submerged and detached.  She had simply moved into a state of sleeping, more deeply, than most normally do when awake. 

Devotedly, as well as recklessly, she just wanted to be with him.  She wanted to escape this horror and to accompany him in his transition.  However, she was deeply in the body and grounded by it; there was so much that she had to socially attend to with regards the funeral. 

There was not a sense that they had had children or if they did, they simply were not present at the service.  She was as if in a trance. 

I had sent her a great deal of energies. 

I awoke, after all that, truly feeling energetically splayed and exhausted.  I got into the pyramid and did a ton of energy work after having recorded the dreams therein.  I simply collapsed back in the reclining position with crystals and went to work. 

I sent them across the abyss of time, whoever they both were, great amounts of light, love and healing energy.  Then I got up and flooded the place with Jessye Norman singing Richard Strauss’s, Four Last Songs, grounding my energies anew. 

                                                <O>

This rather moving, preceding dream proved a window onto a lifetime, somewhere across time, experienced while inordinately lucid, on Sunday, August 18, 1991.  At the time, the Moon transited both Sagittarius and my seventh house. 

It was a truly potent dream. 

                                                <O>

©2013 Arvin da Braga

The initiate conquers his fears

 

Many of the images I saw in National Geographic magazines, during childhood, served as the inspiration for my fantastic voyages while securely nesting in the favourite forking branch of the genip tree familiar.  Still, there were times when these images served to inspire the most marvellous adventures in the dreamtime. 

Long years after my childhood the technique begun then, of imagining the pages coming to life, was sometimes animated in the dreamtime.  Just such a technique was realised in the three dreams to follow. 

They occurred, on Wednesday, January 5, 1994, while the Moon transited both Libra and my fifth house.  They were the fourth, fifth and eighth dreams that day; they were truly inspirational. 

                                                <O>

I came across a large, sepia-toned, hardcover book.  It was about 2-3-feet-square and voluminously thick.  On opening up the book, it proved absolutely beautiful. 

Each double-faced page contained a different vista which became immediately animated on looking down at the page.  Each turn of the page, left me posited inside the animated dream that was being acted out on the page. 

One scene, in particular, had an incredibly large procession.  Somehow, I was seeing it from across the street.  My head was as if at street level.  It was a Chinese parade. 

Here on display, during the parade, was a wonderful, large boat – a junk.  The boat was being dragged through the streets by a series of ropes.  The junk was made of tissue paper – gold, sepia and brown colours. 

Everything on the pages was fairly mono-toned.  Yet even when projected into the dreams there, too, it remained mono-toned.  While projected inside the animated pages, I had no control over anything. 

It had a traditional junk sail which nicely set off the boat.  The sails were made of bamboo rods.  There were tons of persons here as the procession made its way before us.  Most everyone else sat across the street from me. 

The float was exclusively pulled by men.  Here, too, they wore sepia-toned, traditional robes – kimonos.  Though they affected great strain, I am not convinced that this was not a fairly lightweight construct. 

Though not, it was being dragged in the street in a manner that suggested the boat was moving through an aqueous medium. 

                                                <O>

I saw a group of Africans who looked decidedly East African.  This dream was set somewhere in Africa.  It was on the East Coast of Africa and in the northern regions.  Perhaps, the persons here were the Watusi. 

They were a tribe of men who were in the outdoors.  Goodness, it was beautiful here.  From the waist down they wore a sepia-coloured, sarong-looking fabric. 

Not only was it sepia-coloured but so too were the ground and background.  Incredible, large baobabs lorded in the distance.  This was the most breathtakingly beautiful vista imaginable.  The sky here was spectacular as the lighting here left everything sepia-toned. 

The wonderful thing about these people was that they were all as if habitués of the astral plane.  They were, in that sense, totemic and larger-than-life.  Incredibly tall, Black men; theirs were the most incredible faces. 

Elongated, their faces looked every bit surreal.  Then they had their faces painted pine-green, and considering that everything else was monochromatic this made the face paint stand out even more, which was rather impressive. 

Exclusively relegated to the face, the paint was applied in such a way that they were able to warp their faces – just as Watusi men coming of age do.  Goodness, these men were so intensely real. 

They felt so completely of the Earth.  I felt overwhelmed for being in Africa, even though in the dreamtime, as I sensed a completely open oneness with nature.  Africa was so potent that it felt otherworldly. 

It wasn’t enough that they were astral and surreal but their faces were elongated in the extreme.  The body paint was from the chin to the forehead. 

In amongst the green paint, they had skillfully managed to paint in another pair of eyes.  It was purely ingenious.  This group of men proved absolutely bewitching.  As they danced, it became more and more painfully clear that they were advanced, psychic beings. 

They were spiritually highly evolved.  Innate magicians they also were.  They were so august that it proved an enlightening experience to have been here in their presence. 

They were there rhythmically chanting and beginning an invocation.  These men were highly evolved and most unusual. 

                                                <O>

Again I was in Africa, this time on the West Coast of the continent.  Here it was more heavily forested than where I had been on the African East Coast.  Unlike the earlier voyage to Africa, this was not sepia-toned in the least. 

I found myself, in the middle of the day, in the midst of a very real and vivid experience.  I saw two West African men who were quite close.  One of them was considerably younger and proved to be an apprentice. 

He was being taught how to be a snake charmer.  The snake here was totemic of African shamanism.  This was quite a large snake: red with yellow-white stripes, as well as some black – squares, more so diamond. 

The snake was not yet tamed.  Moving in the grass it would, from time to time, rear up as if to defensively attack them.  The older guy would swat it away with a large, metal pole, just back of its head; he was not in the least afraid of the creature. 

Each time, it would be knocked back down to the ground.  Whenever it reared its head, the apprentice would attempt to hypnotise the snake. 

Obviously, the novice had a great deal of fear of the snake such that he was not able to focus on the snake to overpower it.  They both had to keep stepping backwards, further and further, from the aroused snake which intended to defend itself. 

When I had appeared in the dream, I was in back of the snake and to its right.  From where I stood, I was able to study both shamans’ faces for directly facing them.  The novice was in his late teen-to-early twenties – if that much. 

The older man was august and at least in his early forties.  He was much like a father-figure to the young man though he was not necessarily the novice’s father. 

Clearly, he had a lot to teach the novice.  The whole exercise was not about being a snake charmer; rather, it was about mastering fears.  Once the snake was successfully tamed, the novice would then be deemed ready to move on to the next level in his initiation. 

The snake, of course, was never fully tamed; rather, it was less defensive around such persons because they had mastered their fears which were no longer projected onto it. 

It was all about mind control and developing the will to its full potential.  Becoming truly master of one’s self and nature was part of becoming an adept in this African, shamanic society. 

*This was one of the most beautiful and potent dreams, in long ages, for several reasons.  It is rare that I ever have dreams that are set in Africa.  For being part of the Diaspora, it is amazing the amount of effort that is educationally and culturally put forth to divorce oneself from Africa. 

More than that, this dream was so intensely vivid and real.  All my senses here were awakened; I experienced everything with an acuity that was beyond the norm. 

Straight away, I knew that this was owing to the fact of where the two shamans were.  Though it was out in nature, for having generationally lived attuned to nature, there was stillness and a connection that these two men experienced with nature that was beyond the norm.  It was sensed. 

It was rather beautiful, too, to see an aspect of nature that was being used as part of the young initiate’s training.  This snake was ridiculously large as it was deadly.  

                                                <O>

©2013 Arvin da Braga

And a fine tradition indeed!

 

Long after Merlin’s passing, the dream magus would return in one of the many uplifting dream postcards that he delivered on.  This dream encounter with Merlin was lucidly experienced on Saturday, June 24, 1995 and was the first of two dreams that day. 

At the time, the Moon transited both Taurus and my twelfth house. 

                                                <O>

I had been out in a courtyard where a woman and others went over the new program for radio drama at CBC – Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.  The female announcer commented on how it was back in the beginning. 

It was then that I noticed a beautiful dog that was a setter mix with a white eye patch.  The dog looked over at me, barked, then turned and there he was.  Merlin! 

Tall and healthy-looking, he was going over the program.  The woman then complimented him on having started a fine tradition.  It was so very good to have seen Merlin. 

He was exceptionally tall and spiritually elevated within his body.  His energies here were simply zinging with life.  Sexy devil, he wore the gorgeous Panama hat that I had bought him for his fortieth birthday. 

Skinny-legged bellbottoms he wore which reminded me of the night when we met and he sported those brown, woollen bellbottoms.  Over a loose, diaphanous, white shirt was a long and droopy, light, white summer jacket. 

God, he looked glorious and there was all that whiteness bouncing off the light.  As much as it was the light it was also his aura which softly outlined his statuesque body.  Glorious dream magus that he is, Merlin had a priestly quality about him. 

As usual, he left the first two or three buttons from the top of the shirt opened allowing his large-lapelled collar to ride over the top of his jacket.  This was so arrestingly beautiful a visit from Merlin. 

Here, in this dream, Merlin was tall and regal-looking much like Carl Leroiderien is.  Indeed, he had the same broad-shouldered, commanding body type as does Carl Leroiderien. 

Though unmistakably Merlin, he was not wearing the scrawny body with which I was familiar – next to which I had squinged up, for so many glorious nights, allowing me to leap off into the dreamtime’s abandonment with utter ease. 

It was so very good to have again seen and experienced Merlin. 

Of course, the dog companion here was immediately familiar and reminiscent of the initial dream encounter had with Merlin, four years, prior to meeting him.  Then, the dream magus worked his magic by preparing me for our eventual encounter and was accompanied by the astral plane, familiar creature. 

It was so magical to have seen Merlin’s aura clearly outlined.  He simply zinged with life-sustaining, positive energies. 

                                                <O>

©2013 Arvin da Braga

An encounter with Theresa.

 

While the Moon transited both Capricorn and my eighth house, I would astral project across time and dream these most potent dreams, on September 17, 1991.  I do believe that it was an encounter with a probable, future lifetime of Merlin’s; it was a most interesting of visits. 

As always, as with such dreams, my every sense was intensely acute.  I was lucidly awakened and the fluidity with which the dream progressed was bucolic in places.  The second being the one in question, there were two dreams that day. 

More than that, what was truly interesting was the way in which I felt on awakening from these dreams.  In particular, the second dream was the one that had the most impact on me. 

I was splayed, enervated and sported a tension headache.  I also spent long stretches of time, with long pauses as I tried while half-awake, groping my way through the recording process. 

It is key to bear in mind that the train travel alluded to, in the first dream, is of paramount import.  Oftentimes when moving across time, while traversing the astral plane to visit with astral plane habitués or visit past or future lifetimes, one does so in the protected confines of waking state transports such as the train. 

This metaphor reflects the dream in question being rooted at the very core of the soul; hence, one has to be transported to fathoms of the greenhouse – subconscious – not readily voyaged to or attained in the dreamtime. 

                                                <O>

I was on a platform in a train station.  There had been transportation going to this particular place.  Getting upstairs, it much reminded me of Broadview subway station where one waits for the bus outside. 

A woman in a car that looked like an old 1970s Monte Carlo, which was cream and brown, pulled into the station.  Soon enough, she realised that she had made a wrong turn.  She cut across a bus then came out right away, onto Broadview Avenue, making a right turn. 

I had come out and began following but on foot.  Coming out, I realised that she had made a left turn and gone up a back lane to go up onto that street west of Broadview Avenue where Maxwell Roberts IV^† and Heather Ronald lived. 

In any event, there was a police woman on a bike who started following; I thought that she was going to go after the driver of the car.  She, however, did not. 

In the meantime, all these cars had come and parked on the dirt road that we were on.  They parked in the middle of the road such that you had to walk around them because traffic couldn’t proceed anymore.  People were walking about. 

The woman, who was White, had very strongly developed legs; she wore a blue denim skirt.  She walked very briskly, at daytime, ahead of me.  There was a lot of gravel on the earthen road and the updraught of wind sent dust blowing everywhere. 

Facing the oncoming flow of persons, from the abandoned vehicles stalled in traffic, a blond guy stood straddling his bike.  He had looked at me; he was younger – in his teens really.  I realised that the woman was not, after all, going to be pursued by the female police officer. 

I went walking along and left this place behind me. 

                                                <O>

Next, in the second dream, I was in Manhattan where I went into this store; it was thrift shop really.  I thought to myself that it was high time that I bought a piece of fabric to take home.  I had had in mind to make myself a big pair of flare-legged, eveningwear pants – something that I could have to show-off my sense of style with. 

I did buy a piece of very thick, green thread with which I was going to sew.  There was this wonderful black fabric that had, in a grid formation, these thick welts in the fabric like corduroy does but very thick welts. 

It was a dark-green-merging-into-black.  In the end, I wasn’t too keen on it.  I kept on looking around the store which was quite spacious; it was, truth be told, more like a Salvation Army Store. 

There were, up on the second level high up, these rows and rows of dark suits which I did not care for.  Too drab were they; besides which, I was looking for fabric to purchase.  Above that, you had to reach up to get the clothing down off their hooks. 

I then found this iridescent, two-toned, purple and brown jacket – a parker-like fabric, which had a hood to it; it was very beautiful and all the same size.  Did find it sort of nice but, again, I did not go there to buy prêt-à-porter. 

I wanted fabric, so that I could make what I wanted and keep that sense of distinctiveness to my style.  Going up to the counter, I was asking the guy where one could get more of the choice fabrics.  The Black salesclerk was saying that they did not have anything beyond what was on display. 

I then began chatting him up, trying to get on good terms with him, asking where in the neighbourhood an out-of-towner could stay.  Referring to a bathhouse, I mentioned that I had heard of a place in Maiden Lane. 

However, he said that one only had to go down one block, to 44^th Street by the subway entrance, at Eighth Avenue; apparently, it was to the right of that on 44^th Street.  This meant that I was up at 45^th Street. 

Nonetheless, I thought of going down one block beyond that because I could see a big, empty lot, thinking that the block below that would be 45^th Street, instead of course, it would be 43^rd Street. 

I then said goodbye to him – he was, in fact, rather pleasant.  I left the store and headed across the wide avenue where the cars were flowing southward.  This meant that it was perhaps Seventh Avenue or Ninth Avenue but I was more inclined to believe that it was the latter. 

While they waited at the north side of the cross street, on a red light, I had diagonally cut across the avenue doing a brisk walk.  There was no traffic flowing on that particular side street. 

I then got to this big, empty lot.  At the front of it, which in this case would look out onto Eighth Avenue, there was this row of houses that were gutted out from the back. 

They were already doing renovations.  As Manhattan seemed in the midst of a building bust, due to the worldwide recession, I realised that these were recently bought by large development firms. 

This firm, however, decided that they were going to erect a massive structure.  They had demolished two of the buildings that were in the centre of the row of block-long brownstones; it would serve as the entrance to the skyscraper. 

On either side of the entrance would be these five-storey, classic, New York brownstones.  They would, of course, be renovated becoming very exclusive townhouses and condos. 

The skyscraper would be a ten-to-twenty-storeyed, luxury, apartment/condominium, block-square building right in the heart of midtown.  This was most unusual for midtown Manhattan and on the west side at that. 

As a result, it would have a great deal of security features to it.  The reason for it being located where it was, quite simply, it had to do with space.  The Upper East Side was now too densely populated, even overpopulated, to have accommodated more luxury high-rises. 

There was, in fact, a city ordinance banning further construction of high-rise dwellings on the Upper East Side.  As a result, there was a mini-building boom occurring in midtown Manhattan. 

The building’s façade, for the first three storeys, was already in place; it was a sand-coloured marble.  I had begun crossing the street on realising that this was definitely not where I wanted to go. 

I found a magazine which I began pouring through and, on turning the pages, happened on an advertisement for the company that had the fabrics that I was looking for; it said in bold letters: AD&G. 

It also had a map of the environs showing how to best locate their address; this was very helpful.  There was an ad for cheese, then other ads, which I looked at admiring the style and photographic compositions. 

The moment at which I saw the ad for AD&G, on looking at the store’s beautiful façade, I was immediately posited inside it.  It was beautiful, gloriously wood-panelled and owned by orthodox Jews and, in fact, was more so an apothecary. 

There were these wonderful white bags that were glacé-looking and folded up.  Inside were wonderful spices such as turmeric and powdered herbs.  The variety of herbs was staggeringly impressive. 

For a mere $28.00, you could walk off with three or four ounces of the cheapest herbs; they were terribly expensive.  In one instance, a mere ounce of some herb or other was a cool $45.00; it wasn’t even saffron. 

The merchant was a very pleasant soul; for working in such a healthy place, how could he not have been?  The store did zing with an abundance of health-sustaining life.  Its elevated, harmonised chi was tangible. 

“Yes, I know.  It’s very expensive.” said the store’s younger merchant.  This man’s passing resemblance to Merlin only that much more warmed me towards him. 

Apparently, the store was around since the seventeen hundreds.  They had been purveyors to presidents and royalty worldwide.  There was rich, dark, oak wood-panelling everywhere. 

There were two Jewish gentlemen who, at present, ran the business; both were very handsome.  They were mid-aged and about five years apart in age.  They were both very pleasant with a serene expression and looked like they had each passed a near-recent past life, in a monastery, in the Orient. 

I went and sat down on this large seat from which one could look at displays and samples on a wall.  This man was so evolved and truly refined of spirit.  A principal merchant, who was white-smocked, came over bearing a portfolio for me to look over. 

The portfolio contained a canister that reminded me of something that Merlin would have owned.  It also seemed like something that had to do with drugs.  From within the black, velvet-interiored case, he placed the silver canister that comfortably fitted in the palm of the hand. 

As it opened up, it got larger right before my eyes.  It had a little glass bottle that was connected to a collapsible spoon that folded out like a wing.  The glass bottle actually seemed not unlike an I.V. tube. 

It contained a very syrupy serum that reminded me a great deal of morphine; at the time, I recalled Merlin having been prescribed some.  This serum moved around very slowly in the organically enlarged bottle. 

It also did remind me a bit of Castor oil and it was something one could take, in small rations, when travelling.  Of course, I had no desire to be taking drugs of any kind. 

At that point, I remembered that my intention was to be buying clothing and not drugs.  There was also a vial of bee pollen that this courteous gentleman merchant wanted me to purchase. 

One has to use such glowing terms, for these two merchants, because their purpose was not solely to partake of the capitalist bump and grind.  More importantly, they were firmly committed to serving the good health of their clientèle. 

This man was genuinely concerned for my wellbeing – a rare occurrence that would be, indeed, in the waking state.  It was bee pollen which, of course, meant that it was even more expensive. 

It was said to be the elixir that was appropriate for me.  He did not foist it onto me though his manner suggested that he was, along with the other man for that matter, a spirit guide serving in regards issues of health.  It was much evolved an approach. 

Both men then ushered me into an inner room where I was graciously seated at a polished table; it was a light wood and not unlike pine.  This was a dream of high moment because of the deference with which human beings were extending themselves to me.  This, of course, is behaviour so rare in the waking state. 

On the right, sat an older man and a woman; hers were the most unusual eyes imaginable.  She was the wife of one of the two merchants who worked in the front of the shop. 

By no means was she a beautiful woman; more so handsome was she for the strength and distinctiveness of her total look.  Very tall, dark-haired, angular; her eyes were so unusually large that she seemed to have the most severe case of thyroids though she did not. 

The lids were thick and heavy.  In fact, the lids really did give the look of an iguana’s from the way the lids draped the large eyes and almost completely draped them shut.  However, she was very much so alive. 

She was talking with the rest of them as they discussed the different products and lines that they carried.  Their daughter was in an inner room talking to someone. 

She entered and graciously introduced herself.  She was the exact, youthful version of her very strong-willed mother. 

*These were people, at least on her side of the bloodlines, whose family could trace its ancestry right back to the court of King David and beyond.  They were Jewish nobility that spanned more than a couple of millennia and it showed; there was nothing nouveau about them. 

They were a family who had lived socially elevated lives, for more than forty-plus generations.  Too, wherever they had lived, be it Alexandria, Persia, Rome, Jerusalem, London or New York, they had known wealth; it went right back to their noble heritage in dynastic Israel. 

The daughter was, in fact, very pleasant to look at though a bit too nervous.  I was wondering if this, in fact, was getting a glimpse into a future life set in Manhattan.  She had just returned from England where she had been studying; she had a British accent. 

She joined us, sitting down on her mother’s left, across the table to my right.  The mother sat directly opposite me.  She had that way of looking, right into you, that the socially prominent affect with a confidence that is unparallelled. 

One of the brothers, who ran the business, was on the mother’s immediate right and her lover.  The daughter had come out with of all people, the actor, Robin Williams. 

He was unusually hirsute, even more so than in the waking state and seemed not unlike those extra-humans encountered in the dreams of February 16, 1989.  They sat there talking and visiting on welcoming me into their presence. 

Robin was not the hyper-energied, talkative and over-compensatorily – to the point of being grossly dysfunctional, funny ham.  He was contained and near-Buddha-like.  Perhaps, this must be a future life bleed-through for him. 

We visited for a while then got up and went back, into the inner room, with Robin and the daughter joining the rest of us.  At one point, as I sat there in their company, I thought of how very energetically aligned these people were to the mandalas that Merlin had done during his lifetime. 

The eyes of this woman did, in fact, remind me of the eyes of the elephant featured in the mandala that Merlin had made for Maxime Gascoigne-de Montigny.  Interestingly enough, in that mandala which Merlin did, in 1977, at the time of his Saturn Return – the majority of the mandalas he created were done at that time – the eyes were Merlin’s eyes; he had told me as much once. 

I then began speaking to them of mandalas; they were genuinely interested in my views on the subject.  I then pushed on, to tell them that I was presently writing a book about my experiences with Merlin and when I said that they had an immediate reaction. 

They simply shut down and the mother’s response was the most visceral.  She simply turned away, upset.  Her reaction was exactly like Merlin’s reaction was, when I spoke to him about my life during the Spanish Inquisition. 

It was in that dream in which I dreamt of Elizabeth and Ludnez, Elizabeth being Pannonica Kertész. 

*It was very interesting because Pannonica had had the same reaction, to my telling her of the book when we met.  It was as though she thought that I was only there, to give her a mandala, in the hopes that she would become my agent to have the book marketed – far from it, my dear.  END. 

At that point, I decided that I would take my leave of them.  It was at nighttime; it was in a darkened room as she sat on a sofa across from me.  She simply collapsed onto the sofa – just as Merlin in that dream had during the past life dream set during the Spanish Inquisition. 

Quite simply, she became drained and simultaneously it was very visceral for me.  My reaction, to her being in distress, was tantamount to how I would become enervated on watching Merlin collapse fainting during his illness. 

Robin Williams was there lying, on his back, on a sofa with his head closer to me.  The husband was on the floor.  When I went to say goodbye, I reached to the mother’s face and kissed her on both cheeks very grandly. 

However, she was very cool.  As a matter of fact, it was as though sensing Merlin’s energetics got up in another body.  It was as if a living masked ball, if you like, whereat Merlin was got up as the handsome woman.  Going into a backroom, I wrestled with what I was doing by taking my leave of them and the place.  Somehow, it just did not seem right. 

It was then that I noticed the daughter who was standing close by – as if to see me to the door.  Robin Williams got up and came in my direction to go do something. 

I abruptly left the room that I was in and hurried to the kitchen.  Of all things, I pretended to be taking a pee in the kitchen.  There was a garbage container which I decided was safe enough a place where I could take a pee. 

As I began peeing into the container, Robin entered the kitchen and saw me.  My cock was partially tumescent and unusually large.  Robin wore a green t-shirt and nothing else.  His cock was very visible; it was very skinny and long but flaccid. 

“Whoa, I did not know you were taking a pee.  I could come back.” he said and embarrassingly laughed.  It really was the exact likeness of the waking state actor. 

Slowly, sultrily, I began turning towards him yearning for him.  He shyly giggled and behaved awkwardly and became more like his cartoonish self in the waking state,

“No, no.  Not this time.  I have to go back, okay.” 

He returned to join the others and I returned to the bathroom where originally I had been primping.  I began caressing myself and admiring my dream wunder-schlong hoping that he would come back and join me.  He never, however, did come back. 

*This was a very potent dream and, in some way, Merlin was definitely connected to this woman.  Her interest, as I spoke of mandalas he had done, was exactly the kind of absorption he would have shown. 

I am very certain that this was seeing Merlin, in a future life, as a very handsome Jewish woman and reborn into a very old, noble family; a very pleasant, prophetic dream. 

She ran a gracious home.  The furnishings were all antiques in the salon; they were very Old World pieces.  There was a wealth of heritage and august ambiance like you would expect in the palaces of the Windsors. 

**I am beginning to think, especially with the passage of much time, that the woman whom I assumed to have been Merlin in a future life was actually myself in my immediate past life.  At the time, I was married to a doctor and as part of my own shamanic practice I, then Theresa, ran a salon. 

I was said to have been a statuesque, strikingly handsome woman of Incan descent.  What was never shared, in the channelled overleaves, was the fact that I may well have been also of Jewish descent – in the immediate past life. 

This bit of arcana would make a great deal of sense on two fronts: based on what I would later in life learn and for another, it would stand to reason that after having been Jewish in my immediate past life, I would be Black in this one. 

Between Merlin and me, it should be noted that there is a bit of reversal at play.  In his immediate past life, Merlin had been Black as I am now Black and he – when Merlin – was Jewish.  Rather interesting! 

Her large eyes and her Jewish heritage made me assume that it was Merlin in the future.  However, at this ‘masked’ reincarnational visitation dream, I was really encountering myself in my immediate past life. 

                                                                <O>

©2013 Arvin da Braga

The seminal dream of this lifetime.

 

 

These totemic dreams occurred as the Moon transited late in Gemini and my first house, on Sunday, September 4, 1988.  By then, Merlin and I had passed a most eventful summer together. 

Apart from three separate fainting episodes, the first of which happened on July 16, 1988, he had otherwise never been healthier.  Everything that we had always wanted, to take the time to do, we managed that summer to do. 

There was an added routine with Merlin’s regiment of taking two AZT pills, every four hours, around the clock.  With Merlin’s return home from St. Michael’s Hospital, the discipline of recording my dreams had begun in earnest that past late spring. 

Merlin would be rehospitalised at the end of 1988, at St. Michael’s Hospital.  There had been an early detection of what would prove his second bout of pneumocystis. 

It was then that I would begin recording the dreams on audio-cassettes.  While Merlin sat lost in the pleasures of morning coffee and the newspapers, large notebooks were previously used to make notes on awakening. 

Merlin initially asked me to share my dreams with him each day on waking.  He too was starting to have many dreams which, for the most part, he chose not to share.  There thankfully were many exceptions. 

Merlin suggested that I write down my dreams as he felt that they would prove invaluable down the road.  The method, we had agreed to, would soon change due to Merlin’s observations. 

Merlin, ever tactful, revealed that he had a hard time deciphering my florid script. 

“Besides,” said Merlin, “if you audio record your dreams, you will get more – you will not be fully awake…” 

As ever, Merlin’s advice would prove invaluable.  Being able to share my dreams with Merlin was a beautiful complement to his nightly sharing what he read as he had concluded reading yet another book.  This had been a nightly occurrence during the course of our relationship. 

Always before sleep we would spend curled up in bed with Merlin sharing his just-concluded literary adventure with me.  Merlin never abandoned a book, more than that, I never once heard Merlin dismiss a book as a waste of his time. 

Now, on awakening, it would be my turn to share of my marvellous adventures in the dreamtime with Merlin; he rather valued hearing of my dreams.  Each day after reading the newspapers and having his coffee he would begin reading my dream notes. 

At other times, he would discuss the dreams at dinnertime.  Merlin would spend time, while I was at work, reading the dreams and later listening to the audio-recorded dreams on tape. 

Alas, here are the very intensely lucid potent dreams experienced that day – Sunday, September 4, 1988.  These dreams signalled a major shift in our relationship. 

These dreams proved the seminal dreams of my Saturn Return, indeed, of this incarnation.  I was being initiated.  I was being awakened to the magus within thanks to having been mentored by Merlin. 

These dreams served as a preparation for the devastating betrayal that Merlin was about to suffer.  It was a betrayal which truly changed his life – our lives together. 

                                                <O>

The dreams began with me having total awareness of all my senses.  With Merlin on my right, we were walking along perfectly harmonised.  We were under a large red and white circus tent.  There was lots of straw on the sandy ground. 

High up my sinuses, there was a heavy methane bite.  At that point, I was reminded of my troubled sinuses elsewhere – in the waking state. 

I marvelled to myself at the different animals which I couldn’t see.  I could, however, distinguish each species from the varied smells of manure. 

As he always does when we walk together in the waking state, Merlin was broadly talking – mostly as a way to deflect the distraction of people’s hostility to our outré sexuality or disparate races. 

He remarked that he had brought me here because he always loved the circus; they were so much fun.  Too, said Merlin, there was the odd chance that there would be a magician. 

He beamed and mischievously winked when adding the last thought.  We were, incidentally, being exclusively telepathic. 

Continuing on, we walked along the straw-covered path.  I was enjoying the underlying currents of pride and affection in his voice as distinctly heard in my mind. 

High overhead, the red and white, big top was being soaked to the threads.  In what was obviously a cloud-naked sky, the intense, midday Sun unrelentingly blazed down. 

There were tents and stalls of all colours, on either side of us, I noticed as we progressed.  As I let my gaze rise, from time to time, I could see that the tents were all of the same large, peppermint-striped schemata. 

For the attention Merlin was paying me, I was aglow with joy.  Too, thanks to my love for him, I was aglow.  It was so real, so intimate, being alone with him. 

Most importantly, I was pleased as all hell that unaffected was Merlin by the madness that had befallen his waking state body.  Too, Merlin was taller. 

He wore a sexy Panama hat which he was so fond of wearing on birthdays and special occasions.  Too, he wore a sky-blue blazer that actually fit him.  Merlin wore white slacks that comfortably sat on the crest of his tan, leather shoes. 

The image of him was so warming that it made the dream moment last a lifetime.  I passingly smiled when thinking of how not unlike the very dapper, Carl Leroiderien he seemed. 

He was as well-dressed as I would have liked – in our waking state lives.  However, my few attempts in that direction he had consistently resisted. 

As this was the dreamtime, just like that, Carl joined us.  Like Merlin he was handsomely dressed and he was also wearing a blue blazer with cream-coloured rather than white slacks. 

I allowed the two to visit which they telepathically did.  I was warmed by their communion of spirit.  I had graciously moved to the left and allowed Carl to walk in between both of us. 

Carl’s visit lasted no more than a dozen steps and then he was gone.  Merlin and I returned to walking side by side and being telepathic. 

We then came to a tent, off to Merlin’s right.  Merlin’s pausing had made me look up.  He beamed down at me with his customary, open-mouthed, silent grin.  High above smiling eyes, Merlin arched his brows. 

Gesturing, Merlin pointed up to the sign over the entrance.  On a yellow board, there were a couple of stars that flanked a couple of playing cards.  In turn, the playing cards flanked a large, crystal ball. 

Merlin’s illumined face bore traces of a precocious, obstinate childhood that his parents and friends had many times lovingly shared.  While holding up the entrance’s thick, red, velvet flap, he ushered me inside. 

From the glare outside, it initially seemed like an ocean of still, cool, black light.  The heavy flap noisily dropped behind him. 

Merlin then soothingly placed his left hand on the small of my back.  The silence grew less stark.  Just as I began making out the tent’s spacious periphery, I heard a voice. 

A soothing contralto, her voice seemed to pull her face into manifestation.  A large wart sat high on her left cheek.  Throughout her face, wrinkles crested like strong waves breaking across the face of the high seas. 

Leaning forward over the black, velvet-draped, round table, earthy hands invitingly gestured.  Small, fat hands offered stubby, little fingers with each sporting a large, luminous, silver ring. 

I gave Merlin a look that said,

‘This is most clichéd,’ as if this entire dream were a magical weave of his. 

He accepted my teasing and graciously offered me, on one of the two empty ottomans, a seat. 

Thick, bushy, black brows stood independently arched on her ample forehead.  Thus they made quite a display of her eyes.  Large and direct, her eyes had a life that betrayed the rest of her face – august and soulful. 

Never before had I seen eyes so richly blue – they were a deep-lapis lazuli, pushing towards royal-purple.  As the brown of the eyes of most peoples of African descent are, hers were solid and soulfully sublime eyes. 

Unlike the usual, luminescent, glass-beaded look of some hazel or blue eyes were they.  Her eyes were warm, familiar and the source of life itself. 

Her stout face matched the ample-bosomed body that she wore.  She was crowned in a turban of black with intense stabs of red, purple, blue and yellow.  It matched her dress. 

In between her outstretched arms, hovering just above the tabletop, there was a large, crystal ball.  At its centre was a blue ball of light.  I smiled and following Merlin’s directive, I sat down.  Merlin joined me on the left. 

Merlin nodded to me and thereby invited me to begin.  So, off I went.  Turning to her, I began sharing much with her.  I told her that, in the waking state, I was experiencing significant allergic reactions. 

I mentioned the pollen-rife winds at this time of year.  Just then, as I spoke, I recalled that I had also powdered the cats to control their fleas. 

As I spoke, I found myself saying things as if another part of my totality were giving this medical history.  As I shared my medical concerns, with this earthy woman, I made an unsettling realisation. 

Whenever I approached Merlin, in the waking state, my allergies would flare up.  The allergies would become so acute such that it would make my being next to him almost impossible. 

Her eyes open, cast off in the distance to the entrance and beyond, her voice came back in a heavy boom that declared,

“Yes.  This is because you’re experiencing acute fear over this one…” she gestured to Merlin, “…leaving.  This is one manifestation of your jealously.” her accent was a smattering of Israeli and Russian. 

I raised my brows as though questioning her accuracy. 

“Your jealousy is largely denial.  A way to emotionally delay the task you’ve chosen.  You doubt now, in the body, if you can complete the task’s full agenda. 

“Your task mate is fully trusting of you.  You focus too much on the other players.  They’re incidental, nothing more.  However, you’ve come to a juncture.  You fear… letting go of the past…” 

When she said the word ‘past’, there was great weight to its enunciation.  Simultaneously, while my eyes remained open, I experienced a series of rapid images that were more lived than perceived. 

Each image lived gave me a ready wealth of knowledge.  The whole thing was experienced in the breath between words, as she spoke, but it left me fatigued. 

“…is all you have to do.” she paused. 

I was reminded of James Tramble by her use of language. 

Her words were clearly spoken and the effect on me was weighted.  There was a lingering echo effect, in this most lucidly progressional of dreams, with each of her words. 

Although she was about to continue, I interrupted her.  I fixed my gaze on Merlin’s chestnut-brown eyes, a colour they never were in the waking state, when interrupting her,

“However, I have wanted to get on with it…” by which I was referring to my spiritual expansion. 

“…However, there have been times… times when I’ve been afraid that my selfishness would leave Merlin behind…” 

Merlin warmly smiled at me.  His eyes radiated a warmth and agedness that reminded me of his transitioned self, weeks earlier, in the rhapsodic vision of Saturday, July 23, 1988. 

It was the same warmth and agedness as his eyes wore during our initial, dream encounter, years earlier, back in July 1978. 

“However, you know that’s not true.  He’s already begun his part of the task.  He is patiently awaiting your decision.” having none of my winded chatter, the occultist broke in. 

“I do.” I said, being almost hypnotised by my lover’s gaze. 

I thought then how much this ceremony and my eagerly saying, “I do” took on shades of a betrothal. 

“Shall we then?” her voice was a near-whisper. 

It was as though she hated having to interrupt the exquisite intimacy that was our timeless dialogue.  As I looked into Merlin’s eyes, so many dreams of high moment with him, that we had shared, softly surfaced in a trickle of the sweetest emotions. 

She offered her palms and I immediately shot a glance to her other palm.  I saw that the look was identical.  Three circles, of different sizes, sat inside each other.  There were no other lines in her stout, babyish palms. 

On placing our hands in hers, I was amazed at the soft, chilled feel of her.  This chill did not betray the warmth in her eyes and voice. 

However, this was a dream and I was fully aware that it was such.  More than that, nothing of the energies gave me reason to fear.  Besides, Merlin was with me. 

Instinctively, Merlin and I reached for each other’s free hand.  We had chosen to keep one hand free of the tabletop. 

“I’m honoured to serve you both.  I wish you continued success.” 

There was a pause and together we took a deep breath – long, hard and even – as if we knew it was the next step.  I felt the fear dissipate with my expiring breath. 

As we breathed out, the blue ball of light at the centre of the crystal expanded.  The expanding, blue light seemed to draw its strength from our expired breath. 

The blue light instantaneously expanded and radiated beyond the crystal ball to engulf us all in its blinding warmth. 

                                                <O>

Seamlessly shifting, the dream continued on.  Merlin and I found ourselves together in a large, cathedral-like hall.  The ceiling here was in excess of one hundred and fifty feet. 

On either side of us, there were windows along the walls.  We stood side-by-side.  The light coming into the small, round windows, which were close to the ceiling, was an intense white. 

The light suggested that there were two stars in the sky.  This light was not unlike water in its ability to form shards of undulating light. 

As the light coming through the left bank of windows was inclined about 20° and towards us, I was inclined to think that there were two stars. 

On the right, the light was as intense but fell casting longer shadows.  These shadows were inclined at about 60° and away from us.  The massiveness of this place was truly impressive. 

It was unlike any structure, anywhere, in the waking state.  This cathedral-like hall resounded with an agedness and historicity which, in the waking state, were also unfathomable. 

We were met by the slow approach of a tall, lean figure.  His fine, silver-white, long hair gracefully wafted from his head.  Too, his long beard gracefully flowed from his face. 

The effect was winning.  This man’s tawny complexion was handsomely highlighted by the stars’ luminescence.  I was warmed by the look of him.  He bore a passing resemblance to Merlin and, even more, this warmed me. 

We both instinctively knew who he was.  He was magus – master-dream magus.  Clearly, we were in the presence of a king soul – the magnetic, old king to whose realm we belong. 

Merlin, now on my right, again took my hand and squeezed it.  The fine man’s face was thin and longer than Merlin’s.  The magus’ eyes were warmer, gentler even, than my lover’s. 

As he drew closer, I noticed that about his refined, long-fingered hands, there was a thread of white light.  This mysterious thread of white light dangled down and joined a miniature, crystal ball.  The crystal ball bore a ball of white light at its very centre. 

The master-dream magus wore a long, flowing robe.  His robe was fire-engine red, of a velvet-like fabric that was so soft that it seemed to independently billow like a body of water. 

The hem, the bateau collar and the wide, flared sleeves were bordered with a glowing, golden thread.  Patterns of stars, spheres and hieroglyphics, of a design not native to any culture in the waking state, were woven by the glowing, golden thread. 

Awestruck by his beauty of spirit and power, Merlin and I gasped.  The master-dream magus before us emitted supreme power.  His aura bled away from him in a spherical manner.  Experiencing him was rapturous. 

Once within arm’s length of us, I saw that the great master proved not as tall as I had anticipated.  I observed that his were the warmest, papaya-seed-succulent, brown eyes. 

The irises were encircled by an amber-gold that radiated outwards.  These were the most sensitive and soulful eyes I had ever seen.  I was immediately drawn to him. 

Hands clasped, inclining his head to the left a bit, he extended the tips of his fingers towards us and slowly bowed.  We repeated his gesture of deference towards us. 

Merlin, however, had begun the gesture in kind before I had.  When I raised my head, the magnetic, old king’s head was still lowered.  When the master-dream magus finally raised his head, I noticed that his lids were closed in a prayer-like manner. 

More than before, with closed lids, his resemblance to Merlin was uncanny.  Slowly, the magnetic, old king opened his eyes and then he spoke – softly, in a familiar tone,

“I’m glad we meet again.” 

His voice had the same effect as the Babushka-like lady’s whom we had encountered in the previous dream.  I again got a good look at his eyes and, not unlike his aura, those utterly beguiling, powerful eyes radiated a light outwards. 

I did not feel leaden – as when I had encountered James Tramble, on Tuesday, July 12 and Wednesday, July 13, 1983 – the master-dream magus was though spatially leaden. 

The master-dream magus, indeed this magnetic, old king before us had warped the space about him – much like some high magnitude, white, dwarf star would the space about it and that of its closest neighbours. 

Since I was so stunned that any of this was happening and that it was happening so vividly, I simply smiled and nodded to him.  Merlin began retreating.  More than before, I felt drawn to the manifestation of power the short distance before me. 

Seeing my concern, the master-dream magus before me added,

“You’re to be cleansed.  It’s a healing ritual.  He won’t be far.” 

“I promise.” Merlin negotiated as he retreated, without walking, further behind me. 

Up a flight of worn, aged, stone steps, I next found myself stepping backwards.  I sat back, on a bed, as the master-dream magus patiently looked on.  My actions were seemingly guided by his will. 

Edging my way back, I realised that the bed was considerably inclined.  I waited.  The magnetic, old king played with the thread of his light-bearing, crystal ball. 

Spatially grounding myself, I checked and looked to validate that there were also two posts at the other end of the bed.  His eyes, which had never experienced time, patiently waited. 

Finally, I laid back into the plush, large bed. 

On making his way up to the foot of the bed, the exalted-dream magus allowed me a comfortable look at him.  As he drew closer, how like that initial dream encounter with Merlin in July 1978^I this seemed. 

Drawing on an unusually long breath, the king soul raised his chin and brows.  His beautiful eyes were now half lost to those utterly beguiling lids. 

I telepathically felt his touch.  It was warm, intimate and probing, his spirit completely possessed me.  He looked down into me with a benign expression that was so hypnotically unfathomable that I magically felt time slowly drift, to hover, suspended about him. 

My every thought was exposed.  I was rendered as familiar as the favoured, fire-engine-red, gold-threaded cloak enrobing his body. 

The light of the two stars, that were flooding the massive hall, instantaneously collapsed.  The windows were simply and expediently eaten by the grey-white walls.  The exalted-dream magus, my healer, spoke in a rapid, heavy tone. 

It was a tongue that was sung and which, somehow, though more African in its cadences than not – I knew it was not.  Repeating the brief introduction after him, as he nodded instructing me to, took the experience to a new level. 

                                                <O>

As I looked at his partially closed lids, that partially veiled the potent power of his eyes that slowly shifted their shape and intensity, I had a vision. 

At this new level, I was able to feel my body lying in our Cabbagetown, Toronto bed.  The cats were absent from the room while I slept next to Merlin with him snoring away. 

I simultaneously experienced the ritual of whatever this ancient tongue invoked – a ritual of which I found myself too trusting.  I was alone in the open where I stood on a plain. 

Here, I was in a secondary dream body.  The grass below my naked feet was warm and zinging with the life of the intense, blue light that oceanically flooded the place. 

I next slowly rose into the air and then began moving forward in the unusual, upright, flying position.  Beyond the blinding effect of the intense light, I could see a tree up ahead. 

This singular tree was more colossal than any red oak, redwood or baobab imaginable.  Eventually, I came to hover above the tree. 

This immediately reminded me of the experience of spatially travelling during the ecstatic experiences of Boxing Day, 1972.  The exalted dream magus, as my guide, telepathically instructed me to keep my focus on the tree at all times. 

“It is a source of healing.” he declared. 

Using that ancient, choral tongue of his, he then continued on.  As I repeated, a blinding, blue-white light seared through me.  When the searing light was extinguished, the colossal tree appeared halved as though it had been struck by lightning. 

The right half of the colossal tree, the shamanic magus telepathically shared, was to cleanse me.  The right side of the tree was full of light. 

The left half which appeared ill, withered and embalmed at the trunk, he intoned, would absorb the impurities I would dispel.  He continued droning on and I repeated after him. 

Then he got to a line that, somehow, I could not fully get because of its complex phrasing.  I tried but knew that I was off.  He repeated the phrase. 

However, I began doubting; I wondered if, at all, I wanted to be doing this thing.  I paused, afterwards stubbornly repeating but I hadn’t made much effort to get it that time. 

‘What was all this anyway?’ I wondered. 

‘Was this not the occult?  Who knows if I was selling my soul to the dark side, in spite of all this light and glory?’ 

Despite how much I enjoyed playing the role of lamb for Merlin, in the waking state, I had no ambitions of finding myself as anyone’s sacrificial lamb… in any dimension. 

Then again, I knew that there was no way that Merlin would be engaged in anything sinister or have sinister intentions towards me. 

After his third attempt, I repeated the phrase again.  There was hushed silence with the discomfiture of an impasse. 

Off to his right a form appeared, in back of the exalted-dream magus, in the now darkened room where I laid on the inclined bed.  On close inspection, it proved the very familiar visage of James Tramble.  James smiled and encouragingly bowed at me, as if to say,

“For God’s sake, let’s not be difficult, Arvin.” 

Tight-lipped, the exalted-dream magus shrieked the phrase at me.  This time, the exalted-dream magus’ tone was physically painful. 

James retreated back into the shadows from which he had emerged.  I dutifully came back and properly spat out the phrase. 

My response was more out of fear of the magnetic, old king’s rage than anything.  With that, the process was at once begun. 

                                                <O>

The exalted-dream magus abruptly turned around on his heels and retreated with the robe majestically billowing after him.  My mind focussed on the tree, simultaneously, I telekinetically managed to insert an empty clay pot into its clay tray. 

Clay pot and tray sat inverted, like a fly on the ceiling, directly over my primary-dream body which laid in a trance on the raised bed of the now-darkened, windowless, cathedral-like hall. 

The inverted, empty, clay pot and tray defied gravity being held in place by my bidding.  Two more empty, clay pots, each with a tray, magically appeared on the ceiling. 

Thus the wounded tree, of my inner vision, began bleeding its healing light energies to me.  The light rose up from the tree’s right half.  The light was cool and full of power. 

Effortlessly, it pierced through my airborne, secondary-dream body.  Next, the light crossed dimensions and moved down through the three empty, clay pots. 

The light fell the short distance, in the darkened hall, crashing into the abyss of my reclining, primary-dream body. 

Slowly, the three clay pots rotated counterclockwise.  The three clay pots noisily rattled while bathing me with the white light that they spilled.  The feel of the light proved a cool, soothing drink. 

As it showered me from head to foot, the light had a tingling effect on my body.  Interestingly, my head, solar plexus and sex were being favoured. 

It was a beautiful, invigorating experience. 

Soon, the experience shifted.  Next, I witnessed the decrease of the light’s flow from the tree’s right half. 

While I laid lucidly dreaming these most potent of dreams, I – now astrally projected away from my primary-dream body – watched the shell of my primary-dream body on the inclined bed instantaneously bloat to a size not possible in the waking state. 

I then experienced a sharp tugging sensation at my solar plexus.  Next, my bloated, primary-dream body lying alone – minus Merlin – began levitating.  Up towards the three empty, clay pots, that remained inverted on the ceiling in their trays, I levitated. 

Headfirst, I slowly rose making my way up to the triad of inverted, empty, clay pots.  As I cautiously peered up, from my levitating, bloated body, I could see that the empty, inverted, clay pots seemed to look into a bottomless pit. 

Merlin’s body, lying asleep next to mine in our Cabbagetown bed, turned during sleep.  With an absent familiarity, he sleepily placed his right arm across my entranced and spatially hyperaware sleeping body in the waking state. 

The three reddish, inverted, empty clay pots then began rotating.  This time, they rotated clockwise and more noisily than before.  As though caught in the vortex of their motion, my primary-dream body began circling in the air over the inclined bed. 

My feet dangled after my primary-dream body while in this larger, dream bed, within the massive hall, I circled at increasing speeds.  The walls were distant and featureless with neither windows nor doors. 

My breath exploded in an exhausted exhalation.  Simultaneously, my body became diminished in size.  The breath left my primary-dream body at the crown chakra.  The breath took with it the light that had filled me up. 

This was power on an order not often encountered in the dreamtime.  Yet I wasn’t afraid that this would, somehow, lead to my passing. 

As Merlin needed me in the waking state, the fear of death did not surface.  Thereafter, no disturbance occurred in the progression of this most vivid and layered of dreams. 

Up into the three inverted, empty, clay pots, the expired breath of light energies were readily sucked.  Through my secondary dream body, it then made its way out. 

In the sustained, inner vision, the expelled light hovered above the wounded tree which stood beneath my secondary-dream body.  After having passed through my secondary-dream body, the light made contact with the tree’s listless left half. 

The light leaving my hovering, secondary-dream body was less intense than that which the tree’s right half had imparted to me.  The experience, of being magnetised to the three inverted, rotating pots, gave a sense of the power of this massive tree. 

I felt, at once, liberated and empowered by this fusion with the light energies that poured to and from this tree.  When it was ended, my sagging and exhausted primary-dream body fell to the inclined bed. 

Through the eyes of my hovering, secondary-dream body, I watched the left half of the tree undergo further metamorphosis.  This occurred after having received the spent energies from my bloated, primary-dream body. 

The tree’s left half slowly rose and righted itself.  After the tree’s withered, nude branches sprung to life, leaves full of life magically sprouted by the dream moment.  The movement was graceful and sustained. 

This was a rebirth.  New life was breathed into my drained, primary-dream body lying foetal-positioned on the inclined bed.  As I gathered my strength, I looked up to the ceiling. 

I saw that I was alone.  Too, I saw that the three inverted, empty, clay pots had disintegrated.  They were gone – just as was the shamanic, exalted-dream magus. 

In the ocean of intense, platinum light, the tree beautifully swayed.  The thrilling effect of the healed tree sent my hovering, secondary-dream body crashing upwards. 

At great speeds, I crashed across dimensions where I finally fell and made contact with my primary-dream body.  No longer astral-projected to the inner vision, I grew more focussed in the body while curled up in the foetal position on the inclined bed. 

                                                <O>

Fully revived, I sat up in the bed.  Now my secondary-dream body and astral-projected self, in the room, were harmonised within my primary-dream body.  I nimbly slipped down over the edge of the inclined bed. 

I was shocked on noticing that the four posts, which turned out to have been huge candles, had considerably burnt themselves down.  The sight of them readily sent me off the bed. 

I protectively wrapped my arms about my stomach.  I thought,

‘I’ve been cunningly served up as so much black magic fare.’ 

Feeling boyishly vulnerable while ensconced in this womb of a place, with no way to birth my way out of this scenario, I ran away from the bed.  I thought of calling out to Merlin,

‘Where was he anyway?’ 

However, for fear of the magnetic, old king’s return, I decided not to.  The latter had already exhibited a formidable rage and it had terrified me. 

While standing at the foot of the steps, I turned to look at the candles one more time.  I then realised that they were warming and that they were, instead, a source of healing. 

I soon realised that so much of my response was being coloured by the Arvin, lying in bed next to Merlin at 20 Amelia Street, who was fully aware that he was actively engaged in the dreamtime. 

There was so much transference from my waking consciousness, acculturated by the all-pervasiveness of Judeo-Christian, fear-plagued nihilism. 

Sensing that I was not alone, I turned around.  I was met by the reappearance of the exalted-dream magus.  On his return, his energetic power was more intense. 

Walking towards me, in the centre of the massive, darkened, candlelit hall, his red cape billowed after him.  It was cavalierly tossed off the shoulders to reveal the gleaming, silver, chainmail suit he wore. 

Adding a steely strength to his otherwise gentle, bearded, ruggedly handsome face, a large, silver helmet crowned his silver-white head.  Covering his strong aquiline nose, the exalted-dream magus’ helmet had a nose guard. 

The nose guard further accentuated the exalted-dream magus’ magnetic, soulful eyes.  At the centre of his chest, there was a red patch with an insignia.  The look immediately reminded me of the Crusades. 

On closer inspection, what seemed like an inverted cross turned out to have been an upturned sword.  The sword glowed with a soft, white light. 

There were three small, crystal balls on the insignia and they also glowed.  The three crystal balls formed an upright pyramid that enclosed the sword.  The white light at their centres pulsated in unison with the sword’s light. 

Stopping at the same distance from me, as he did on his initial approach, the exalted-dream magus greeted me as before.  The exalted, warrior-dream magus’ timeless face broke into a trusty smile that was full of smouldering, sexual magnetism. 

Merlin returned as well but as he approached, I did not feel at all comfortable.  Merlin wore a matching smile to the master-dream magus’.  It was a smile that I knew only too well. 

As I looked away from him, to the inclined head of the warrior-dream magus, I realised that there was still more to come. 

Just when I thought that the ritual – of being cleansed and made whole – was done, there was clearly more to undertake. 

                                                <O>

At this point, I began experiencing this leg of the dream from my primary-dream body as well as transcendentally.  That is to say that I was as though out-of-body, from the vantage of the ceiling and always to the rear of my primary-dream body. 

Again, my awareness had become astral-projected.  This was much as it had been in that dream, of Thursday, July 7, 1988, when I observed my childlike body.  Of course, then I excitedly ran to the cetaceous totem of the dream magus Merlin, after claiming it to be me. 

After having congratulated me, the exalted, warrior-dream magus placed both his hands on his chest over the sword.  In a movement that was possible nowhere but the dreamtime, he pulled the sword from the insignia on his chest. 

Stunned, I drew back at the fierce action of the movement.  Breaking away from his chest, the sword came to life and grew larger and lifelike by the moment. 

The master-dream magus forcefully tugged free the massive sword from his chest where it had clearly resided.  There was no blood… 

Once free of his chest, the chainmail kept concealed whatever signs of the sword’s entry and exit there were.  Raising it by the tip, the kingly warrior-dream magus offered me the large, gleaming sword. 

I abruptly declined; both my voice and body cautiously retreated. 

The warrior-dream magus drew closer and used that stern edge to his voice that reflected his impatience.  This time, he would thrust the sword to me. 

Even though a sword, it was clearly made of white light.  Nonetheless, the idea of armour and weaponry turned me off. 

I started stepping up the steps, to the bed, backwards.  At that point, Merlin came forward to negotiate,

“No Arvin!  Don’t be afraid. 

“The sword is yours, go on, take it…” he was now between the exalted, warrior-dream magus and me while standing at the foot of the steps. 

I said nothing.  I was still focussed on the warrior-spirited, kingly dream magus and his gleaming sword of light. 

Silently from above, while astral-projected, I observed the scene with the objectivity and detachment associated with that perspective.  My arms were protectively folded to hug my stomach. 

All the reservations that I felt were visible on my face.  When looking down from above, I could see that I seemed the least adult of the three.  Indeed, my body was frail and boyish. 

“Arvin, it’s time you took it, it’s yours.  The time has come for you to shoulder some of the weight in this relationship.” Merlin said, in a tone that uncannily mirrored his waking state self. 

The pause, affected by my denial, the warrior-dream magus skillfully absorbed by further negotiating,

“You see Arvin, this is your choice.  Don’t be afraid.  You have to take it.  Now that you’ve been cleansed, the only way to stay protected is to wield its power. 

“And it’s not just for you.  Merlin wants you to do this on his behalf.” 

The exalted-dream magus’s voice was now more meltingly seductive in its deep, resonant, powerful and considerable, sexual magnetism. 

“Go on, Arvin; I believe fully in you.” Merlin put in. 

“This is a life that you have chosen; that is why ‘James’s is with you when you need him.  Few would choose a life devoted to the search and fewer still do know the power it brings. 

“And I might add, you would not have chosen the task, if you did not have every intention of seeing the task through.” the warrior-dream magus assured, his eyes hypnotically bleeding into me. 

“However, there are no guarantees.” I found myself engaged without hesitation. 

He smiled…  I smiled.  I laughed in the end when realising, at that point, that my heart was no longer closed. 

There was truth in what the commanding, exalted, warrior-dream magus said and, if not for my own empowerment, the desire to be with Merlin and to be and to do all things for him – protecting and loving him – was appealed to. 

“Arvin, I’m afraid I’ve been a tough act to follow.  You shouldn’t feel incapable of taking charge.” Merlin pleaded. 

Merlin came up the steps to join me.  He slowly pulled my hands from my stomach.  There was such beauty in Merlin’s warm eyes that I began moving down to meet the kingly warrior-dream magus. 

Absently, I kept holding on to Merlin, in kind.  Together, we stepped down to join the truly regal, exalted-dream magus. 

“This is, after all, your ‘Jeanne d’Arc’ lifetime. 

“Passing through the fire is never easy Arvin but it’s the liberation that comes with it that can never be imagined.” the warrior-dream magus sweetly said. 

The handsome, warrior-dream magus leaned over encouraging me to accept the sword. 

Straight away, the point at which the exalted-dream magus mentioned the French martyr, I froze in my approach.  On stepping down to the floor, the cool waters confirmed the dampness in the air. 

Though not liking the sounds of this, I seemed to sway as I reached out my hands to accept.  Merlin then let go of my arm.  I was shocked by what next occurred. 

Instead of handing me the word of light, as I bowed my acceptance, the tall, powerful, magnetic, warrior-dream magus who now seemed larger-bodied than previously – he now seemed truly Wotanesque – forcefully thrust the gleaming sword of white light into my solar plexus. 

The sword of light pierced me with effortless ease.  The light of the sword intensified and flooded my vision with a sea of white light.  I felt a warm, throbbing sensation as the sword of gleaming, white light slowly moved in. 

As the sword became buried into my body so too did my awareness become expanded.  I had another vision within these richly layered, astral plane dreams of unsurpassed, surreal beauty and potency. 

As the sword of white light thrust further into my solar plexus, I looked into the warrior-dream magus’s eyes and experienced again that slow drift-to-suspension of time. 

Much like his well-worn, red cloak, time magically hung about his intense aura. 

                                                <O>

In the light of a very intense full Moon, I saw a small village at nighttime.  It was a rural setting in Europe.  I was now posited, within these rich dreams, in yet another experiential unfoldment that was simply visionary in scope. 

I instinctively knew that I was astral-projected.  I also knew that, in this second vision, my body was made of pure light thus I was rendered invisible.  Standing on a slope, I keenly observed while remaining undetected. 

A lone, wooden hut was moored to a large tree that gave shade and anchored the hut.  A big-boned woman emerged from the hut.  She wore heavy, woollen fabrics which were soiled and grey. 

She lived in a valley, with neighbours who were comfortably distant, in this pastoral setting.  She walked towards me with a look of determination on her hardened faced. 

Complementing, her high-cheeked, by-no-stretch-of-the-imagination-beautiful face was dimensions removed.  This woman’s hair was dark and untidy. 

A gaggle of dark-plumaged geese flew in.  The geese noisily alighted in her yard.  Although I was sure that she couldn’t see me, I had mistaken her faint smile as acknowledgement of my presence. 

When it was clearly not autumn, it seemed strange that the geese should be in flight at nighttime.  On alighting, the geese wobbled after the woman as she progressed. 

Their flight was infinitely slower and more graceful than their pigeon-toed locomotion.  The woman made her way, in my direction, up the slight incline.  She was joined by other villagers who eagerly came on foot. 

She held her head high and proud.  In the cool, night air, her pets scurried along after her.  She gathered the layers of skirt, undergarments and apron in her hands and crouched forward while ascending. 

She made her way up to the top of the knoll where I stood.  She stood for a moment and as the others joined her, chanting their strong-accented, Gallic support, it confirmed my impression that this was in rural France. 

Oblivious of my astral-projected presence, she moved past me.  She started the trek across the plain alone.  Turning, in search of her destination, I noticed a wooden mound up ahead. 

As she continued on, the others remained where they were.  They were silent and supportive.  She clambered up the mound and stood with her back to the single, upright trunk while facing before us her audience. 

On realising what was about to happen, I began hurriedly walking towards her.  Even as I started to run, the mound became a flash of piercing, blue-white flames. 

The pyre crackled and the smell of the fire was strong.  It was all very real.  As the thunder of the flames triumphantly rose into the Moon-reigned-over sky, I stood spellbound in my tracks. 

As it progressed, every aspect of this dream was vivid.  It became an experience whose instinctual familiarity we in the waking state call, déjà vu.  This, however, was more appropriately, déjà vécu – previously lived. 

The flames surrounded me.  Soon, I realised that I was looking out at the weeping villagers.  I was unable to find my astral-projected, light-bodied, dreamer self which was still slightly ahead of the mournful villagers. 

My perspective was that of my invisible, astral-projected, dream body and that of the hard-faced, French woman who was being burnt at the stake. 

The feeling of being burnt, of being submerged in a sea of flames, was revelatory.  Contrary to what I would have thought, it was an experience that was just as exhilarating as a flying dream. 

It was pure rapture.  I literally felt my breath peel its way out of my rapidly withering skin.  In place of tears and wailing, my voice quaked with loud, victorious laughter. 

As my fears of the flame were lost, the laughter grew stronger.  Too, the ticklish, liquid feel of the flames and the stench of it all was a marvellous discovery. 

I then began moving forward, at great speeds, leaving the villagers in consternation far behind me.  I instantaneously returned across dimensions where I rejoined my primary-dream body. 

I rejoined Merlin and the exalted, warrior-dream magus. 

This was liberation and just as the exalted, warrior-dream magus had described and assured… 

*I do not believe that because of the Jeanne d’Arc reference by the exalted, warrior-dream magus in this dream that it implies that I was the French martyr in a past life.  More importantly, I do not read into this dream allegory that I was Jeanne d’Arc in a past life – nor do I believe it to have been the case.

Rather the reference to Jeanne d’Arc, by both Merlin and the exalted, warrior-dream magus, is the immolation of the persona that I would undergo for having been the ordinal partner who had had to sublimate ego.  As ordinal partner, I had suffered much insult, social aggressive and animus – chiefly owing to my race and sexuality – from some of Merlin’s non-too-spiritually-evolved Canadian friends. 

This, of course, would then lead to a transformation of persona.  That warped persona was suffocating for self, Merlin and Merlin and I.  It would result in the sublimation of ego necessary for me to have truly been supportive of Merlin.  This ultimately is all that mattered.  END. 

                                                <O>

The light up ahead grew more intense and my focus shifted.  The warrior-dream magus, his face leaning close, winked his left soulful eye at me. 

Merlin held me as my breath barked a “Wooooaah!” of newfound empowerment.  Even though I was exhilarated, I did feel drained. 

I was spent.  The sword’s energy sporadically tugged, while its strength waned with each pulse, at my solar plexus. 

Brushing Merlin aside, I allowed my body to collapse.  I sat hunched forward on the steps.  I did not much like the feel of this.  My irascible, doubting nature resurfaced. 

‘What had I delved into?’ at having had any part in this, I felt mounting dread. 

Merlin sat down next to me and began rubbing my back.  Lovingly, Merlin nurtured me away from this unnerving, emotional abyss. 

On sensing a shift in his presence, I looked up to find the master-dream magus returned.  Now, the exalted-dream magus was robed as initially he had been. 

Gone was the chainmail and helmet.  Now, he was enrobed in the bateau-collared, flowing red robe that was woven with glowing, golden thread in the most exquisite though unfamiliar designs. 

Turning to Merlin, I inquiringly looked at him.  His face broke into a soft smile which soothed my spirit. 

“I have a secret to share.” Merlin ventured in a whispered tone that was full of his usual charm.  Soon enough, I managed a won-over smile. 

“Arvin, I’ve always known you have a greater power about you.  And I have every confidence that you can take charge.  I love you, you know, Arvin.” 

I sat there on the steps looking at him.  I was fully aware of both him and me lying, together in our Cabbagetown bed at 20 Amelia Street, asleep and dreaming these most lucid shared dreams. 

How much more like the waking Merlin and my waking self we now seemed to be.  Even now, his eyes were the pale, hazel-to-off-blue of the waking state. 

Both Merlin and I were real.  Here were we clearly, fully astral-projected on the astral plane and engaged in deep soul-to-soul communion. 

Merlin stood up, after which, both he and the magnetic, old king knowingly looked at each other.  My lover looked down at me saying, with a sly wink,

“See you in a bit.” 

I said nothing.  They both turned and began walking away.  I got up.  I turned.  I made my way up the steps and climbed into the four-candle-posted bed. 

I thought about the sequence of events further mulling them over.  As much as I would rather have rejected so much that transpired, I realised that I couldn’t. 

From above, still astral-projected and observant, I silently watched my boyish, primary-dream body reclining on the inclined bed.  I knew that I watched myself and that these were rather vivid, astral plane dreams. 

On choosing to recoil my astral-projected body and become refocussed up into the grounding familiarity of the waking state, I closed my lids. 

                                                                <O>

©2013 Arvin da Braga