USING YOUR DREAMS TO CREATE POETRY & STORIES (And Maybe Gain Insight to Your Dreams)

[Graphic courtesy of Jim Warren Studios]

Below are four fun ways I have developed with which you can both explore your dreams and use them as sources for creative writing and poetry. I designed them for a workshop I gave years back called "Using Poetry & Tarot to Explore Your Dreams."

#1: GRAB-BAG

- Choose at random at least a dozen words from any dream.
- Write each one on a separate small slip of paper.
- Mix up the slips.
- Arrange the words in some order.
- What is suggested to you? Non-sensical or otherwise? Does any insight into the dream surface? Any other kind of insight? Is there a connection between the dream and these randomly selected words and order? Does a story or scene suggest itself, related to the dream or not?
- Draft a poem or story, adding or deleting any words you need to in order to make it work.

#2: STRING SOUP

... since the resolution to a dream is sometimes said to be in a subsequent dream ...

1) Take the last few lines/images of a dream you recorded and add to it the first few lines/images of a subsequent dream. What do they suggest? Do they fit together in any way? If not, what can you add to them to connect them? Try re-ordering the sentences.

OR

2) Take the ending lines/images of several dreams and string them together. What do they suggest? Try re-ordering the sentences.

OR

3) Take the most impactful lines/images of several dreams and string them together. What do they suggest? Try re-ordering the sentences.

Draft a poem or story, adding or deleting what seems needed to make it complete.

#3: TURNABOUT'S FAIR PLAY

1) Try turning pivotal words in the dream into their opposites: cool to warm, male to female, up to down, left to right, yes to no, bad to good, etc. What does the result suggest?

OR

2) Try reversing the action of the dream; i.e. tell it as backwards as possible. What does the result suggest?

Draft a poem or story, adding or deleting what seems needed to make it complete.

#4: BUDDY SYSTEM

1) Have a friend free-associate with one word each to words you select in your dream. Write down what they say. Make a poem out of these new words. How does it relate to your dream? What does it suggest to you beyond the dream?

OR

2) Read a dream to a friend, slowly, twice through, LEAVING OFF THE LAST COUPLE OF LINES. Have your friend create an ending to the dream. Make notes. What does this new ending suggest?

OR

3) Read a dream to a friend, slowly, twice through, LEAVING OFF THE BEGINNING COUPLE OF LINES. Have your friend create a beginning to the dream. Make notes. What does this new beginning suggest?

Draft a poem or story, adding or deleting what seems needed to make it complete.

* * * *

Resource: Dream Lines, enter a word or two about your dream, wait a bit as the drawing develops, then wait some more as it evolves further; a fun way to relate to dreams.

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under "View my complete profile")****My other blog: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL.

BLOCK ISLAND, RHODE ISLAND (WITH A POEM)

[North Light, Block Island, R.I.; I think the flowers might be salt mist roses, which have the most heavenly smell.]

With the return of lovely weather, I've found myself yearning for Block Island. I fell in love with it on my first trip there in 1985. I returned each year for many years thereafter. Always in what they call the "shoulder season," either before Memorial Day or after Labor Day (in my case, to avoid the tourist crowds).

I have not been there for at least 10 years. With each passing year the craving to visit intensifies, but finances and other issues have kept making that impossible. So, I visit the internet Block Island sites I have bookmarked and savor the pictures instead. I'd plan a trip to Block Island for after this coming Labor Day, but don't believe my finances and knees will be in proper shape yet. However, I certainly intend to visit in Spring or Fall of 2007.

I'm not a driver -- never did learn how to -- but even if I were I can't imagine I'd ever do anything but hike around that beautiful island. I used to fill my backpack with various necessities (water, bandaids, snacks, aspirin, sunscreen, rain slicker, notepad and pens, mini-Tarot deck, bamboo flute, sweater, towel, etc.) and take off. The series of images below were recorded on my first trip there.

Journey

I have deserted my branches
for the roots: a twin to shadows
to the underside of things

*

Room number five overlooks
the swaying marina
and has two doors:
one through which to come and go,
the other a locked
and barred fire door.

*

Even in loneliness I am not alone.
something trips on pebbles
in my wake, stirs dust
like small clouds of incense,
startles me with three-toed
footprints in deserted places.

*

Roses are said to bloom
in The Hollow even in December.
I fear its lush summer beauty,
its cup of forgetfulness.

*

At the spit of the island
I stand between two pounding tides,
nailed to an impossibly narrow
shelf of life by past and future.

*

Through a huge wound of distance
the sea appears calm.
Up close, great fists of water
fling rocks and broken shells
at my feet like jewels.

*

I follow a sea bird with a broken
wing that drags in the sand.
It flaps wildly into the water
from a belly take-off.
Then sails serenely along
in its element,
useless wing tucked neatly.

*

A light rain sketches
tentative circles on the surface
of a lily pond
and taps at the yellow
of my slicker.

*

Fog strings invisible spiderwebs
with lights. Pine needles dangle,
each with a perfect iridescent
globe at its tip. I lean closer,
hand out. The globes shed swiftly
and disappear into my palm.

*

A half dozen cows kneel together
in a field that rises
slowly into green.

*

I fling onto my back
in a patch of sunlight.
I am a five pointed star
within the wheel of the world,
an Ace of Pentacles,
a Wheel of Fortune.
For a space sharper than a blade
of grass, the sun burns
at the bidding of my belly.

* * * *

Resource: Scenes of Block Island.

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blog: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL.

DREAM HAIKU ABOUT TAROT CARDS

It's always seemed odd to me that I don't dream more directly about The Tarot, given how much I relate to it in my waking life. (See my tarot blog, link at bottom of this post.) I say "directly" because many of my dream situations do echo the Tarot, it's just that I rarely recall an actual image from it. However, I have had some clear Tarot images in dreams and below are the few haiku I've written based on them.

Gordian knot
version after version
of the Ace of Swords

* * * *

the Tarot layout
is strong both up and down
how to decide

* * * *

Empress or Papess
the Tarot card woman
won't be pinned down

["Papess" is another name for The High Priestess; there's a legend that there was once a female pope, Pope Joan/John.]


* * * *

overwhelmed by
the Seven of Pentacles
her own creation

* * * *

the Three of Cups
pops from the new deck
reframe your thinking

* * * *

the woman floats:
a fire Tarot card
with so much water!

[In most decks, a card can be considered either fire/wands, water/cups, air/swords, or earth/pentacles]

* * * *

makeover magic
which of the three Tarot cards
will she be?

[for an exploration of this last dream with the actual cards, see post in this blog called "Dream of Three Tarot Cards."]

* * * *

Resource: Thanalonline.com, current issue of a literary magazine in which I have a few poems; although my last name is mis-spelled (I'm awaiting its correction) I still recommend this nice ezine. :-)

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blog: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL.

FIRST ATTEMPTS AT HAIGA

In case you don't know, haiga are haiku on or about accompanying pictures or paintings. Haigaonline.com is a good site to see some wonderful haiga.

It was such fun learning to use the Paintbox program so that I can put my dream haiku on graphics and create haiga, I thought I'd share my first two attempts. I found these two (creditless) photos below after lengthy internet searches. Once I get my scanner up and have drawn or painted some of my own pictures, any haiga I post here will be totally of my own making.

I may even try to get back my "hand" at calligraphy and put the haiku directly on the pictures I do. It's been a great many years. Though my mind still remembers how the letters are formed with a calligraphy pen, the mind to hand connection is long since gone. It'd take a lot of practice to get it back. Maybe I'll try...if I'm not happy with the type faces and pitches Paintbox affords me.

I've entered the text below the haiga just in case it's not legible. I tried larger type, but it spoiled the visual balance of the haiga, IMHO. Of course, once I'm creating my own pictures for haiga, I will plan for the haiku size and placement.

Both the haiku used on the photos below are dream-based.

[only in dreams/this dirt road passes/that welcoming Inn]

* * * *

[a clear line divides/two lives:/choose]
(This photo is looking south from the northern tip of Block Island, Rhode Island.)

* * * *

Resource: My other passion is The Tarot, and this link, Museo dei Tarochi, is to an Italian site that offers an extremely dream-like right-to-left scroll through very unusual Tarot cards. It takes several minutes for the entire scoll-through, but I found it worth it. It does go by a bit fast to really absorb each image, even for this 30 year veteran of the Tarot. But in that delicate unfolding of image after image, it is much like dreams.

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blog: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL.