Having seen a phrase about a mountain path beset with tigers I recalled a dream I had in which my dream horse (a frequent visitor) was unusually allowing me to guide and choose our path (usually I just go where I am taken) and I began to ascend a very steep mountain track and my horse began to struggle but yet still obeyed me until I felt ashamed of the damage I was doing to the horse so I stopped and apologised. My horse immediately forgave me and turned to pastures and galloped to the sea. I took this dream to mean that if we ‘’go with the flow’’, that is Awen, we learn far more than by forcing our own view and decisions upon our life and the way – the sea is not high like a mountain (where perhaps I had foolishly wanted to ‘dominate the peak and look down on all’) but it is a symbol at the very least of the source of life and it ‘’goes with the flow’’, and the moon.

I have also written a poem about a year ago about encountering a dragon in a steep place and the Tower (interspersed with some comments from ordinary daily life when when my dreaming is not looked upon favourably by others).  All I longed for was peace by the river (with my muse) in the realm of imagination and the natural flow of the path. Obstacles can be overcome with some determination but most of all with imagination.

 

Escape from the Tower

 

Climbing the mountain, trying to reach the tower

Confronted by a dragon, endlessly asking me riddles,

While a great storm gathers all about us

Thunderbolts roar, lightning reflects on my shield

 

(“What do you do in that room all the time?

What are you thinking about?’’

I stop and get the food

And gather the rubbish that needs to go out)

 

I am losing my footing on the slippery rocks.

The dragon flashes his eyes with desire

I have to succeed, cannot be overpowered,

I call on the rain to quench his fire

 

(“Always off in imagination,

What’s wrong with you?

You spend hours on that

And it’s not even true’’)

 

I answer the final riddle, the dragon steps aside.

My way no longer barred, I struggle on up the mountain.

The tower reaches up to the clouds

Eagles circle above, come to help me in my troubles

 

(“I know you have talent?

Why don’t you use it?’’

“I work too!’’ i say

“You could work more!’’ says she)

 

The eagle carries me up to the princess, we hover.

She reaches out to me. I swing her onto the eagles back.

My arm circles her waist, her hair flies in my face.

She leans back on me in relief.

 

(“You always were some other place,

Even as a child. No different now than ever.

Why can’t you just be normal,

And stay in reality?’’)

 

We circle together above the now sunlit valleys

Looking down from above, we avoid all the cities and castles

And land in a summer meadow by a singing stream

She adorns herself with flowers, I dream