You have to listen to what the land is saying to you, a dream tells me over and over, all night long. Later in the day I sit with pen and paper to meditate and my Crowd come through with an answer to my unspoken question:
With the rhythmic pounding of the drums, I sink into non-thought. I’m aware of my body rocking softly in time to the beat, but I soon begin to feel detached, drifting into blackness, drifting. . . .
Years ago I saw a career counselor. She had this exercise she wanted me to do where I would draw up a calendar and schedule out the minutia of my day, taking care to pencil-in “me time.” She showed me an example with pastel crayons and glittery stickers and ten to twenty-minute blocks that weren’t devoted to the needs of others.
“You’re fucking kidding me?!” I blurted out, not stopping to consider that my comment might be insensitive. “I will not do this! My whole LIFE is ‘me time’!”
This poem was inspired by my recent reading. First, Only Fragments published this. Just afterward, Unbolt Me published this. I couldn’t help but think of In Praise of Black Dogs. The theme is re-writing revisionist folklore. Then, I felt the poem come to me.
(A note about pronunciation — it’s BAH-buh yuh-GAH)
On finding myself without new material while querying an agent about an out of state property, holding my breath amid the harrying ghosts of a traumatic accident. Content warning: obscure and possibly antiquated American cultural references.
In my part of the world, the obscure cultural history of the black dog parallels that of the widely popularized black cat – revisionist (and arguably racist) folklore at its finest. This post will challenge those tales. I offer it with a deep nod of respect to Robert Moss, from whom I stole the title.
At no point did my conscious mind retain the memory of one Blackdog dream by the time I’d have another. Each dream was its own mystery until years later when I began re-reading, compiling, and connecting my dream journal entries. It seems Blackdog was a constant companion whether I remembered him or not. This is our story.
Our soul, our inner being or truest authentic self, calls to us continuously, always guiding us along on our path toward our greatest fulfillment and purpose. Whether we hear that call is up to us. When we do, the strength of the signal can unnerve us as who we really are clashes with the shape our life has taken. The result often feels to us like anguish. We may feel trapped. We struggle and strain, tangled in the sticky filaments of dysfunctional narrative spun by a wounded society.
My previous post, “Twenty Years in Solitary,” was an oldie that I once dedicated to my current partner. This next one goes back to the very beginning of our time together. I chose it because I think it’s a good one for May Day, the celebration of High Spring and Sacred Union, and also because it seems a fitting poem for the celebration of our wedding. After 22 years together, today we finally made it legal. The opening to this poem was written shortly before we met.