In the spirit of some of the best postings I have read lately, namely Mike Clelland's Hidden Experience blog, and the Parafactor blog postings, I am compelled to weigh in with one of my own early childhood memories.
It's funny how some memories stick with you all your life while others are forgotten, only to resurface after being jogged back by something that happens in the present day. In the case of this experience, it's one of my earliest memories, and it has always been on my mind. I call it a memory because at the age of 47, there are very few instances in my first few years of life that I can recall with any clarity. Whether this memory is of a dream or an actual waking experience, I can't say. My intuition tells me that it was a dream experience, but one of those life-altering, never-to-be-forgotten experiences that many of us carry around in our conscious and sub-conscious minds for life.
My guess is this memory is from sometime in the first four years of my life. It's very simple to recount, but has a deeply resonating emotional effect on me when I recall it. It is in full colour.
I am standing in a cave. Sitting before me, on a throne fashioned out of the rock, is what I can only describe as a very large pansy flower. The kind of flower that looks like it has a face with large slanted eyes (I know, when I saw the Communion book cover 20 years ago I almost had a cow.)
Although the flower creature did not speak to me, I could feel that it was communicating to me somehow in a form of extreme condescention and intelligence. Like it was implying to me that it was in total command. Not necessarily in a malevolent way, but in a way of true authority. By my side was my father. He was extremely upset - terrorized, actually, and possibly even ashamed. This caused me much more grief than the' attitude' emanating from the flower being. I had the feeling that the flower being had my father completely exposed in some way. I can't really put my finger on it, but the general feeling I had was that my all powerful father, the centre of my four or five year old life, was shaken to the core, and this frightened me more than the flower being itself. I will never forget this dream, nor the feeling of complete helplessness that my father displayed. (At the time, incidentally, he was a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.)
The experience ends there. as I said, I shall never forget it. I have mentioned it to my father, but he has no recollection of anything like that. I wish I could correctly convey the attitude (for lack of a better term) that the Pansy flower displayed; all knowing, condescending, almost cruel, completely humorless, and even ruthless in terms of how it affected us.
Needless to say, since then I have always tended to look at pansies with a measure of suspicion.
Posts
11 comments:
I'm trying to figure out what that creepy picture of the flower looks like....a gremlin perhaps? Great story.....Julie
The imagery suggests a form of vegetable intelligence not unlike that encountered during shamanic trances. The strange eyes are an evocative twist; I wonder if "creepy eyes" are somehow hardwired in the brain.
I've found over the years that dreams content doesn't matter so much as how you react to what's happening in the dream. It says how you feel about yourself deep down inside right at that moment. If you feel very vulnerable, the contents of a dream could send you hiding, if you feel very confident, you will likely face the issue. The flower might not have mattered so much as how your father reacted to it. Perhaps at the time, that very day before the dream, you saw a vulnerability in your strong father that made you realize he put up a front to look strong when he was really feeling quite threatened by things happening to him. The moment a son realizes his father isn't a superhero is a pretty important moment. That was beautifully written. I like your musing's. p.s. One of my biggest dreams is to go to Nova Scotia some day. Is it as cold and beautiful as I think?
@Autumn Forrest Thank you for the kind words and insight. I like your blog very much. Nova Scotia is beautiful. Warm in the summer and not too cold in the winter. Only goes below freezing for about 2 months, and not so far below. It is a beautiful place. There are amazing stories from this old Province (for well over 300 years it has been inhabited by Scots, Irish, and many other nationalties), many ghosts, hauntings, and strange happenings. I shall write about some of these things in the coming months.
Gosh, Michael, how frightening for a wee boy. I wonder if your experience demonstrates how much more open and connected we are as children to the world around us?
As a schoolchild, I had several experiences with flowers that I can only describe now as a mature adult as mystical, 'oneness' experiences. Very positive, glorious and transcendantly, mutually celebratory. Me and forsythia bushes in bloom still smile and wink at each other knowingly...
These experiences shouldn't be dismissed!
Indeed, Sam! I still am suspicious of Pansies though - hehe
Carry some weed-killer at all times. Just in case.
Unfortunately pesticides are illegal in Halifax. So I will just stomp on 'em
You've made me look at pansies in a whole new light. In solidarity, I shall snub them in future. Now that I come to think about it, I've always been a tad uneasy around snapdragons and large lilies. But one can forgive a shapely night-scented stock absolutely anything...;-)
I have a very vivid memory of a dream from my childhood. Maybe when I was 8 or 9 years old.
I was in an old genereal store, and something was scary, something was after me. I walk outside, and it's nighttime and I'm in the main street of some small town, and I'm frightened and all alone.
That's it.
But, over 30 years later I end up living in rural Idaho, and I drive thru the dusty town of Teton Idaho - and I realize - it's the same spooky place, with an old closed up store on the corner.
And - shortly after that, there's a crop circle in a field of wheat about a mile from this spot.
And I have some funny synchronistic little events in the circle.
Also - Michael, I wanna ask you why you started your blog. I'm curious, really.
Peace,
Mike C!
Thanks for the comment, Mike. The reason I started this blog? Well because as a filmmaker I am a communicator at heart. I get frustrated with the time spent creating a new documentary. It takes on the order of a year to complete one. I like blogging because it keeps my mind sharp, in the game, allows me to communicate creatively, get feedback, all the while sharpening my writing skills. I also love exploring paranormal realms and sharing the ideas and experiences that fascinate me - with others.
Michael
Post a Comment