Magpie Dreams

I had a particularly interesting and vivid dream this morning so I am going to write it here before I forget - and if you have any ideas.....

It has three parts and I know the first part was first but not the order of the last two.

***

I was at work, studying and I was thinking how I had not expected to have to do a dissertation again. I started work on a new section which was all about the tail feathers of magpies. I don't think the work was just about magpies though.

Then my Boss comes in and starts showing me a section in the newspaper about a Chinese restaurant I used to work at and how they were holding a big charity event. They had included individual pictures of the people who would be working that night. B was there, a lovely older man, who was much older than he looked and a real live wire - he has been retired some time. There some guys I believe used to be washer-uppers and they turned out to have very posh surnames and to be the sons of a banker.

***

I was in a lowland tidal area, walking through a mudflat / salt flat / marsh sort of a place along a causeway. Lots of others were walking through as well and some were driving (not that they moved any quicker). One man started to explain how valuable this landscape was, and how the pollution added to the variety that now lived there. A lady got cross at that and said she didn't see why it had to be so ugly and why couldn't we clean it up.

I didn't say anything, but this is what I thought... Pollution can create, over time, unique habitats, things will live there that live nowhere else. Polluted sites also become a refuge for things that used to live elsewhere but have been driven out by changing uses. I wondered how she wanted to clean it up? Bring in tonnes and tonnes of topsoil, barricade the sea out and grow trees? I love those landscapes and never find them desolate, boggy, marshy, mires....

We reached a headland and I started to go round but realised that was not the path and came back. At first I could not see the path but then Little Dog ran up and I realised there was a series of toe steps dug into the grassed over rock. Not full on steps, just big enough for a foot, or hand. Somehow the vehicles were going up as well. Little Dog cavorted around on the path and the slope. I didn't get to see what was at the top, or where we were headed.

***

I was in my parents garden (which is quite large, full of trees including many old fruit trees and bushes). I was up by the blackcurrant bushes, creeping through the grass towards some magpies to get a better look. They saw me and flew up into the nearest tree. (which happened to be an oak whose story I shall tell after) They sat there, two adults and three scruffy young adults, with mismatched feathers.

The mother politely told her offspring to be polite an say hello. The first two chicks said hello as they flew over, third and fourth magpies said nothing and the fifth said hello. I concluded that not all of them could speak and set off in the direction they had gone.

They were mucking around in the big old lime trees on the other side of the house. I went inside but from the windows I could see them. The sun was catching their feathers and sparking the irridescence so that the black looked purple (you do get purple although blue and green irridescence is the sort I see more often) They sat there puffing themselves up so they lost the sleekness and looked chubby like wood pigeons and somehow, they started to look like wood pigeons, all grey and purple and white....

I then realised that my family were trying to get in the house and I had locked them out and that I had a lot of work to do on my dissertation on my laptop. Then I woke up.

***

So that was the dream. Every so often I have a dream that strikes me somehow, that is important. The last one I had like that, in hindsight was a very clear warning I was going to lose one of my beloved dogs. I have no idea what this one is but there are some strong themes and things I should add....


Last night F and I had Chinese.

Magpies are important to me and have been a long time. I watch them from my car at lunch and many times this week I have seen five or seven magpies during a lunch break or car journey. I spend so much time observing them that I can recognise their silhouettes, their flight style and their sqawks.

I was in my car the other day when there was a real loud magpie sqawk so close it made me jump. I looked out the window but could not see one. After a few minutes one appeared walking along the curb in front of my car and I realised the magpie had been curb crawling and that this had to have been the closest I have ever been to a magpie - probably about a foot away as it passed my door!

A guy at work has been doing an NVQ with lots of writing and evidence gathering and stuff.

The oak tree - well when my folks moved to the family home on my first birthday, they dreamed of a vegetable patch. They are not real gardeners though, although my Dad spends a lot of time gardening it is mowing, tree surgery (the old fruit trees are often in danger of splitting through the weight of their branches) and chopping wood. The vegetable garden fell in to disuse and because it was not being mowed, nature had it's way.

There is a whole cluster of thorn trees now and one of the cherry plum trees the garden is full of. When I was at around the age I was nearing my moontimes or recently started them, we found a sapling growing in the tall grass. (I have never ever realised before that that tree did start around then and never linked it to that before). It was an oak tree.

We helped it to thrive, although my Dad did not cut down enough thorn trees behind it so most of the branches are on one side. Soon though it will be tall enough though to grow over them. It produces acorns now too. We have no oaks in our garden and I don't know of any particularly close to our garden either.

When I was due to move to Cornwall I wrote a spell - one to help me be happy and to encourage the sending of my soulmate my way. I curled it up and bound it with a handmade braid. I buried it in the roots of that tree and it came true. I always go give it a hug when I go home.

So - suggestions on a postcard?

***

I just reread my old magpie lore post on my old blog. Aparently if a magpie looks you in the eye it is a sign of respect and you do not have to worry about bad luck. I have long since stopped worrying about bad luck from magpies - it just does not seem to apply to me. But I guess one sqawking my me from so close and five giving a hello flight over me with three of them actually managing to speak kinda says it all....