Cryptid

A strange misshapen fish-like creature with fins (or flippers), tentacles growing out of its head, and walks on land.

Cicada Shadow

 

Creepy Eyes

I was out on my usual evening walk when I noticed this shadow on the ground.

In my mind's eye:

Related post:  Monster Eyes In The Sidewalk

Untitled VI

I guess I could've titled it "Yes, It's This Guy"...

Chess? Checkers?

Or some other game that I've never heard of?

 

Headache

Couple days ago I was out walking and I noticed that even though I hadn't walked nearly as much as I usually do, yet I was feeling very tired and achy.  I was also sneezing now and then.  I thought it was maybe the alcohol I'd drunk the previous night, and thought no more of it once I got back home.  Then yesterday I woke up with the full repertoire:  coughing, fever, hoarse voice, nose running like a faucet, and finally it dawned on me that I'd come down with a cold ("How like a man"^^).  I drank some hot tea, then went back to bed and slept a few more hours.  I woke up past noon, drank some more hot tea, then I threw on the big full-length coat over the clothes I'd slept in, went down to the little pharmacy in the complex and bought the same medication I'd used the last time I was sick.  I took the medicine, went back to bed and slept some more.  And now, past midnight (not sleepy any more, I've slept the sleep out of me), I'm feeling a headache coming on, on top of everything else.

Good thing I saved this symbolic shot taken days ago.

Man Wearing Aluminum All-Weather Hat

Courtesy of the Department of Traffic.

My Ghostly Twin

He is always with me no matter where I go.

He is invisible to the naked eye.

But he still casts a shadow.

 

Bollard

 

There's Always A Reason

After a spate of failures, the man finally made a decision.

He would now listen to others' advice.

Four Moods

Cross Of Light, Cross Of Shadow

And both are equally insubstantial and fleeting.

While out walking today I spotted this shadow of a cross,

which reminded me of its mirror opposite, a cross of light posted last year:

Self-Portrait In Spring

 

Old Memories Revisited

An image that brings back a wistful flurry of emotions.  It takes me back to a time, many many years ago, when I was just an innocent little... brat.

 

More Dreams

This morning I had two short dreams.  One was about my mother, who passed away nearly a decade ago (funny, in my dreams I'm never aware that Mom is no longer living -- not explicitly, anyway;  the one exception, remarkable for the vividness of the dream, happened several years ago;  in that dream, I was at work or school when I was summoned by the principal/boss;  I was to be interviewed by a psychologist to help with some research project;  the psychologist asked me a series of questions, then directed me to go to a certain spot outside, because Mom had been brought back for the occasion;  I eagerly went to the place, rounded a corner -- and there was Mom, welcoming me with a big smile, gloriously radiant as if lit by a light stronger than daylight, full of health and vim, and looking just like she did in life before she became sick.  I was ever so glad to see her again, was grateful for the opportunity, and then the dream closed like an old iris shot in silent movies;  I like to think that this was in part a veridical dream, that Mom is in a place where she's happy and at peace, and that she really had come back for a visit to console me).

In the first dream of the morning Mom had to go away on a a trip.  She packed her suitcase and left (on a train I think) -- and never came back.  She was incommunicado and we were worried, not knowing where she was or what could have happened to her.  Then someone informed us that Mom was in "Alama" or some place that sounded like it.  I looked up that name and similar sounding variations later when awake -- just in case -- but nothing meaningful came up.  But it's interesting that Mom's death was metaphorically addressed as a case of a person who has gone away.

Actually, this sort of indirect reference in dream to Mom's death has been made before, when several years ago I dreamt I saw Mom lying asleep and inert in a dark room.  But what I think now is that my memory of Mom's death has somehow become adopted in my unconscious as a symbol of the "feminine" part of my soul, the anima, whose dark half has manifested itself from time to time over the years in forms that are literally dark, such as a black-haired woman wearing a black vinyl coat (a poetess from New York, at that), an Asian girl with long black tresses, literal black women on a few occasions, and once even as a black kitten.  I have named this persona simply The Dark Woman.

Then, in the second dream the opposite happened.  I was sitting next to the Dark Woman's counter-persona, the other half of my feminine soul, which I have named The Sunny Blonde, for that is just what it looks like -- as a literal light woman with bright blonde hair (although it also once appeared as a white kitten).  Interestingly, on this occasion it had taken on the likeness of an actual friend of mine, an alumna from USC and UCLA.  In the dream I was trying to engage her in sex, planting light little kisses on her face and lips, and she was responding in a playful, coy sort of way.  Whether I succeeded in seducing her or not, I cannot say, because I woke up with a full bladder before the conclusion of the seduction.

In retrospect the two dreams together seem to be a staging of some vaguely positive development in my unconscious.  My mother's image was cast in a dual role;  as a missing person, one who is "gone dark" because she is deceased in waking life, and also as a symbol of the negative aspects of my unconscious, the parts that are dark, untamed and unaddressed.  The "shadow", if you will.  Then I was embracing the Sunny Blonde and endeavoring to become intimate with her, just like those male and female deities embracing in carnal union in the Vajrayana Buddhist thangkas.  Acknowledgment of the dark, followed by working toward the light -- would you not say this is a wholesome, healthy sign, regardless of the specific message?

*Again, with apologies to C. G. Jung

Fly Home, Shadow Bird

Related posts:  Two Skies;  Sliding;  Darkening Bird

Darkening Bird

If the bird were 2-dimensional like its shadow, it would melt into the shadow of the wall and disappear.  Would it then still continue to exist, or would its walk be one-way only?

Related post:  Two Skies

Me And My Shadow

A short runt with a tall shadow.

"The Shadow knows..."

As I Walked Out Of The Bank

 

A floating leaf(?!)

No

More Spontaneous Order

A literal real-life illustration of "snapping to grid".