Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Passageways

Less than 24 hours after waking from a dream with the word nacimiento in my mind, I get an email from Big Sur.

The coastal community has been dealing with two landslides, which have cut off access to the north and south.  At least one slide is expected to take a month to clear.  Essentially cut off from the rest of the state, the people of Big Sur are supported with escorted convoys and helicopter drops.

The email update sent to me was to announce that there was one road besides the blocked Highway 1 that offered access to and from the coast.   A notoriously rough and dangerous route, Nacimiento-Fergusson Road is the only alternate available. 

For readers of the Archives, it may be known that part of my heart lives in the stone and sea of Big Sur.  And though I love that land, I never knew about this road.  Not until the 2am, post-dream scribble of nacimiento in my journal and a Google search, did I learn this road existed.

The email update came that same day.  Subject:  Nacimiento-Fergusson Road.  A rugged passage offering the only way in or out.  Travel with care.

Not sure how this thruway factors in.  (Who’s Fergusson?)  And I certainly don’t know the source of all our dreams.

Maybe the flitting words and symbols that seep and slip from sleep are signposts.  Filaments from the web that connects us all.

For now, I’m sending good wishes to the sweet people of Big Sur.  Wishing them smooth and easy connections, with each other and the outer world.  They’ve been at the mercy of Mother Nature’s hand before.  Those coastal dwellers are a solid bunch with lots of heart.  I’m with them in my own way.  Across an ocean and in my dreams.

courtesy of Stan Russell
Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Dreaming the Foreign Familiar

I wake at 2am to a word burning through the layers of dream time.  It is a foreign word, not of my native language, yet as I sift between sleeping and waking, I know its meaning without thinking.

I’m aware enough to realize I’ve been bestowed a jewel from the depths of dreamland.  I hold it precious and repeat the word, keep it close until I’m conscious enough to move across the room and write it down.

Nacimiento.

I studied Spanish in high school and college but have found virtually no place to use it in the last twenty years of my life, living in New England, Canada and Hawaii.  I have often fantasized of residing long enough in a land of foreign tongue that I would begin to dream its language.

Nacimiento.

A good friend was recently visiting the island.  She’s teaching herself Portuguese.  With Spring in the air and newness budding, our conversations often turned to dreams and visions.

“If you want to make real change, Jess – to really have something different happen in your life – you need to learn a new language.”

In the beginning was the word, and the word was good.

Nacimiento.

Matter is made manifest through vibration.  A microscopic world of atoms dancing.

Our thoughts and feelings resonate through the channels of our throats.  Minuscule movements reverberate and sound the curving lines of alphabet and release them to the air beyond our bodies.

Habitual thoughts bring tired words falling through our mouths and re-creating the familiar.

New language brings fresh undulations.
New matter.
A new world.

Nacimiento.

masculine noun
1. birth (de niño, animal) ; sprouting (de planta) ; hatching (de ave, reptil)
•    de nacimiento -> from birth
2. source (de río)
3. origin, beginning (origen)
4. Nativity scene (belén)

A mere reporter, I consider this foreign-yet-familiar word and how it has threaded to my dreams.  Woken me from sleep at 2am in all its Source and birth and newness.

24 hours of nacimiento life threads lay before me with no specific form. No answer.  Just a collage of curious details.

Nacimiento, the name of a road in Big Sur.
Nativity.  The birth of my son.  How I had my own kind of angel tell me of his coming, long before his conception.
The man on the sandy road yesterday.  Passing by with the 12 inch cross tattooed across his heart.
The Shroud of Turin depicted on the book cover beside me, “Love Without Conditions.”
Nativism.  The philosophy proposing that our minds are born with certain innate knowing.
Yesterday’s walk along the tide line of the Source.  Where I found the simple reminder etched into the sand:  FLOAT.

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

The Art of Welcome

I didn’t think we’d have company.  It looked like my friend who was flying out the following day would not be able to come by the house for a final dinner farewell.

I got into Sunday morning spring cleaning anyway.  With full days, I choose one cupboard at a time.  On this morning it was beneath the kitchen sink.  Pear-scented, eco dish soap and lavender counter top cleanser got organized with fresh sponges.  I wiped down surfaces with environmentally-friendly insect spray, its scent of peppermint, rosemary and clove, wafting up from under all the pipes.  With the botanicals clearly represented, I shut the cupboard door with a satisfaction in knowing there was order in a space that’s seldom seen.

And who cared if I wouldn’t have dinner guests.  My kitchen cabinets were getting clean.

By 3pm I get a call and the dinner party’s on.  Jeb and I will have company after all.  Too late to start the big pot of soup I had been planning, I get anxious on what to feed everyone on late notice.  What do I have time to make?  How many people are coming?  Will there be enough?

I’m able to laugh at my insecurities as a hostess but can’t quite shake the feeling.  I had called this gathering together and then was having second thoughts.  I make a quick run to the store in town and come home determined to stay relaxed and have fun.  Remember the reason for my initial invitation – to send a friend off with good wishes.

Jeb has made a sign to post on our front door.  As he double checks the spelling of the word welcome, I soak in the letters with fresh perspective.  Well come.  The simple statement of inviting well-being.

Just as the olive tapenade is finished, everyone arrives as if on cue.  Friends file through our doorway with full hands.  A huge bag of fresh cut basil.  A box of food – sushi rolls, a steak, gourmet popcorn, salmon, asparagus, mushrooms.  To think I was afraid there’d be no food!

We feast on raviolis with garden pesto, kale salad with curried beets, roasted vegetables and fish cooked on the grill.  For dessert it’s vanilla ice cream with olive oil and red-clay salt.  Chunks of dark chocolate with cherries and chilis.  We look at one another with affirming eyes and nods.  What a meal!

From nothing, came something…and more.

In the land of the luau I was reminded.

Welcome!