THE VERDURE
April 21, 1996

A phrase comes out of my dreaming. It is something like

“Verdure is complete”

or

“Greenness is finished”

or

“Greenness is accomplished”

I have no idea what accompanies this.

THE HEALING DISCUSSION
dreamed May 11, 1996

There is a sandy place, white sand. It has been kind of sculpted out into a pool-like shape but there is no water. A few people are gathered here. I think Stephanie is one. We are talking about health things--cysts, medical treatments. I must talk about my breast cancer, my biopsy. Someone else talks about a treatment for a cyst. Someone says she wishes she hadn’t had the treatment that she did. There is the feeling of sharing support for healing in this place.

There is a disk in the sand the color of weathered copper (the blue-green patina). It is a thin wood disk. Someone has put it there. It is a nice surface to sit on in the sand. I don’t know where it fits in, but I recall finding a slug, taking it over to a small pit in the dirt or sand where snails hide out and taking something with a sharp edge and chopping up and down to kill the slug and any snails that are around.

This sandy place seems like it might be on a roof (this is unclear). There are higher areas around--other higher roofs or hills. There is a little boy--dark like a Mexican. I ask if he would like to go with me up to the top. At first he looks enthusiastic, then he says he wants to go only if everyone else will go. I tell him I had thought only myself, a companion and he would go.

There is something about a man that I am interested in being away but coming back soon--today or tomorrow. I mention this to the group. I am excited because I am looking forward to romantic involvement. Then I catch myself--what if he is not interested? He has not written me while he is away. This may mean he doesn’t care about me.

ON THE PAINTING

Green was showing up in quite a few dreams around this time. I felt it as a positive, growth-promoting and healing color. When I contemplated my smashing of snails I felt uncomfortable. Snails should freely be able to relate to the earth; they represent the slow, vegetative processes. I felt I should stop smashing snails in my garden and so I did. (Instead, I would toss them over the fence into the overgrown yard next door where no one was gardening.)

On a mountain ledge in the background is a scene from a slightly earlier dream (March 24): My Ritual Beheading which I also painted full-size.

The impulse to paint this image and its composition arose out of the decalcomania ground I had prepared without knowing what would emerge.