***DREAMS*** Death Dreams from Last Summer (This needs transfered to my dream blog)

--DEATH DREAMS

(Image Compliments Pixabay)

With Halloween coming upon us, it is no wonder that thoughts now may turn to the Dance Macabre. This moment is no exception. 

This past summer I had two very marked and disturbing dreams somewhere between the middle to end of August, knowing the Equiniox would soon be upon us. This was, though, no regular Autumn Equiniox dream of my yearly Autumn psyche.

I wanted to blog about these immediately; but, one problem was I was in the hospital for a bit so I didn't. 

1. My Deceased Mother's Voice Warns Me About my Possible Impending Death 

I am in the hypnogogic state in which I am falling aslep but am still somewhat awake. I hear my deceased mother's voice tell me I might die soon, tell me if I want to that I can go to her, join her in the afterlife. I get a vague and far off image of her holding me and hugging me to her breast and then embracing me with total motherly love. Suddenly it feels real and up close. It is so completely comforting, except for the fact that I do not yet want to die--I am not ready. I have a granddaughter whom I would like to watch grow up and I have an important bucket list to complete. At least it is important in my mind--I am not always sure how important it is to the Lords of Death and Rebirth that I finish it; after all, it's only an earthly thing in my short little life within the large long life of our universe. Upon my mother feeling my feelings that I am not ready to acquiesce to death yet, not leave my family that remains here behind me, she tells me well be careful and if I am that I could live, that she will make prayers and appeasement to God to let me get over this illness and live. I kept pushing onward like a good soldier, but within a couple weeks I could barely stand up. Had I not gone to the emergency room when I finally did, deciding to give it up and not play stoic anymore or to let go of my work for a while for a needed rest, I would have died in not much longer a time. My mother has always looked out for me and saved my life more than once, on earth just as it is now in heaven.

2. "Parents, Dance With Your Children" Dream, With Creepy Music

The next dream woke me up--it was a "waking dream" as they are called. I awoke hearing some creepy macabre music, and a voice like a DJ voice announced over the music that sounded like a creepy dirge from a tale from the crypt, "Parents, dance with your children." 

In a state of a sort of stupor, I listened to the creepy-weird music for a couple moments in bewilderment, and it wasn't until I said something out loud on this solid earth plane to break out into the earth air that the music stopped. I called out, "Please turn off that creepy music." I thought it must have been a family member watching TV. My family member called back out to me, "I don't have any music on" and I thought it so odd that this sort of music with this message would be bourne in my dream. It carried a tone of doom. (I hope I was able to relay that to you since I used the word creepy three times!)

But, it turns out, there was a reason. I hear people say all the time that dreams are senseless, have no reason and no bearing on things here upon earth that we experience, but I do not subscribe to that at all. My dreams have more than not imported and imparted great knowledge to me insofar as my goings-on in my own psyche and of those around me, and of events to come as well. Whereas many people say dreams do not make much sense, my own dreams are often rather transparent As I have mentioned before but in my dream journal (which is not operative now, which is why this dream is recorded in here).

I didn't think about this at the time, but a family wedding was coming up (not on my side of the family). All kinds of unpleasant stir and ruckus among some family memebrs came out came out around the time of this impending marriage. Some people were upset that some people couldn't or wouldn't go, and some other big blowups occured also. There was coming gloom among family members at a time when there should have been happiness. Meanwhile, the bride and groom, looking quite beautiful and handsome and very much alive and vibrant (I did see pictures) had to suffer all this. 

Yes, by all means, Parents, dance with your children--before it is too late. 

To This Day, I Miss the Little Lemon Tree

 

If you read the beginnings of this blog, you will see where its name came from and also how ironic it was (irony usually means to me that something was in synch, meaning was an act of synchronicity) that my daughter and granddaughter gave me a little homegrown lemon tree they grew from seed just when I had pulled out my old novel that sat in a drawer for nearly thirty years. I must tell you, for a while it was happy indoors in the winter in the sun in the northeast window where light was bright, but then, I had to sacrifice its place in that window in the sun due to something else I was not at all happy about and the lemon tree did die, unable to adjust to any new place of light. Moving it anywhere made it unhappy until it wilted and died. 

 

It was when the lemon tree died that I stopped working on that novel and put it away again. It is now a few years later. After the New Year 2024, I plan on finishing the final draft of my old novel. 

Meanwhile, I have been getting my small poetry and short fiction chapbooks out of my hair, to get things rolling off the press. 

When I get back to my novel, I plan to buy a more full grown lemon tree, to stand beside my pineapple palm tree. I hope they will be great friends. The pineapple loves its window. I hope the lemon tree will too. 

NAME MAKING

(Arrowhead photo from Wiki; Rain Image by Roman Grac from Pixabay)

---What's in a name? Is a name is a name is a name? ---

I looked up, “Native American Tribes and choosing their names of people,” and I was directed to:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Native+American+Tribes+and+choosing+their+names+of+people&rlz=1C1CHBD_enUS1039US1040&oq=Native+American+Tribes+and+choosing+their+names+of+people&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCjI4NDUxajFqMTWoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

where it was written:

“Native American naming traditions vary depending on each particular tribe. Typically, they are derived from nature, represented by an animal symbolizing desirable characteristics or a certain trait. A Native American name gives us an insight into the personality of the one who possesses it.Dec 15, 2017,”

Which apparently was from: 

https://www.ethnictechnologies.com/blog/2018/10/2/native-american-naming-traditions#:~:text=Native%20American%20naming%20traditions%20vary,the%20one%20who%20possesses%20it

which is an article called, Native American Naming Traditions, Written by Kathy Moore. Published Dec. 15, 2017.

Years ago, I associated with some Wiccans and Shamans and Magicians, some of whom were studying with a Native American Medicine Man. I always had a hard time with my birth name and how to spell it, and I always had a hard time choosing my “magical” name. Each time I had a new big magical experience I felt like changing my magical name. I was told by the Native American apprentice medicine man that in some tribes, a person would change his or her name at each new phase of life they began or had been through. It was not, then, uncommon to have one name for one’s youth, then another one for one’s middle age, then another for one’s old age.  

Well, I am a lot like that. As a small child, I would rummage the pages of the World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary wherein there were lists of all kinds of interesting tidbits of and charts of general knowledge about things in life on earth and the cosmos. One of them was a long list of names and their meanings. I used to study the names the same way I studied the planets. I decided if ever I had a horse I would name it Asher, which means, “The Bearer of Salvation.” And I had already learned to play the song “Exodus” from the Academy Award-winning film, so, of course, I had to look up Exodus. When I was old enough to be conscious of the fact that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, I decided I liked the name Sonya Worthington as an author’s name (pen name) because, in my own interpretation, it meant that wisdom is worth a ton. I never did go with that pen name, though. I did like Willa a lot better—Willa Cather, that is. It was taken.

     And I never did descend upon one long enough (duration-wise) to use it. Oh, I did now and then change the spelling of my legal name, but made no drastic changes. I did write for a newspaper for a while under a different name, but that was a married name I dropped when I got divorced to go back to my old name. Now, I am out to find a pen name.

     It’s been tough. My legal name was not initially my birth name. I was given a different name at my birth than the name that went down on my birth certificate when my parents changed it. I have always thought of myself as having a phantom life unlived, or in the land of the undead, but not meaning vampires--just one between the worlds between names. I really should do a ceremony to bury that name, but I actually love the name I was given at birth. I had a different first name which was Catherine); the middle name was Marie. Then my mom wanted to name me Maria and then Marie. My dad did not want me to have either of those names. His name was changed from his birth certificate to sound more American and less ethnically Italian, just as his dad’s before him upon his arrival in America. My dad’s dad had a name that probably no one outside of Italy has ever heard of before--unless maybe they came from the old country too. And they could probably not spell it fast enough to write it down fast enough, either, on the records at Ellis Island. It had a couple z’s in it.

I have acquiesced, kept my name for now as Marianne Bencivengo instead of Mary Ann Bencivengo or Marianne Benci or Marie Benci. Some day, you might find some of those names for me floating around out there. I guess since I do mention them, they already are. 

 My dad loved folklore and used to take me around the neighborhoods to look at the street signs of all the streets named after Native American tribes that lived in our area or in the NE of the U.S. How many times have I written elsewhere before that as a child I used to run the woods and find arrowheads propped up against trees or jutting up out of the ground? I cannot count how many anymore. Nor can I count how many times I have changed my name or name spelling, or how many nicknames my friends used to give me.*

* 

"Philly" for being philosophical.

"Ben" short for Bencivengo.

"Bennie" after Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets" as friends would sing the song to me when I would walk down the school hallways.

"Mare" short for Mary. (My dad, one of my cousins, and one of my friends, and two of my friends close to my family, would call me Mare. Even when I was little my dad would sing to me, "The old grey mare, she ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be..." and he would laugh--he was always singing all kinds of folk songs and laughing and telling jokes a lot; when he wasn't he was very Saturnine serious. By now it is true--I ain't what I used to be. 

Why and How I Believe in Astrology and Am Not of the Devil but of God!

 

(Image by 愚木混株 Cdd20 from Pixabay

"Astrology is of particular interest to the psychologist, since it contains a sort of psychological experience which we call projected - this means that we find the psychological facts as it were in the constellations. This originally gave rise to the idea that these factors derive from the stars, whereas they are merely in a relation of synchronicity with them. I admit that this is a very curious fact which throws a peculiar light on the structure of the human mind."- -Depth Psychologist Carl Jung

If I want to know how to live, I consult astrology, by choice, the experts.

Oh and I read the great poets and writers who knew how to live--by choice, the expert poets and thinkers of all time.

Oh and poetry makes me think of and takes me to the Tao.

I also enjoy the mythic world and mythic universe.

These are all I need for myself. Everyone's different. I don't expect you to need or want or feel or think the same.

The three Wise Men of the Bible consulted astrology/astronomy (they were one and the same back then) ro PREDICT the coming of a great King. If it is good enough for the Wise Men and for Jesus, Mary, and Joseph then it is good enough for me. Not to mention how many people out of mankind who are happyt toi call themselves Christian and have the Wise Men to thank for that.

*

And if I feel like reading psychology every now and then, I read Jung or Hillman.

You don't have to "believe in" astrology to enjoy the planetary archetypes which are named after the Roman gods based on the Greek pantheon. Today/tonight, the Full Moon is in Libra. The Moon, which is the ruler of the astrological sign of Cancer, now has a Mars transit traveling through it, which lends a sensitivity to partnerships. Not all things Mars mean full blown war. Mars rules Aries and muscle and the sparks of beginnings like the equinox that sets the zodiac wheel--and the muscles--rolling or uplifting. In Libra of partnerships, whether romantic or business or relations of your family or tribe, the Moon lends a gentle diffused light onto relations, though this seemingly opposes Martial energy. It blends together, so most people will experience both, even if some feel mostly one influence or the other. This is now so due to society's collective sadness. (On a collective societal level we do not need an astrological analysis to tell us that we collectively are feeling a saddening last straw on the proverbial camel's back.) One thing to consider is that diffused soft light energy is still light and energizing, especially in a Full Moon that is especially strongly illuminating. Libra ruled by Venus (being that Full Moon is in Libra we also have the Venusian influence) brings harmonizing energy to partnerships in reaction, thank goodness, to Mars's war cries. You might put your face paint on before facing the world, yet a subdued sense of forgiveness can be vaguely or mildly felt, though the Libra scales that weigh things and make decisions might take angry tempers back and forth, one minute angry and the next feeling sadness, even in some cases from pity, in extreme criminal circumstances as Libra also represents the Scales of Justice weighing things in Law and Lawful matters. This can affect business partnerships as well as marriages or other legal proceedings. Mostly, Moon in Libra (with its Venus ruler the Goddess of Love and Beauty) is typically harmonious and romantic (though can also indicates dislikes as well as likes), if you believe in astrology, that is. If not, it will all happen anyways, unless you are determined to resist or desist these mysterious invisible forces They are not really invisible if you have a clear sky.

Mary Ann Bencivengo, April 2023.

November 22, 2022: "Astrology is of particular interest to the psychologist, since it contains a sort of psychological experience which we call projected - this means that we find the psychological facts as it were in the constellations. This originally gave rise to the idea that these factors derive from the stars, whereas they are merely in a relation of synchronicity with them. I admit that this is a very curious fact which throws a peculiar light on the structure of the human mind."- -Depth Psychologist Carl Jung

If I want to know how to live, I consult astrology, by choice, the experts.

Oh and I read the great poets and writers who knew how to live--by choice, the expert poets and thinkers of all time.

Oh and poetry makes me think of and takes me to the Tao.

I also enjoy the mythic world and mythic universe.

These are all I need for myself. Everyone's different. I don't expect you to need or want or feel or think the same.

*

And if I feel like reading psychology every now and then, I read Jung or Hillman.

The early Christian church was not opposed to astrology, but opposed to believing in the planets as gods. When considered that God created the planets and their energies and effects to not oppose God but be created and ruled by God, there is less Christian opposition to astrology. --(November 22, 2022.)

You don't have to "believe in" astrology to enjoy the planetary archetypes which are named after the Roman gods based on the Greek pantheon. Today/tonight, the Full Moon is in Libra. The Moon, which is the ruler of the astrological sign of Cancer, now has a Mars transit traveling through it, which lends a sensitivity to partnerships. Not all things Mars mean full blown war. Mars rules Aries and muscle and the sparks of beginnings like the equinox that sets the zodiac wheel--and the muscles--rolling or uplifting. In Libra of partnerships, whether romantic or business or relations of your family or tribe, the Moon lends a gentle diffused light onto relations, though this seemingly opposes Martial energy. It blends together, so most people will experience both, even if some feel mostly one influence or the other. This is now so due to society's collective sadness. (On a collective societal level we do not need an astrological analysis to tell us that we collectively are feeling a saddening last straw on the proverbial camel's back.) One thing to consider is that diffused soft light energy is still light and energizing, especially in a Full Moon that is especially strongly illuminating. Libra ruled by Venus (being that Full Moon is in Libra we also have the Venusian influence) brings harmonizing energy to partnerships in reaction, thank goodness, to Mars's war cries. You might put your face paint on before facing the world, yet a subdued sense of forgiveness can be vaguely or mildly felt, though the Libra scales that weigh things and make decisions might take angry tempers back and forth, one minute angry and the next feeling sadness, even in some cases from pity, in extreme criminal circumstances as Libra also represents the Scales of Justice weighing things in Law and Lawful matters. This can affect business partnerships as well as marriages or other legal proceedings. Mostly, Moon in Libra (with its Venus ruler the Goddess of Love and Beauty) is typically harmonious and romantic (though can also indicates dislikes as well as likes), if you believe in astrology, that is. If not, it will all happen anyways, unless you are determined to resist or desist these mysterious invisible forces They are not really invisible if you have a clear sky.

Mary Ann Bencivengo, April 2023.

True Life Tell-All's:

1) I was a 70s TM-er.

2) I love and believe in astrology.

3) I don't believe these things contradict God whether Christian God or other because i

My Astro-Bro, Neil Gaiman, same birthday, same month, same day, same year. My fave contemp author, too. See not all Scorpios are "bad, and neither is 18 degrees Scorpio always " bad."

Mostly, I have found that people who don't know me have often misjudged me, assuming to understand my actions, motives, etc. often when having no idea and being far from the truth. Remember, Jung said, "We don't see things as they are, we see them as WE are." (Emphasis mine). I am generally not one of those jealous Scorpios because I am quite happy with who I am and what I have and have had throughout my life and congratulate and celebrate others' successes. I can say I do wish I were as famous as my Astro-Bro, but not jealous. When others obtain success, I find it inspirational rather than get jealous. I wish people weren't so afraid of Scorpios. Like anyone other sign, they can be either good or bad or a mixture. It's pretty simple, The Golden Rule. Scorpio is not always mean or bad--that is the meaning of the old-world Scorpio Eagle flying above it all. (November 10, 2022, HAPPY BDAY to ME AND NEiL GAIMAN)

About This Blog Resurrecting and Books I am Getting Together, September 2023

My blog titled The Lemon and Peppercorn Trees was first created on __________ and here is the original introduction: "Here, I wander and meander through the beauty there is in the world through the arts and the world of artful living: Literature, film and the realm of A & E, music, visual arts, dance, the beauty of nature, and nature of food and cooking." Yes I have been working on an Italian cookbook off and on for years now. Lots of books off and on for years, so it's just like everything else! It can sit for months at a time without me looking at it. All my books are that way--until this past summer--then I tried to get them together.

(Photo at Huron River, Huron, OH, by M. Bencivengo)

Summer of Big Bummers and Grace, 2023

 

(Photo by Hollie Prast)

Here are some of my posts from this past summer:

**********

 You can't tell much from this picture, but...

I am making a new heartfelt start in my life. So much has happened upon me lately that some of it has been overwhelming in some respects--ironically enough, my blood pressure is nicely down! I am sometimes at my best in a storm. But, I have also in moments been sometimes well not at my worst but a bit far from my best also. As usual I hold back true tales for the sake of the comfort level of others in my life who really aren't much a part of my life, but a part of the lives of those whose lives I am also a part of. It's like a second cousin twice removed. So I have been in some ways stuck between a rock and a hard place. This was supposed to be a blog. Instead it ended up here after I said I wouldn't write anything much personal on fb anymore but that I would present personal things only formally like in a blog. Oh well, I am going back on my own word to myself and to you. That is not my best either. But then again, if I told you some of my recent stories, you might make the sign of the cross whether you are Catholic or not. Just when the haunted season is coming upon us. The last few weeks have been overall somewhat scary monstrous.

On my way home from Amherst -Lorain today, I saw a funnel cloud ahead on the road and it was headed for the ground. It was hard to tell if it touched the ground as a tornado or not. I kept driving because of course in Autumn I am invincible, lol, since my birthday is coming up after Halloween, so I drove to get a better look somehow feeling almost 99.99% sure that I would not get swept up in a tornado, and by the time I got to a semi-clearing on the side of the road with few enough tall trees I turned on my hazard lights and pulled over and took a picture and by then it had been dissipating. There for a brief moment I felt like a storm chaser, and it was the most excitement I had all summer til now! Here is the photo--my last few weeks were like the tornado and now things are dissipating like the funnel cloud. Happy Equinox, indeed! Mother Nature is so cool!--I love Her.

Like I said above, you can't see much of where the funnel had been touching down in this photo. But there it was.

All reactions:

11Byron Gaist, Rebecca Peterson and 9 others

**********

This post was set for friends only. It has since been moved into this blog and has ben deleted from FB.

My beloved starts his chemo treatments tomorrow to see if the tumor on his pancreas can be shrunk before surgery. A couple weeks ago the doc put a stint in between his pancreas and liver which has helped alleviate some of the pain, like when heart patients get a blockage cleared with a stint.

Please send a prayer for my loved one please, and thank you.

Last time I posted on here that he has cancer when we first got his completely unexpected diagnosis, someone in his family was quite upset about it so I deleted it for reasons within a long story I cannot tell you of here. Things are different (not better, however) now so I am posting this this time. By now most all his friends know too and not just his family. When I posted it last time upon his diagnosis, I thought everyone in his family already knew, as he had requested to a couple people to let everyone know. He was not feeling well enough at that time to call everyone.

Meanwhile, I had just gotten out of the hospital after four days when I had finally been admitted from a lengthy illness all summer that suddenly got worse and could have killed me. I was on standby for blood transfusion in case I needed it, my hemoglobin was that low. I didn't need the transfusion but I needed IV's full of all kinds of hydration and trace minerals mainly iron and magnesium were real low. They put me on steroids to help heal my internal wounds causing internal bleeding. Had I not gone to the e.r. when I did, I probably would have died. My body told me enough is enough--i am sorry to say that sometimes being strong means admitting you have a weakness and so I am glad I finally gave in and did not try to stay tough, stoic, and proud too much.

I was facing my own possible mortality and in some ways failed the test. But I talked to God and my deceased mother talked to me and then she and I talked a lot (she stayed close to me the whole time) and I "made a deal" in good faith and pure heart with God that I could get better and finish my bucket list while watching my granddaughter grow up, and to if better be able to help take care of my life partner. We have known each other for almost 30 years now and have been together many suns and moons round the wheel of the years. I am praying for a miracle.

Usually pancreatic cancer is not noticed until final stages, but I have hopes it is early enough to buy him more time.

So it was a difficult season last season and it continues on now.

May the Cosmos and Heavens and your Lucky Stars bless you if you read this far or even half this far. I generally try to not write real long posts unless in a blog I have posted.

Sometimes, there is nothing more toxic than adult grown children from a broken family who never outgrew their trauma as adults, then mix that with an attempted step family and you have the perfect recipe for hatred on one side and broken hearted failure on the other--no wonder so many second marriages fail.

There is not much worse than for whatever reason a dispirited house.

New attitude, less worry, less stress over unfortunate events, re-learn patience even when feeling it is over-tested, stop being Type A about when work doesn't get done, but re-do good habits to try to balance the work and non-work modes into establishing for myself some somewhat regular hours for writing/typing/editing and housework and fun-work doing other things and hobbies. I do not have the lifestyle to always keep regimented hours/work and play schedule due to certain conditions in my life and different needs of my family, but I do want to feel more accomplished at things besides being a household/domestic engineer, lol. And when certain people who hate me and yes there are some people who have sworn me in as their arch-enemy and when they act extremely hateful to do their best to hurt me and spew venom, I am learning to not absorb that. It is one thing to intellectually understand what to do but another to emotionally neutralize the hurt one feels and process it. In other words, sometime before my last breath of this air of this world, I will finally believe in myself enough to finish my bucket list and be at peace not just in death but in actual life. I have been going the distance for myself

.

P.S. I generally believe in myself as a writer--I used to write for a living--but I need to believe now in myself as capable of the technical skill and discipline for the typing and putting the books actually together. They are actually finished being written and sitting pretty all in a row, but just not all typed up with final draft editing. I never get page sizes right for smaller size books and my headers and footers never stick and nor do the page numbers. It is the tech stuff with do-it-yourself self-publishing (as opposed to paying big bucks for a company to set it all up for me) that turns me absolutely cold!

(Photo by M. Bencivengo 2023 Lake Erie Huron Pier going out to lighthouse)

**********

Random Stuff , Quite Common

Just got done eating a beef pot roast with mashed potatoes and gravy and my fave okra fried in a pan with butter, no salt, no seasoning. I love it plain too, and the butter was salted though. You know you like okra if you like it breaded and seasoned fried, but you know you love okra if you love it plain in a skillet with a bit of water and browned butter. Yum yum. Next on my fave veg list are butternut squash and spinach.

**********

n the Jungian life of individuation, we constantly talk of Shadow work and Shadow play yet emphasize the work more than the play.

**********

You know, I am just a simple little lake town gal, but I keep seeing ads on FB for Saks Fifth Avenue clothing and boots and I want to shop there now at least once in my life. I do have clothes from Saks, but they are all from second-hand stores,

Like

Comment

Share