A funny thing happened last night. After a day filled with Taoist pleasures and parades for the god Matzu, I was high on the excitement, energy, and spirituality of the crowds. The mix of incense and gun power via firecrackers may have contributed to an evening of unsatisfactory sleep and peculiar dreams.
After conveying to DY the events of my day, I showed her the yellow slips of paper I had received from a few of the parade participants. They had already been carefully filed with other “ghost money” or “spirit money” which I had been collecting for almost a year. DY gave a surprised look at the papers and suggested that they definitely not be kept in our bedroom, where they presently were, and most probably be burned. Horror or horrors – burn my ghost money research project?! I refused and put them back in the bedroom.
But that night I did not sleep well. I tossed and turned and in my dreams, tried to read some Chinese characters to no avail. The first character was peace, but I had no idea what the others were. It frustrated me.
Now, I think I know where the peace character came from. My friend Erin introduced me to her friend Lucie, who had the tattoo on her upper arm. I thought it cool, and I’m guessing that since then I have seen the symbol here, there and everywhere. Since I am a big “peace and love” character myself, it only makes sense that it would appear in my dream, too!
But there was a general feeling in my dreams, one in which I did not have control, perhaps. At one point I got up and grabbed the file with all my ghost money research, and put it on the coffee table in the living room. But that didn’t really help change the status of my sleep.
Did the god Matzu, whom I am supposed to allow into my head, come into my body sometime during the parade?! Was the parade an opportunity for her to see that I was ready for her?! Were all these suggestions merely evocations?! Of course I have more questions than answers, but what do you think?
* DY thinks it was the black tea in the bubble tea we had before going to bed that kept me awake!
After conveying to DY the events of my day, I showed her the yellow slips of paper I had received from a few of the parade participants. They had already been carefully filed with other “ghost money” or “spirit money” which I had been collecting for almost a year. DY gave a surprised look at the papers and suggested that they definitely not be kept in our bedroom, where they presently were, and most probably be burned. Horror or horrors – burn my ghost money research project?! I refused and put them back in the bedroom.
But that night I did not sleep well. I tossed and turned and in my dreams, tried to read some Chinese characters to no avail. The first character was peace, but I had no idea what the others were. It frustrated me.
Now, I think I know where the peace character came from. My friend Erin introduced me to her friend Lucie, who had the tattoo on her upper arm. I thought it cool, and I’m guessing that since then I have seen the symbol here, there and everywhere. Since I am a big “peace and love” character myself, it only makes sense that it would appear in my dream, too!
But there was a general feeling in my dreams, one in which I did not have control, perhaps. At one point I got up and grabbed the file with all my ghost money research, and put it on the coffee table in the living room. But that didn’t really help change the status of my sleep.
Did the god Matzu, whom I am supposed to allow into my head, come into my body sometime during the parade?! Was the parade an opportunity for her to see that I was ready for her?! Were all these suggestions merely evocations?! Of course I have more questions than answers, but what do you think?
* DY thinks it was the black tea in the bubble tea we had before going to bed that kept me awake!
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