Spente Le Stelle (The Stars are Out) – from Carmine Mio by Emma
Shapplin. With intro by Oursvince - "Falling Stars" Piano et Orchestre.
Including: Purple Sunday Morning Bossanova and Donna's Theme.
Illustration: Donna Amongst the Stars - 2015
Brief Intro for those who have experience in Dream Navigation (and the
Skeptics who have never stepped off the Cliff because they have no Real
Intelligence beyond high school or university
At the end of this account is a brief introduction to the Art of Dream
Navigation, for the sceptic’s out there – which will shoot holes in the
belief systems of the uninitiated and the unbelieving.
I am not given to superstitions or to holding beliefs in the contorted
logic of the over-imaginative, willingly misdirected or gullible people
who have ‘crazy ideas and theories’.
Read More at 'The Art of Dream Navigation' at the End.
Over the past five years I have had many visits by Donna.
But none so compelling or immersive as this one.
Waking up with Donna beside me in the dark was a huge surprise.
I touch her shoulder. Doubting that she is even here in the bed.
She, partially turning, and looking back over her shoulder at me. Still
half asleep:
“Yes. It IS me”.
I am breath-taken.
I have woken up with her beside me many times before. But this is somehow
different. She murmurs something about having to go for a shower and get
dressed.
I watch her naked back as she drifts out of the bedroom. (Nice Bum!)
Like most of my dreaming - this is so detailed. This is how I get inspiration
for painting and designing.
Yet, this interlude is so LUCID, I am unsure if I am dreaming or awake.
*********
(EXPLANATION: This account is written in 3 stages. In the same way I have
story-boarded, scripted and directed/produced TV commercials or video presentations.
1 Notes - hastily written, made as I awoke. I always have slept
with a pen and pad at my bedside.
2 Writing - the type-written narrative to lay out the story-line
while it is still fresh in my memory.
3 Filling in - the visual elements to provide continuity and
context.
A bit later, I sit beside her at the dresser, watching the Magic in the
Mirror, of Donna applying her mascara, I say to her:
“How am I going to do this? Announce that you have returned?”
“We will think of a perfect way”, she purred her whisper. And
then laughed.
“I've never done this before, my love”.
“What? Introduce me to my friends?”
“Introduce? Easy! That you have returned from the Undiscovered Country?
That's another thing . . . ‘Look everyone! Donna Darkwolf has returned
from the dead?’ “
“Well. . . My Franco?”, applying lipstick to upper lip.
“What other way is there?”, applying lipstick to her bottom
lip. . .
“Tell me?”, pursing her lips.
“That I was NOT dead?”, with a look of mock shock.
“That I have been in hiding in another country these past five years?”,
whispered conspiratorially while smiling at me through the mirror.
The tinkling wings of her Wings of Horus earrings becoming the sound coinciding
with the champagne I am pouring out into her Witchy Glasses.
We kiss. We clink glasses. We sip.
“I have never done this before either”, her dancing blue-green
eyes searching every line of my face.
“Normally we arrive - born into new different lives”.
“YET - here are we! Me as I was when I departed - you NOT departed YET”.
“Just as we do now, they will be faced with realizing the inevitable truth”.
Her voice rising:
“Your longing FOR me, and my wishing that you were travelling WITH me
-
have changed Some Thing fundamental in the Natural Order and Cycle of
Existence!”
Her last sentence hangs in the air with the sense of finality that occurs
when there is no prospect of turning back.
I feel an aura of forboding. . .
The look in the Darkwolf's eyes is at once seductive AND threatening /
chilling.
“We have been, and are Forever Entwined!!!”
And then. Cheerfully:
“But I don’t care! I am just so, so over joyed to be here with you again”.
"La Vie en Rose!", The Donna Darkwolf proclaims dramatically,
laughing as she raises her glass, and clinking my glass again.
“To our love, My Love. Drink to Life as if there is no end.”
‘Beauty knocks upon my door. Life leads us to something more’ - I think
to myself.
“I have gifts for everyone”, Donna announces merrily. . .
“This is for Andrew. . .” And she produces (from somewhere?),
some shining small parcel covered with glittering gold symbols.
They look like stars and the creation of the Cosmos.
And she brings forth another small, shining parcel:
“This is for. . .” And yet another shimmering parcel. . .
And another!
And I am thinking: ‘How did she organise all of THIS? Her robes? And jewellery?
And gifts? How did she travel with all of this?’
Her hand reaches for mine, where, by the candle light, she caresses her
wedding ring on my finger, and as if by answer, whispers conspiratorialy:
"It was not too difficult".
Caressing her wedding ring, Donna remarks happily, but assertively:
“The ONE THING I did not carry with me!
This is still mine. You know? So I will definitely be wanting it back.
As soon as you have taken me for our first waltz in all these years. .
.”
“So many years . . . so many. . . gone. . . ” Her voice trails
off sadly.
I can see her eyes brimming with the start of tears.
Yet, Donna Darkwolf breaks into a happy smile. . .
As I lick away her tears. As I always do - if there are any. Which is
'Hardly Ever'.
“Dance me to your beauty with my burning violin. . .”, She sings
softly.
Leaning forward to kiss me.
She sits back, and I notice the butterflies outside the window behind
her, in the morning sunlight.
It has become lighter, but the candles are still burning, and her green
glass table lamp is still on.
The Darkwolf turns, her gaze following mine to the new dawn, Saying:
“They are so beautiful - but not so beautiful as you, my Franco”.
Turning back she kisses me again -
“COME! Beauty knocks upon your door”, murmured with such a knowingly
eerie smile when she has concluded her mind-search.
(Reading my thoughts as she has always has propensity to do)
“Take me dancing, my Franco - Just us Two Wolves . . .
Waltzing and ALWAYS in Love”.
From somewhere the music, which may have / must have been in the air all
this time, begins to rise.
And so do we.
Again - We are Two Wolves - Dancing - A Purple Sunday Morning Bossanova
There is something about Donna Darkwolf - beyond her ‘normal’ compelling,
ineffable, formidable, seductive, serene self.
There is an almost tangible / threatening / foreboding air of 'I know
something that you do not', about her.
Very much like the dark clouds building before a violent storm.
This Unknown Beauty exudes a solemn and forbidding GRACE.
Similar to that of a battle ship that, at first glance, displays its graceful
lines and sweeping contours.
And then you gradually notice those curves to be punctuated with rebates,
redoubts, turrets, pods, blisters and emplacements that reveal the ultimate
calculated reality and terrifying lethal entirety of its sole purpose for
its inexorable existence.
Designed to battle. Destined for battle. To sail, and perhaps to perish,
in battle.
Just like an Angel.
Believed, imagined, thought and portrayed to be so beautifully, divinely
gracious and heavenly merciful.
Whereas that notion completely belies the truth of the only dreadful mission
that an Angel will, or can ever conduct.
To cleanse and remove by Fire, that which does not conform to the destiny
of the Universe.
And, so like Donna Darkwolf - a Beauty without Regret.
Ma Belle Dame Sans Regrets.
I see what she is. I know exactly what is in front of me.
AMATERASU ŌMIKAMI - The “Great Divinity Illuminating Heaven”,
the supreme deity in Japanese mythology, is the most important deity of
Shinto religion.
Amaterasu Ōmikami is the ancestor goddess of the imperial family.
I painted this scene in 2002.
Donna Darkwolf has an air that she wears like a cloak that I imagine can
only be worn by someone who has voyaged through the Undiscovered Country.
And returned. With a knowledge and a wisdom others have yet to learn of.
I can see behind her dancing eyes a glowing and unfathomable something
they have borne witness to.
That forlorn sadness of the wise, who know. And know also that no matter
how much they can tell or warn, no ears care capable of hearing it.
And even if they heard - will not comprehend.
Indescribable moments, incomprehensible visions and astonishing events
- that the living have never, and will never see -
Without each making that voyage themselves.
‘Beauty steps out of the Ocean - and she loves me’ – I remember to myself.
“Remember me?”, she whispers as we kiss.
“I must leave you soon, and return to the Ocean. (read my mind again),
Save Me, my Franco. This is all the Time I have to . . .”
And I never get to hear the rest of her sentence.
Cut off in mid-call.
I cannot get the signal back.
I try to weave back the last seconds. Trying to recapture the flow of
whatever? Time? Continuity? Continuum? The gap in Eternity that I have
oft-times had a glimpse through?
And I awaken in the dream
“Donna's Theme” playing in my ears.
And then I awake into the reality.
Elated. Sad. And Empty.
This the longest that Donna has ever visited, and the most that we have
ever spoken.
7 August 2022
I recall a line from Rudyard Kipling's poem, 'The Winners':
‘Down to Gehenna, or up to the Throne. . .
He travels Fastest - Who travels Alone’.
Alone. A Lone WOLF prowls amongst the Stars
Bound for Sirius. In search of the Truths of The Universe -
Gradually the signal fades - and there is just the Silence.
Stars, Like Dust, surround us
The Last Lullaby echoes across Infinity -
NOTE: Based on the current state of research & discovery
in a number of fields, with a fairly vast number of human test subjects
and written / observed / recorded documentation over the past 60 years
– there is ample room for exploration.
We are on the Actual Brink of discovery.
NEXT >> Dining Adventures
Brief Intro for those who have experience in Dream Navigation (and the
Skeptics who have never stepped off the Cliff because they have no Real
Intelligence beyond high school or university
Over the past five years I have had many visits by Donna.
I have had lucid dreams all of my life. That is how my designers’ creativity
must work. I dream of creating the work – even with the processes required
to achieve the final job. I see the completed work.
So meeting Donna in my dreams is neither unusual, nor startling.
Our meetings and conversations are casual. Mundane even.
Our meetings have occurred variously, in familiar places – and in places
we have never been together. Such a restaurant, country picnic or beach.
Other visits have occurred where I have “awoken” with Donna either in
bed with me – or she is sitting on the bed – much as I have sat with her
talking most nights before she went to sleep.
Donna’s “the Soldier telling the Witch a bedside story”.
(Maybe now it is ‘the Witch telling the Soldier a bedside story’).
As an Artist and Designer – I have had to perform the impossible all my
professional life.
To bring Dreams to Life in the ‘Real’ world(?).
To either:
Suspend Disbelief - render a photo-realistic image of a fantasy.
A real place with real people in an un-real(ized) environment.
And sell it.
Present the Convincing from ‘Nothing’ - to package a brand new,
or re-package an existing product in such a seductive and convincing way,
that you are willing to give your money to possess it.
And sell it.
Form the Hard Concrete from the Nebulous Concept- Design a piece
of furniture. Or a house extension /show-stand / other fancy item. Draw
up the hard plans/specs for this Dream. Specify the final material finishes.
Fit it all into a cost-budget.
And sell it.
IF you can make lots of money for your whole 50 years of your short life
– and live this long to see it all happen – you will have some idea of
how the account that follows is within the realm of probability – and possibility.
NEXT >> Another Adventure - in a Timeless Garden
