Mid Summer's Night Dream Oil
by Linda Cucurullo
I always get my best ideas for painting furniture from my dreams, but lately my dreams had been waning. I had not had any creative ideas in weeks. My shop, “Fantasy Furniture”, was looking bare; however my workshop was crowded with unadorned pieces.
I have been going to sleep earlier and earlier and have started to take afternoon naps. Unfortunately nothing seemed to work. I keep my colored pencils and sketch pad next to my bed, so I’m always prepared.
Betty from the beauty shop and Sonia our spiritual friend stopped by. Betty was looking for a unique piece. While she was shopping at the community thrift store she found a beautiful, elegant tall silver lamp that was shaped like a vase. She needed a unique pedestal table that would show the lovely lamp off to its best. She wanted the table to be just as special, so as your eye traveled from top to bottom it would be a complete work of art. She had planned to put it in the small waiting area in her beauty shop.
I was frustrated and stuck. I had several pieces just sitting here waiting to come alive with new color and embellishment. I walked around them all day, the way I usually do, letting their form and character sink into my unconscious, and still nothing seemed to revive my creativity. I have not had a dry spell like this for quite a few years. A few months ago I broke up with my boyfriend Louie. I really thought he was the one for me. Shortly after is when all this started. Louie was an exciting guy, full of fun and adventure but he couldn’t be fun and settled down at the same time. I was now at a place in my life where I was ready to make my nest with a fellow traveler. As hard as it is for anyone to say, my life was not working out as I had planned.
I told Sonia and Betty the problem and Sonia said she would be back later to talk. Sonia has been my spiritual friend for many years. I talk to her on a monthly basis just to keep myself pointed in the right direction and in touch with my higher self. Sonia has a way of asking the right questions that I never ask myself. She has the gift of listening in such a way that it is easy for me to clear the fog in my head. I’ve always known that whatever I go to Sonia with will be understood and not judged. It always worked out as it should in the end. Sonia called this “Divine Order”.
After they left, I went upstairs to my apartment and took another nap. I made sure the room was neat and clean and that the window was open just a little for fresh air, the sheets were clean and smelt like the outdoors after being hung on the clothes line. My sketch book and colored pens and pencils were next to my bed, just in case an idea came into my dreams and I was able to remember something. I had a cup of chamomile tea to sooth me to sleep and off I went. When I awoke I had tiny little glimpses of shells, pearls and turquoise stones but it didn’t come together. It was just a bunch of little pictures that made no sense, nor did it go together anyway. Well, it was a tiny bit more then I had been getting but not close enough to what I needed. My preparation helped just a little bit but not sufficiently.
I made a pitcher of iced Ginger tea and took it downstairs to my backyard workshop. It was really a roomy two car garage with a climb up loft behind my shop. I spend several hours a day there with the furniture, waiting to be worked on. Even if I am in a dry place I have to spend time with the pieces, the paints and tools I work with. The pieces and I have to become friends first, you know, absorbing each others energies. I heard Sonia’s voice calling me, so I opened up the big garage doors to greet her.
“I am really glad you came back, I am so frustrated with this . . . non-dreaming.”
Since it was a warm summer day we decided to leave the doors opens so the sound of the breeze moving through the trees and the tinkling of the wind chimes and birds in the trees could be heard. Gracie, my black lab, was lying in the sun outside the door. Her sister Puppy, who looked like a little light orange fox, was chasing flies, as usual. We poured the iced Ginger tea and Sonia stepped outside to the little courtyard and snipped a few lemon balm leaves from the potted plant to give our tea a little sparkle.
As we sat in the two old wicker chairs that were waiting to be transformed, Sonia said “OK, let’s take a few deep breaths and let go of all the tension in our bodies and our minds. Let go of all of what you should or should not be doing. Let go of all your lists and have to’s and must’s and now let’s be quiet for a few more moments.” This is how Sonia always started our sessions, and it was my favorite part. It was where time stood still, the noise of the world and the chatter of my mind stopped completely. We were there like that for about twenty minutes. It was always a time of bliss. Sonia said that this is the time your angels show up, in the quiet.
When everything became still and I heard a deep relaxed sigh coming from deep within me. I opened my eyes and Sonia was smiling that warm knowing smile she always had when she came back from meditating.
I started telling her about my lack of dreams. I told her night after night I tried to dream and nothing was happening no matter how hard I was trying. She put up her hand to stop me.
“Carla you don’t try to dream, you just dream. You need to stop trying and let go of it for awhile. Accept what is just for now. Forget about the dreaming stuff. What happened before you got stuck?’
“Well I told you about Louie not being the one and then getting used to not having my boyfriend around and calling me to see how I was. I was feeling unloved and unlovable. Then I went on to having all these great furniture pieces around with such awesome personality and that I was not connecting to them. And that I was missing the joy of love that I thought I needed to be able to create.
“Ahh, did you hear what you said? You think you need to be in love to create. Do you really think that? Do you really think that your creativity is not there unless you are in love and someone is in love with you?”
That question stopped me! “Do I think that my creativity is only there when I am in love and when it is being returned the way I want it. Maybe I do. That doesn’t seem right. I was always creative, even as a child I was always working on some art project. My father was like that too. Louie did not make me creative, but it feels when that was taken away, I lost it. ”
“You didn’t lose it. You gave it away by thinking you have no gift unless there is a Louie in your life. Louie is not around anymore, but you still are. You are still who you always were. Your special gift is bringing new life to old things... No one can take your special gift away. Another one of your gifts is receiving them in dreams. Do you see, it’s all you and your angels. It’s not anyone else. You seem to be giving the power of your gifts away. And also, Carla, have you thought about the fact if the wrong man is around the right one can never appear? When you complete your work on the pieces in your workshop and sell them, new ones always arrive. You just make the space and they come.”
We sat for awhile longer watching Gracie roll on her back to get more sun, and Puppy still doing her fly chasing. We enjoyed listening to the breeze and drinking our iced tea, and then Sonia looked at me and smiled, “Do you want to meet someone really cool that can give you a jumpstart to remembering your dreams?”
“This sounds like one of your special adventures Sonia, I always love them. You know the coolest people.”
“I am going to take you to meet Bella. She lives at the curve of the cul- de-sac on Old Post Road and Firefly Lane.”
“I think I have heard of Bella. Wasn’t she that little Francesca’s fairy god mother?”
“Yes, but that was when Francesca’s mother was ill and Franny was a little girl. Since her mother became well again and Franny began to grow up Bella’s guardianship was no longer needed. However Bella always had her business as a Dream worker and it still continues to this day. Her special gift is working with nature and of course an open mind; she needs that to see the hidden meanings of the scared signs and symbols of the dream world. I am going to give her a call and see if we can stop by so you can meet her.”
Bella told Sonia to come right over.
When we got to Old Post Road and Firefly Lane we could not miss Bella’s house. It was a cottage made of all stone. It had ocean blue shutters with gold moons, stars hand painted on them and a wild flower garden front yard with a fountain that bubbled water. I could just sit in this garden forever. Sonia said, “Not so fast, wait ‘till you see the backyard.”
Bella was a very attractive woman. She could be in her fifties. She had salt and pepper hair which was pulled back into one long thick braid that came to the middle of her back. There were a lot of wisps and tiny curls around her face that had escaped the braid. She had green eyes that were warm and gentle. Bella always wore either all black or all white. Today she was wearing black slacks and tee shirt with a white jeans jacket. She wore a turquoise and silver necklace, tiny turquoise earrings and a thick silver bracelet. On her feet were the softest turquoise suede moccasins.
Turquoise was definitely her color. It made her eyes sparkle and her peach colored creamy skin glisten. Not only does the stone look great on her, but she says it is the stone of communication and she does a lot of that in her books, dream circles and in her dreams. She even does dream travel, where she dream travels to different cultures and even different realms.
Sonia told Bella that I was having trouble remembering my dreams and asked if she had any advice.
“Isn’t it amazing you have come today? This is June 22nd, the longest night of the year and the only night in the whole year I make the Dream Oil.” Bella laughed, watering her plants.
“The Dream Oil?” I asked, a bewildered look in my eye.
“Oh yes dear, the Dream Oil is the biggest part of my business, because it is sold all over the world. Have you never heard of it?”
“No, I guess I never had the need since I always remembered my dreams. What exactly is this Dream Oil?”
“It is only sold in specialty dream shops and online from my website. I run an online dream group, dream wisdom circles, write books on dreams and make the Midsummer Nights Dream Oil. Tonight is the night, the longest night of the year. Tonight the moonbeams shine longer then any other time. Do you want to help with the ritual?”
“Of course!” I exclaimed.
“It starts at midnight, be here at eleven thirty. Before we do the ritual we need some time to become centered and meditate. Wear comfortable clothes and shoes, because we will be in the garden.”
Sonia and I got there on time. We heard Bella call out to come around through the side gate into the backyard.
When we entered the yard it was magical. On this warm night the stars were out and the full moon was so close you could almost touch it. There were soft lights coming from the room at the back of the house where a wooden deck extended.
It looked like a hundred candles all over the deck. There were very tall, wide glass containers sitting out there among the candles. They were half filled with what Bella said was almond oil. Half the garden was herbs and flowers. There was a long stretch of a vegetable garden with tall plants and luscious looking fruits hanging from the branches, almost ready to eat. At the end of the yard there was a big drop that looked down at a forest with a creek whose water bubbled and danced over the rocks. I loved the sound.
Sonia led us in a meditation and we became very quiet while the creek sounds bubbled up to us and the lightening bugs silently twinkled in the black sky all around us. When we opened our eyes we were all smiling. Bella said a prayer and asked that this dream oil be helpful to whoever used it. Then she said a thank you to the universe for providing all that was before us.
At midnight when the moon is at its fullest and the herbs energy is at its peak we are going to trim the leaves and soak them in the oil. They will stay out on the deck for seven nights as the moon light soaks into the herbs, infusing them with moon energy and as the moon wanes and the days begin to get shorter the oil will be ready to put into the little bottles. I will then fill the bottles and say a prayer over them before I send them out with the best intentions for the angels to dream through whoever uses it.
“What’s in the oil?” I asked.
“It is a recipe that I found in my Grandmothers attic after she passed to the next realm. It was in her journals. She wrote that this recipe was taken from her Grandmothers journals. We use the leaves of the Mugwort plant which grows in the summer like a weed. Its proper name is Artemisia, after the goddess Artemis. She was considered the goddess of the night and the keeper of the moon. Then we snip the pale blue and white blossom from the tall spikes of the Clary sage plant. And we slide the tiny Lavender buds off their slender wands. The Clary sage plants gift is inspiration and Lavender brings harmony, the pinch of Lemon zest helps to keep our minds clear, so remembering is easy.
You are to rub a little oil on your forehead and along your temples before you go to sleep and be sure to keep your dream journal with a pen that works by your bed. As soon as you awaken with the dream you start to write whatever you remember. It does not matter if it makes sense or if you only remember bits and pieces. It will all come together in the end.”
Sonia and I were very busy helping Bella through the night. We worked mostly in silence. Just being together working in the moonlight was enriching to my spirit.
She gave us our own little midnight blue moon shaped bottles with gold oval labels that said Mid Summer Nights Dream Oil with instructions to keep them out in the moonlight for seven nights. Then it would be ready to use.
I had a wonder filled time that night. Meeting Bella was a real treat. Seeing the place she lived was a magical experience. Meditating and doing the ritual with these two most spirit based women was high on my list of remembrances. I began dreaming again even before I started using the oil. I guess when I realized that I had a gift for seeing the potential and beauty in things no one else saw, I made up my mind to never abandon my special gifts again.
One night when I went to sleep I woke with the finishing touches to my dreams of bits and pieces of shells and gems. I saw a tall pedestal table for Betty’s lamp all covered with shells and pearls and tiny bits of discarded jewelry. It took a few weeks to get it just right, but when it was done it was perfect. The table had some of Sonia and Bella in it as well all my experiences. Even some pieces of Gracie and Puppy were in this piece of art. I called it the Mermaid table.
The end.
Linda Cucurullo is an energy worker and a spiritual friend. She can be reached at 516 483 4453, www.journeyinward.com, lcucuril@optonline.net
Add Comment