A dream-state in blue

Still from Wuthering Heights (2011)

Garbed in blue, I was anointed in blue. For the fertility of spring, the Easter of the southern clime, the spring equinox. It is possible that then I entered into a dream-state—but I might just be making that bit up.

Last weekend I participated in a dance performance with the Hands, Heart and Feet tribe at the end of a day celebrating the elements at the Leela Centre in Darlinghurst. While I did not participate in the day, which was a Women’s Weekender organised by Genevieve Rogan of Dancing Change, the sense of community, bonding and opening up of those who did came through in the relaxed evening.

Bree Rain—let me take some degree of license here to call her a spiritual celebrant—was present to close the day before the performance began. Oddly, she offered pomegranate juice to symbolise the close of winter. She reminded us of the story of Persephone whose consumption of seven pomegranate seeds resulted in her exile in the Underworld. This is the bit that struck me as odd, and merged with my later thoughts about a dream-state in blue—drinking the pomegranate juice only works if we associate the freshness of fruit with the newness of spring, not with Persephone’s mistake.

I don’t criticise, it was merely a moment of dissonance, something that did not sit well when I considered it. But as with anything a bit of explanation tends to elucidate the intended meaning, which could be anything if you are suitably convincing.

If the pomegranate represented the (spring-reborn) element of Earth, the sheer blueness of the blue lotus tinged oil aligned it with Water, raising another dissonance if oil and water do not mix.

Blue lotus, from some swift internet-based research, is an oneirogen, a substance that is said to induce a dream-like state of mind, sometimes called ‘lucid dreaming’.

Again, I felt a dissonance with the spring equinox. Although lucid dreaming is not deep dreaming, is not sleep, spring is yet the wakening from sleep, so the idea of inducing a lucid dreaming state to awake from our winter hibernation and embrace the fertility of spring still seemed a slightly conflicting notion.

One experience of this with no mind to the origin, medium or expectation of achieving any unusual state of consciousness cannot offer much.

Bree anointed our foreheads with a spiral of oil, her finger coming to a stop in the centre of the circle. Someone remarked that it would be a wonderful perfume—a very expensive one, Bree rejoined. I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent. I couldn’t describe it for you, but it was floral, sweet, delightful—certainly, it was a natural scent. (My make-up pad came away a little blue, later.)

As usual when I perform these days there were no real nerves. I did not even feel stiff or clumsy from sitting for a time before we danced. I don’t think I thought much, I felt the movements keenly. It was a smooth, relaxed-pace dance (you can watch a video of the dance here), so perhaps I just fell into the rhythm and calmness of it. Once we had unwrapped our blue fabric for the second half of the dance—the chiffonography, if you will—I even recovered well from M and I becoming entangled!

Now, I am in a meditation of the colour blue and how this can link to the spring equinox, I am reminded of some musings on blue shared on Brainpickings. Blue merges into or is conjured by a distance, the darkness and the light, and as the light returns in spring perhaps blue becomes clearer. Now I am of the mind to leave you with Persephone—‘Our lady of the underground’—from Anais Mitchell’s Hadestown: ‘But look a little closer, everything will be revealed / Look a little closer, there’s a crack in the wall’. Let the light in.