Wild Chasing Human

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“The White Stag has a message for you. Hunters of old pursued the miraculous stag, not because they expected to kill it, but because it led them in the joy of the chase to new and fresh adventures, and so to capture happiness. You may look on the White Stag as the true spirit of Scouting, springing forward and upward, ever leading you onward to leap over difficulties, to face new adventures in your active pursuit of the higher aims of Scouting.”

—Robert Baden-Powell’s farewell speech to the Scouts

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At first I thought it was a moose, but its antlers were wrong for a moose. They were large branches, with medium and smaller branches branching off, tapering to sharp points glistening in the moonlight which lit up shades and hues within the midnight blues of the woods.

It must be a deer, a powerful stag. Yet. Its long neck, its pale colouring, its full flowing fur, reminded me of a llama. A giant llama with massive horns.

It looked straight at me. I see you seeing me.

I was in a clearing on the edge of its forest. Why was I there? Where was I going? I wasn’t going anywhere, I was just there.

But it was not just there, it was moving, closer… its thoughts were even though it seemed so still. It wanted something from me, but what? What could something so magnificent want from something so insignificant?

When the deer comes… fear runs.

I ran, away. It chased me. Wild chasing human.

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 via – Symbolic Moose Facts

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I woke up, drenched in my own inner waters. Raw emotion, no thought. Thought would come later, as it always does trying to bring logic to the symbolic.

What did this mean? Was it death?

Dear, Human, why does every symbol inevitably mean death to you? And why is death so ominously chasing you in the labyrinth of your mind that everything which appears, which you can’t reduce to the ordinary, can’t magically transform into the norm, induce fear?

Why does what is wild inspire you to tame it, and by taming it, kill it… perhaps.

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“Before our white brothers came to civilize us we had no jails. Therefore we had no criminals. You can’t have criminals without a jail. We had no locks or keys, and so we had no thieves. If a man was so poor that he had no horse, tipi or blanket, someone gave him these things. We were too uncivilized to set much value on personal belongings. We wanted to have things only in order to give them away. We had no money, and therefore a man’s worth couldn’t be measured by it. We had no written law, no attorneys or politicians, therefore we couldn’t cheat. We really were in a bad way before the white men came, and I don’t know how we managed to get along without these basic things which, we are told, are absolutely necessary to make a civilized society.”
― John Lame Deer

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Humans have been chasing the wild for so long, we have come to view ourselves as being masters lording it over nature… shocked when the wild chases us, when nature is stronger than our egos would have us believe.

How dare the wild be wild!

How dare it not bow down to… fear. Fear is greater than it. Fear is the power behind all power.

Or is it…?

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Upon searching for meaning… for the dream… I wandered wide and far, far and near…

Did something pre-sleep influence it?

Surely it had nothing to do with the distractions which entertained my mind pre-dream? There were no antlered animals in that, were there?

Watching several episodes of the TV series Gomorra… idle leisure… interesting, intriguing, but how deep did it penetrate? It did stimulate thought connected to my life. Made me appreciate certain things… and wonder…

Was it connected to my strong aversion to another TV distraction – watching the second season of True Detective. My partner is enjoying this, even though he zoned out several times while doing so. Perhaps that’s its appeal for him, something which relaxes. For me it is like listening to someone drone on and on and on about a complicated and convoluted, preposterous and pretentious, dream they had… with which I can’t relate at all… ah… irony?

Perhaps it had something to do with the post I wrote in my head about words turning into seconds, minutes… I noticed the recent change in a part of WordPress, the reader, which sparked an inner dialogue, about psychology, manipulation, perception and stuff, but surely it is of no consequence?

Or maybe it was linked to seeing and applauding the genius of this:

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by Stuart McMillen (the entirety of which can be found here)

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It most likely correlates to an argument I had with myself before I went to sleep, tossing and turning, and tussling with myself.

Fear had a lot to do with it… doubt… fear of doubt, doubt-induced fear… as did death, symbolic and real, of endings, of self, of other, of anniversaries, of events, births, rebirths, opportunities found, seized, and los,… as did the wild, within… saying don’t give to giving in… how to honour it without scaring the human side… which just wants to run… and hide.

A comment someone made yesterday haunted me… inspiring more conversation than I wrote in my reply. Perhaps it was my reply which haunted me… it promoted peace… but sometimes it does that more when it wants war.

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Again by Stuart McMillen (the entirety of which can be found here)

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When you comment on my blog… often what you say stays with me long after… as does what I have said in reply…

Sometimes I…

I can be very forgetful, but I can also remember everything, whether I recall it correctly is… questionable. Memories blend into the now, and the now affects how we recollect…

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 May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you — beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.”
― Edward Abbey

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As I pondered the argument I had the night before… wondered about the meaning of the dream… and searched aimlessly with aim online for someone somewhere who knew something which I didn’t, or who could at least be a live spark plug to my own motor…

I came across variations on a theme…

Others who had been chased by a deer in dreams – The Science of Dreams – and searched as I was searching, and had wondered as I wondered… about doing such a thing online where… anything goes, and goes anywhere and everywhere. Roads leading… nowhere… back here…

I dipped my toes into mythological waters… giant deer abound and bound!

Artemis had a deer, a very dear deer… and Artemis has another name which corresponds with the name of someone who crossed my mind during my argument with myself.

In the dream there was a figure in the woods with the giant deer…. or was there? Was I adding to the dream because of what I was reading… reading into to it what the conscious mind perceived, influenced by outer influences, losing the perception of the subconscious unconscious, the inner world?

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“Zoom out and what you see is one species–us–struggling to keep all others in their appropriate places, or at least in the places we’ve decided they ought to stay… …We are everywhere in the wilderness with white gloves on, directing traffic.”
― Jon Mooallem

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Artist unknown – this image is everywhere… trying to find its source is like trying to find the meaning of my dream.

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This is my 1000th post, btw.

Does that mean something?