Today is the birthday of my former lady friend Hiltje in my old country. We parted in October 2003, phoned after that painful good bye, but never met again. That event was the more difficult, as we had enjoyed each other’s company for about four years, sharing many activities. Yet Hiltje’s roots and ties were with the Netherlands and family, while the same was and is true for me, mutatum mutandis.

Such mixed experiences are hard to place, yet they are rich in instructive value, while running counter to expectations about how things should be.

An experience then, one of growth, joy, love and friendship, but of a limited time, yet enriching never the less. Such mixed experiences are hard to place, yet they are rich in instructive value, while running counter to expectations about how things should be. It is in the latter that their value lies as experience. There is value present, also in the unwished for life experience, often difficult to assimilate.

Yesterday was a quiet day with a short walk for milk and a paper after completing my daily entry. I made some plans for the rest of the week, making use of the nice weather. A coffee with my former spouse, lunches with friends and a coffee too yet.

In my afternoon sleep yesterday, I had a dream in which I patiently wait for my now late parents to pay attention to me. I have some writings to share, but while they say good to their friends they pay me no attention as they walk home across the park square from the time of my youth. The friend they conversed with said ’manticore’ and I say that is an old Jungian psychology term, but no one notices.

The dream setting is definitely when I was in high school or college maybe. My youth in other words, but what I want to show them are writings and ideas I am engaged with for over the last few years. One set of pages is white, printed like some of my printed outputs I do every so often. The other object is a bound notebook, its cover resembling that of my Baibar gates of Cairo cover notebook that I started on Salt Spring Island in October (30), 2006.

The Manticore: The knowingness of men, the body power of the lion and the sting of the scorpion in the end.

The word ‘manticore’ is the name of a legendary animal from antiquity and consists of a man’s head, a lion’s body and the tail of a dragon or scorpion. Such composite beings combine symbolically the power that each animal component stands for. The knowingness of men, the body power of the lion and the sting of the scorpion in the end.

I dismissed the dream at first as too obscure, but the imagery and setting have staying power, keeping me fascinated and having me mull over its potential significance.
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