I had a two dream fragments last night; one was a very purposeful woman going to the right. There is a wall so I only see the upper half.

I remember a different kind of walls, from my childhood. When I was young, the walls  of rocks and cement, were built by my father. One wall was at least five feet high. The tops were jagged and were spaced, like on the top of a castle, each one a little apart. 

The wall was part of “a crush” into which the cattle, four at a time were hunted, with shouts and sticks. When the cattle were persuaded to go into this crush, the first one had its nose up against a steel gate and the last one had an iron bar against its knees and neither could escape, back or forward.

Then the wily framer could put clips in their ears, dose them or inject them. This was my father’s farmyard operating room. 

I remember him rubbing his hands together in satisfaction the first time it worked so well for him. 

He was dressed in a thin grey pants, which hung on his bony hips. He liked to wear some old cardigan and blue shirt on top. His hair was graying and his teeth were few and far between, even though he was not very old yet. 

Meanwhile the crush was a great source of delight for our imagination. I learned to walk along the jagged stones at the top, light on my feet, in my ragged little dress, at home on the farm. My younger sister and brother was there with me too. And while we were at it we walked along the top of the gate also. The top bar was an inch wide at most. 

The crush was built to fulfill government regulations that all cattle be tested for Tuberculosis. Each head of cattle had to have a clip on it’s ear, as a result of the testing, after they passed the test. The vet had to come out to give the all clear for the cattle. It was a great source of anxiety at the time, whether the animals would have the wrong reaction, a lump on the rump maybe, that told the right or wrong story. 

The ones that failed the TB test had to be taken away and the rest of the herd had to be tested in six months again, and cattle could not be sold in the meantime. It seemed a shameful fate for a farmer even if his cattle were carrier of the disease.

My father also built a ramp to get the cattle up into his new trailer. The wall was the height of the floor of the trailer, backed up into place. This meant he no longer had to walk/bike with the cattle, five miles to the “sales” in Moate, where cattle were sold. 

Prior to the trailer, he would have to get a few people to help him get the cattle to the sales safely, making sure they did not escape into houses or through open gates along the way and also making sure they stayed on the right road. 

He would ride up along the side of the cattle, as they ran along on the road at a fast run and he would just about head them off so they would not go into a field or a wrong road. He used his long legs to balance against the ditch and push off if he had no room at the side of the cattle. He used shouting liberally to achieve his end. He carried a stick. 

The evening before going to the sales, we would kneel down, as a family and pray he would get a good price for his cattle. I knelt under his shadow, as his knees touched the armchair and he had his brown beads in his hand, with my mother calling and the family responding. 

The turf fire in the stove gave off a soft warm heat that made the kettle sing, behind him and to his right as he faced away from the stove. A pot of porriage gestating on a cooler place on the stove, was getting ready for the morning meal. Above the stove was a rack with three lines on it, that went the length of the kitchen and had a pulley to lower and heighten it, full of clothes drying, oftentimes nappies.

 I remember the first time he used his new ramp, we all got up early to help with getting the loading accomplished. My father scattered straw on the floor of the trailer and out onto the ramp, to fool the cattle into walking over the divide between ramp and trailer. Cattle can be spooked by such gaps under their feet. I remember rolling in the fresh straw for fun, basking in that smell of dust and warmth.

My mother and father did the most of the work but we, the children were placed strategically to make sure the cattle went in the right direction. Even a small child jumping and shouting persuades a huge steer to go in a different direction. 

Some of us felt more frightened than others. 

Now the other fragment of dream, in addition to the dream of the wall and woman above, was of walking in a chaotic mess, chartreuse, red, like fallen leaves but not. 

I associated these colors here, from my MARI training, to represent all my negative thoughts that have fallen down around me and I have to walk through them, unless I become conscious of those negative thoughts, and finally got above them. This fragment shows what is behind the wall.

So if you have a preponderance of negative thoughts going on, maybe you, like me can get up on your wall and walk lightly along the top, as you work with your imagination and have a great time, being the tight rope walker of your mind, no longer falling down into that mess of negative thoughts. You are looking out beyond, where the path is pleased when poured around, where it is straight forward where ever the spirit leads. 

You too can sign up for my blog post when I put them up on this site. I hope you enjoy and that you are encouraged to record and think about your dreams. I am always here to help if needed. If you are serious about your own spiritual path it is a must and for me a given that I will look at them even if they are only fragments. Love from Rose.