Dream Dots

"Eileen, you OK?" Mini asked me with concern as my body slumped and my face flushed white in a crowded sea of brown people attending the temple festival. I shook my head and the smiling woman between us scooted on the sand to make space for me next to the doctor. I crawled over to Mini---"Here, lie down on me." Unashamed, feeling faint and childlike, I put my head on her lap and closed my eyes. Five days of panchakarma treatment, very little food and the detoxification process absorbing much of my energy--the festivities were stimulation overload. A little delirious, with Mini rubbing my back-while coffee, peanut, and balloon vendors stepped around us to push their goods on the crowds attending this grand finale event of the the tenth day of holy celebration. In the middle of the madness, slipping from consciousness, I remembered the powerful dream I'd had while at the orphanage in December.

I dreamt of a bright cold morning in mountains that felt like home. In the scene, I was two people, one of me standing 100 feet below the snow blowing across the ridgeline, and the second me watching this movie from the 3rd row of an empty theatre. The first me couldn't take my eyes off the ridge--the sun rising behind it;the second me couldn't take my eyes off the firs me. In that sleep, my body was light and expectant as an elephant crested the ridge with the sun. It lumbered toward me, dancing in slow motion as it shook glistening snow from its back. The first me was awestruck, and unable to move and the second me was shoveling popcorn into my mouth. I don't recall how the dream ended other than I woke energized and determined to see an elephant in my waking state.

In slipping in and out of dream-state while lying in Mini's arms, the dream dots connected and the fragments of the orphanage dream became scrambled in front of me at this Keralan Temple Festival....6 elephants danced for the crowd where I watched from a supine position. They swayed in their regal red costumes as horns blew and drums blasted a tribal rhythm---They were covered in shards of light from the setting sun, fire-lit torches, and the surrounding neon lights strung along the temple's roofs. I was neither the me of the mountain, or the me in the 3rd row----instead I was the buttered popcorn.

5 days of "Snehapana" (cleansing) means waking at 5am, meditating with Mini in the dark on her balcony as the cock crows, praying to the photo on the treatment room altar of "rishi" who founded Ayurveda, and sitting blindfolded as Mini pours medicated ghee down my throat (each day, the amount ghee increasing by 50-100ml). Now, my body sweats the sweet smell of oily butter and my stomach aches with the heavy nausea of detox--- the only reprieve from the slick constant taste on my tongue came when Mini brought me home from the festival.

"Eileen, you must eat a little something." I sat at the table as she served up rice porridge, a glass of rice porridge water, and a side of pickled lemon---relief. As she tucked me in, and kissed my forehead, she said, "You will sleep well now."
My vulnerability dissolving, I replied, "Yes, Mini, I feel better now----sweet dreams."
She laughed..."Yes, Eileen, sweet dreams."