Not All of Us are Narcissistic

I listened to Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower last evening and colored. She's a difficult writer for a listener/reader to put down. I was more then half way through. It was midnight and I had to work in the morning. The minute my head hit the pillow I was traveling in the hypnagogic. At first it was one animal after another and another. The images streaming by were not extraordinary, but the sensations from them were filled with confusion. When I slowed this conscious state down I saw a black bear grab a white pole into the sky further then I could see. I saw a lioness frozen in time and the sensation of confusion rose in me once again. Then an incoherent white something. I woke and it took some time to brave up into dreaming again. I must admit I get angry sometimes at how self centered the human race is. We are not the only animals inhabiting this world.

When I finally went back to sleep I slipped into a chaos of older people. I was determined to get through these sensations of fear and confusion. In the crowd was a white haired woman wearing lavender, so I focused all my attention into slowing the streaming and into seeing her. I asked, do you want me to dream deeper with you? She must have had parkinson disease. I was teaching her how to walk more slowly, feel her feet and fall in love with the earth under them. She was a happy older woman and I woke feeling a bit less dreadful. I had an aunt with this struggle. She was a funny, happy old woman until the day she past. I love that she was in my life.

I will have to take time today to fall in love with people again. I find the whole of my species to be extremely self centered among the animal kingdom. I wonder if narcissism is on the rise in psychiatrist's offices?  I love the way Octavia Butler writes. Perhaps that's why I have to step away from her Earthseed books. I am a sensitive in a different way from her main character, but relate to the main character nonetheless. Her book parallels too closely to the chaos of 2020.

I am only working three hours today. On my way to work, in the middle of the road there were four peacocks around a white one, injured on his side on the oil road. I stopped the car and jumped out. He was dying and I wondered if this was that white incoherent something that I woke from last night in the liminal dreaming. He was dying slowly so I held an image of flight and ease and went to step on his neck to kill him swiftly. Just as I was stepping this younger man came running from behide me. He had gorgeous muscular tattooed arms. I said, he's dying and I was going to kill him so he wouldn't suffer so long. He grabbed me and hugged me. He said, yes it's ok. He is my bird, I have lots of birds. He picked him up and said he would take care of him. I got back in my car and thought how weird sometimes that my day life is much more dreamy then my night. I felt good about being a human again. How wonderful this man, not narcissistic at all as he walked away cradling this dying bird. Ok, I love humans again.