22 Oct Thorny Issue
by Barbara Bose
This painting is about a dream I had recently.
I keep a dream diary under my pillow. I don’t usually remember all of the content of my nightly Netflix, but I usually manage to scribble down what I remember. Even if it’s just a phrase, I find the imagery insightful, symbolic and often very entertaining. As an artist (and big fan of Carl Jung) I find the universal symbolism of dream language to be very similar to that of art in general, a language in which we are all fluent. I don’t usually have the time to illustrate all of my dreams of course, but when the world steps in to validate one, I see it as a special message worthy of memorializing. Here is how the idea for this painting unfolded for me…
I dreamed I found myself naked in a cornfield. Luckily there was a hydrangea vendor nearby so I covered myself with some of his colorful puffy blossoms. Within the bouquet I was holding were some thorny sticks. However, the hydrangea man warned me against the thorns because “they are only for musicians to clean their instruments with,” so I let go of the thorns. Then he added “…but natural things are OK.”
The next day my husband and I flew from Florida to Boston and New England to visit my some of old haunts and to see friends and family. Everywhere we went, we saw mounds of hydrangeas, in full bloom, bursting with color. It was a banner year for them and their beauty proliferated throughout our journey across Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. I realized that there had to be a message for me in this dream since the imagery was immediately underlined by reality.
At the time I had been wrestling with my therapist’s suggestion to undergo ketamine treatments, a dissociative psychedelic for PTSD. I have been (and still am) suffering with the tremendous emotional pain of being separated from my young grandsons and daughter after she suddenly declared she was going No Contact from us. So far, it has been 3 years of nothingness from her. It was like a trap door opened up and swallowed me.
Over the course of the summer I had been researching infusions of ketamine therapy, and had been interviewing local medical offices that administer it. I would be hooked up to an infusion machine in a darkened room for an hour for several sessions a week. The first office I visited was staffed by people who behaved strangely and over the top with way too many hand gesticulations. They seemed very impressed with their genius. High on their supply, I wondered? Would taking it make me act like them? The second office was in a dingy building with a broken elevator. Something seemed off about all of it. Though I have always been psychedelic-curious, I had reached an impasse about how to proceed.
The painting depicts me, eyes closed, in the act of dreaming. I consider the thorns to be dream language for a stick from a needle. After all, if my dream guide is from any era before modern times, an injection could be interpreted as a thorn. The chemical signature for ketamine is more or less spelled out by the thorns around my feet, as are some of the initials of the parties in question. I indeed have thorny issues and I need to watch my step, especially when in the darkness of estrangement. There is a little marijuana leaf in the bunch — my therapy of choice. The four blossoms represent the blessings of all my four grandchildren. The red blossom, directly over my heart, represents my 13 year old grandson Micah, with whom I was very close for 10 years before the trap door suddenly opened up.
While I seek answers to my dilemma. I am grateful to have my artwork and the inner light of my dreams to see myself through the darkness.
