In this one, I was at this big monastery-like place with one other girl. There was a couple watching over us and teaching us, the man being the one "in charge." I'm not sure the word "God" ever came up but it was definitely implied that we were to be giving our lives up to some religion or universal presence or something like that. The man was skeptical that either of us would end up making it whole-heartedly through the initiation process... at some point he insisted something like "when you are here, if you do this, man means nothing anymore. This is everything." Whatever he said wasn't that coherent, but the gist was that we had to give up all of our friends and family and relationships... and when I realized I couldn't do that, I completely broke down in realizing that I had to leave. What was killing me about it was that whatever it was we'd glimpsed and were about to enter into was so beautiful, and I didn't want to have to let it go... but for me, the consequences were too great--I had no choice but to let it go and get back to my own world.

The whole tone of it was so distressed; I felt like I was losing something so important to me that I'd never really have again. There wasn't even the sense that what I was gaining by letting it go was necessarily better, it was just that I was incapable of turning away from the ones I loved... the ones who I'd started to see that presence through in the first place. But I wasn't really thinking about which was better... the sheer sense of loss was overwhelming, regardless of whether it was the right thing to do or not.

I'm not big on picking apart dreams and figuring out where each little thing came from in my waking life, but dreams like this that have such a strong "reaction" in them make me think a bit more... The idea of having to deal with a really emotionally painful loss either to get something better in the long run, or simply because there is no other way, seems more like some sort of heavy life lesson than a dream. It's just that in a dream the impact of it is more immediate and raw than it would normally be in real life (for me anyway... I tend to be pretty reserved), and so there is no avoiding or sugar-coating it--it's just there, in your face, refusing to be conquered by logic or convenience.

Sometimes I feel more solidly alive in dreams...
maybe that's why I write about them (or refer to them) in songs so much. ;)

I would hesitate to really stretch out the "familiar friend" idea, though... you'd think I'd be emotionally attached to my instruments, but I'm not--maybe that will change once I've had my now-new guitar for a long time and taken it out to open mics and gigs and such, though. As a pianist, I'm used to playing on different instruments all the time, and I've only had my current harp a year. But even so, I think maybe it's less the particular instrument as the kind of instrument... There is a certain comfort when your hands can wrap around an instrument with that knowingness; when my hands fall on a piano (any piano) they are home, there is a certain feel that triggers my brain into piano mode, which is so familiar to me. So perhaps that "click" with new instruments is really just my brain building a mode for whatever instrument it is. Building new "homes" for my mind and body, in a way.

Anywho, I'm pretty excited about learning guitar... for a long time I've been mostly clueless about it--the different chord formations made sense logically but were otherwise foreign. I've played enough wind instruments to imagine the ones I haven't played, and the sort of posture and air flow you'd feel, but guitar was completely different. After learning harp, finger-picking made a lot more sense, and now I'm learning how to work my left hand as well. I'm just starting to wean myself away from watching my left hand while I play, and starting to concentrate more on how everything feels rather than looks. This is both a practical approach (hard to sing into a mic when you're looking down/left at your hand!) and one I find to be essential so I can channel my ideas and emotions through the instrument. I find that playing in the dark or by dim candlelight works well... [er, not so well on harp, for its lack of physical landmarks like black keys or frets]. Piano, harp, and guitar are all linked in certain ways--the mindset for each is similar--but they are also very different... and for each to feel like home is really a beautiful thing to me. =)