Julia A. Miller

A meditation on motion, stasis, and perception.

In southern rural Michigan, there is a place where a family friend built a log cabin.  My dad helped him build the cabin, and there are some very funny anecdotes about the planning and construction process – my dad being very meticulous and our friend almost wholly intuitive – but that’s for another post.  Also, interesting ideas about historical reconstruction versus contemporary practice (building a 19th century cabin and then living in it), for later.

Anyway, the cabin sets on a rise in the forest above a river.  To get there, you turn into a corn field and wind around a quarter mile or so, and then the track opens up into a clearing where the cabin lies.

But so, the dream:
I dreamt I was walking from the cabin with our friend down the rise, through scrub and leaves, to the river.  He kept saying, “Let’s visit Bardo Pond, we need to check on the pond”.  I thought, “pond?”.  So we get to the river and it’s partially covered with moss and debris.  There’s a small mound, like a miniature Native American burial mound, and he remarks, “Let’s check the temperature” and pokes a stick into it.  “Hmmm, a little warm”.  We walk on towards the river, to the place where there’s a natural spring;  we used to gather watercress there.  When we arrive at the spring, he checks the watercress, looks out over the water, and says, “ah, the pond”;  I replied, “but it’s a river”.