we had quite the new moon ceremony last night on the beach.
it was me, shannon and dearsweetdave. and my pillow. this will squick out a lot of you. i have had the same pillow, the exact same feather pillow, since i was born. 43 years i have laid my head on that pillow to sleep. about ten days ago, dearsweetdave and i were changing the sheets on our bed and i went to change the pillow case on my pillow and feathers went flying everywhere. the pillow casing had pretty much disintegrated. which isn't surprising, huh?
i fretted for hours about what to do. i really considered just taking another pillow case and sewing it all around the outside. but then i caught a "whiff" of the feathers and well, it nearly knocked me out. STINKY!
so i decided it was time to let go. and move on. new pillow. but...i couldn't just throw away my old pillow. no way. that pillow held all my dreams and nightmares for the last 43 years. all.of.them. i have slept on it every night. i take it with me when i travel. it went on tour with the grateful dead. it lived with me in london. it went to boarding school, to college, to every single resting stop from cradle until now, so imagine all the dreams in that pillow?!
i decided we would burn it on the new moon. send all those dreams into the universe to do whatever it is that they need to do. so we had a ceremony on the beach last night. and burned the pillow. or more like, melted the pillow. feathers that are old and stinky and full of my body oils it turns out melt more than they actually burn. although at some points, it was almost spooky. the pillow would suddenly just ERUPT and massive flames would swirl as if some huge very powerful dreams were being released. and then it would go back to smoldering and "melting" and then woosh, more huge flames licking the sky.
it took a long time. as dearsweetdave said, "your dreams do not go quietly!"
i said goodbye to them and not without some tears. which surprised me, but it actually really hurt to watch that pillow burn. it was so final. it has been with me for so long. i even had it with me in the hospital for my brain surgery!
we all lit our candles for the new moon from the burning pillow and sent up our wishes. and hopes. and new dreams. and then we went to saturn cafe for dinner positively wreaking of my burnt pillow dreams. met chris there. and the burning pillow has become our new standard for story telling.
"oh yes, but is it as good as a burning pillow?"
