arroyo river dream

The other night I had a dream about running in the Arroyo where the plant Datura grows – a sacred place – Datura is the Queen. She brings visions and breaks down barriers between the underworld and surface world and past and present and dream and reality and vision. The dream was simple and real-like and showed the future-past – the creek-wash-stream-river was naturalized again. The walls of the channel were absent. The flow of the water was low, slow, but the streambed was wide and flat and sandy, suggesting recent surges of power, washing down the loose, steep mountains. Datura was growing in the sand near the river, just as it now grows in the sand near the river above the wall/channel. The river was telling a story, its dream of the future, its remembrance of the past. Datura was there as friend and orator, its large white and translucent light purple trumpet flowers perfect for broadcasting messages.

I went running in the Arroyo that day after the dream. And of course, the river was there, and Datura, and even a build up of sediment within the channel – looking almost back to normal, a real river within the walls – nothing prophetic, just presence, always presence:

Here I am, I am a river, always a river, Datura is my friend, run beside me, be my friend, run beside me, run beside me, run beside me…

Later that evening I was at my high school reunion and it was only the simple moments that made any sense. There was one conversation about home life and simple ways, and it sounded nice, even if it was made less true in my mind than the words were meant to imply, she wasn’t even in my class, but she told the best story, that I believed, and believe to be true, a story like a river…