Friday, January 1, 2016

Dreamcatchers

I was at the gas station filling up my older daughters car while she is traveling far away now with Gas because in winter you can get water evaporation in a gas tank which can mess up a carburetor or fuel injection system where the car won't start. So, usually I keep the gas tank in all my vehicles filled up to the top except for my motorcycle a KLR 650 which I store in the garage where there is less cold moisture than outside and where our washer and dryer also are and where I keep a light on there all the time to prevent condensation there like people do in their boats to prevent mildew and other problems at the seashore where I live in Northern California.

Anyway as I filled up my older daughter's car with gas I spied something I knew I didn't want to see out of the corner of my eye so I abruptly turned around away from it. I knew it was someone dysfunctional but that I probably couldn't help them so I turned the other way. As I watched later this person as they passed me it was a man in his 40s or 50s who obviously was having problems because of the stick he held like a fishing pole with a string coming down from it in front of him with a paper cup and other objects hanging from it as he walked down the sidewalk.

From studying cultural anthropology and from studying comparative religion when I was younger (one of several different majors in college including Computer science) I realized what he had created in front of him was his own custom dream catcher and how it worked for him was that it made people turn away from him so he didn't have to feel so disturbed by their reactions to him as he walked by.

I thought that what he was doing was ingenious from this point of view and how this might protect him from the gaze of some polite people like myself.
However, at least for now his dreamcatcher was working.

I thought if you don't know what a Dreamcatcher is it is a thing to ward off bad dreams or bad thoughts that might harm a person waking or sleeping. It is a American Tradition in some Native American tribes but has become a part of the national fabric since the 1960s and 1970s here in the U.S.
  1. History of the dreamcatcher, instructions on how to make one, and links to artist sites.

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