11/25/04
Stamp Madness
I was getting ready to record a program on Cartoon Network at night, likely part of my Saturday night recording schedule. The thing was, it was a program I would never record in real life. And I guess I had forgotten to get my tape ready ahead of time. I had two videotapes that I was looking through in a hurry to try to find the right one. I stood over by the VCR and stuck one in it to see what was on it. It was a cartoon featuring a red-haired girl from or in outer space, and I knew she was supposed to be the cartoon character Atomic Betty from the show of the same name, only in this toon she seemed older, like a teenager, and was tall and thin and pretty; she wore her dark red hair in a sort of ponytail with some sort of helmet or something on top of her head. She was interacting with some other characters and I knew that this was an Atomic Betty/Codename: Kids Next Door crossover--both programs which I do not watch, and in the case of the latter, even dislike. For some weird reason, I was getting ready to record Codename: Kids Next Door.
I tried fast-forwarding a bit through the tape or something to reach the right point but knew I had run out of time, so I think I stopped it and was going to just start recording. I noticed that the show had started already, though, and I'd missed the first moment or so. :/ I think I started recording anyway and told myself to make a note in my program schedule to remind myself I had missed part of the recording. I was upset, but not HUGELY upset. In real life, I would not care about that show!
I went to sit down on the couch. I was kind of watching whatever was on when Dad came into the room. "Want to see my stamps?" he said, and handed me a little tissue/waxpaper or plastic packet containing some postage stamps. I was surprised that Dad was collecting them, since I'd never known he collected stamps! But apparently he did.
I picked up the little packet and opened it. He might have had two different packets. It contained larger-than-usual stamps featuring paintings of wildlife. One set was of some kind of animals, maybe endangered; I know one was supposed to be this sort of little grayish(?) rodentlike or weasellike creature. The weird thing is, it wasn't pictured on the stamp; it was "invisible" or something, like its image was missing, yet I knew there was supposed to be an animal there. "Oh, that's that little rodentlike thing, isn't it?" I asked in curiosity, and continued looking through the stamps. He had another set/packet which featured different birds. I knew I had seen these before, a set just like this, in the past, and now he had one like it too. I was impressed by these ones since I think they were a collector's item. I seem to remember a heronlike bird featured on one stamp; it was just different kinds of wild birds.
I felt kind of wary handling these because I think my fingers might have been greasy from eating something, and I handled them gingerly, by their edges; Dad had been handling them carefully too since he was collecting them, and they belonged in these little paper(?) packets. I put them back when I was done. The stamps were in mint condition, very nice, and some were bigger than average stamps, like in different sizes; you know how sometimes different organizations will put out collector's stamps which are not for postage, but for collecting, and on the sheet the stamps are in different sizes? I used to get such things in the mail, sample packs, from the World Wildlife Federation or something, long ago, and they would have different animals on them. That's what these were like. I believe it was the heron one which had a sort of pale bluish background to it. They were very nice stamps so I was careful with them. Dad seemed kind of detached in this dream, neutral, like he just wanted to show them to me for the sake of showing them to me.
Real-life associations: In real life perhaps a month ago I ordered some free sample catalogs online, two of which were from stamp companies. When I got the first one I found it rather dull so tucked it away on my bookshelf and forgot about it. I got the second one and Ma wanted to look at it because she thought it was for rubber stamps; she looked at it anyway when I corrected her, and found a little sample packet included in it. The thing was, this sample packet was NOT free, and if I wanted to keep these stamps, I had to PAY for them! This thoroughly miffed me--I had ordered only a free catalog, and intended only to get the free catalog--it was at no expense to me whatsoever, but I still didn't want to go to the trouble of sending back something I had not even ordered! (The request form for the catalog hadn't even MENTIONED them sending a sample pack I would have to pay for.) So out of protest for this rudeness, I just did not send back the stamps. In fact I have not even looked at them since then; I feel a bit guilty for not returning them, but on the other hand, I DIDN'T REQUEST THEM! >:/ So they shouldn't have sent them if they didn't want to lose money!
It was only a couple of weeks LATER that I browsed through the first catalog and to my surprise, found a similar sample pack, ALSO stating I would need to pay if I wanted to keep them! Cripes, is this just normal policy for these guys?? The return date for this sample had already long passed, and I was like, "Oops!" ^_^; I have not sent that pack back, nor looked through it yet, either. I have yet to get any notices demanding money from either company, but if I do I will ignore them because I did not request these stamps. Their loss for such a stupid policy. Though I think a little bit of my guilt over this decision might have prompted the dream; even though this happened weeks ago and not recently. I'm tempted to open up both packets and make use of the stamps, but my guilt over not having paid for them has prevented me from doing so.
The Ballad Of Arch Rock
Ma and I were watching, on TV, some sort of old film that had been shot on or was about Mackinac Island. It was fictional. At some point this male narrator or something began to sing a song about Arch Rock, a natural formation on the island, and it was remarkably cheesy. Just this stupid old-fashioned (Forties or Fifties) song about the rock. O_o A slow song in a Bing Crosby-type voice. I watched the film while listening to this, wondering if they would actually SHOW Arch Rock. They finally did but it's kind of like my view was obscured and I seemed to lean forward or to the side a bit. At first, it did look like Arch Rock, maybe an old postcard view (since this was an old movie). But then the scene shifted somewhat and Arch Rock changed too. I think first it was much closer to the water than it is in real life, lower, then it was like over the water itself (in real life it's up on a bluff, overlooking the water but not over it); then rather than an arch it was more like an arched tunnel over the water, and didn't even resemble a natural formation anymore--it looked like carved stone or concrete forming a low arch, like you might see in a catacomb or something underground. Only it was going over the water, which seemed to be bright green like tropical water, and there was nothing else around it, just open lake. The camera panned down and through this tunnel-arch as the man continued to sing (the rock was sort of mottled brownish colored), and I turned to Ma in great amusement.
"How much do you want to bet that a bunch of people are going to go to Mackinac Island now, expecting Arch Rock to look like THAT?" I asked. I found it stupid that the movie had taken such liberties with Arch Rock, and felt that some people, seeing the movie, might want to visit the island and then find that Arch Rock did not look like this at all! How stupid. I turned back to watching the program, and in the song, the man mentioned a name that was either Wakan Tanka or Wakan Tatanka, which in the dream at least, I knew to be the Sioux/Lakota name for the Great Spirit. I gaped in disbelief.
"Wakan (Ta)tanka?" I blurted out, then threw my hands up in the air. "That's SIOUX!" I turned to Ma again and started trying to explain my disgust. "The name they should be using is Gitchi Manitou--THAT'S the Ojibwa/Chippewa name for the Great Spirit! The natives in this area didn't call him Wakan (Ta)tanka!" I felt some mild discomfort at referring to the Great Spirit as "he," when I felt it was greater than he or she and referring to it as one gender only might be diminishing it--and I also wondered whether I had even pronounced the Sioux/Lakota term properly--but decided to let it pass; Ma would probably not notice or care.
She didn't seem fazed at all by this discrepancy, but it really irked me no end! Not only had they remade Arch Rock, but they couldn't even get the native terms right! How pathetic could they get! I felt this movie was just one big glaring fake. For some reason now, I started to explain the native belief system to Ma, regarding the Great Spirit. "Some natives believe in and worship just the Great Spirit, Gitchi Manitou or whatever they should choose to call him," I said, when Ma interrupted.
"Um...no," she said matter-of-factly, and shook her head. I gawked at her in confusion--she was DENYING that I was right. Disbelieving that that was actually what the natives did. I couldn't believe she was being so ignorant about it!
"Um...YES," I argued, and continued before she could speak again, though I believe she still shook her head. "SOME of them still believe in and worship the Great Spirit, and follow the old ways. Some of them are Christian. And some of them follow both belief systems, without any conflict." I began to grow perplexed since I admittedly don't know anything at all of how natives combine two such differing belief systems without any personal conflict, so I could not explain to Ma how this was...this frustrated me since she did not seem to believe any natives could still be following the old ways. It was while I was feeling this confusion, and standing over by the northwest window for some reason (it was light outside now--I think it was night before), that I awoke.
Real-life associations: The "postcard" quality of the first shot of Arch Rock may have been influenced by online postcards I have seen of this formation recently, at eBay; I save the more interesting images to the hard drive and Arch Rock is one of the most popular subjects. I'm pretty sure the name "Wakan (Ta)tanka" is at least CLOSE to some sort of Native American name, probably Sioux/Lakota in origin, though I am not positive that it is the name for the Great Spirit since I am not much interested in the Plains tribes; I probably came across this name recently online too, as not long ago I did look at some things dealing with the Lakota and their belief systems, with passing interest; in specific I remember that the native name of Sitting Bull was given and I was surprised because I hadn't known he was referred to by that name. (I can't remember what it is at the moment.) I don't know why this led into my futile attempt to explain native belief systems to Ma. In real life, although not at any specific time but rather in the back of my mind now and then, I do wonder about the syncretization of Christian and native belief, and have long wondered about how different natives practice their faith, but have no reliable people to ask.
(Note: I've since looked up "wakan (ta)tanka" to find that "Wakan Tanka" is indeed the Lakota name for their Great Spirit, whereas "Tatanka (I)yotanka" was the name of Sitting Bull. Interesting that my sleeping mind remembered that.)
2004 Dreams
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