Member-only story
Dreaming Life
I am a Mohawk woman and I’m dreaming of lions.
I am running fast through a vast field of singers, dancers, jugglers and players of instruments. The people are laughing and reaching out for me some grabbing my sleeve as I race by. I stop and talk to an insistent few. I turn and look over my shoulder spying a huge male African lion chasing me. I turn and run again, only faster.
The scene changes to a cornfield surrounded by a high fence which I quickly jump and stop to catch my breath. The lion is old and stops as if to catch its breath also, staring at me and pacing on the other side of the fence. I am enclosed, looking for another way out. Finally, he jumps, and I run again, through a space in the fence I’d hadn’t seen before. I am grabbing for anything I can use to defend myself but there are only cornstalks. The lion jumps and misses me. Out of nowhere come three female lions who all pounce at once pinning me to the ground. I can feel the huge pads of their paws squashing against my body and I begin beating them with the cornstalk which crumples in my hand. They do not harm me. They stare directly into my eyes and hold me down.
I have dreamed my whole life, but this was completely new.
The dream returned over the next year again and again. Each time I tried to run and each…
