Sunday, September 20^th.

DREAM: Ben Stiller starred in my dream. It was a movie. He was returning home to his family for the first time in many years. His grandfather was dying. He was a military specialist. Like special forces, or something. And he got into an argument with his brother. He wanted to see his sister, but his brother wouldn’t let him. Ben, said that he just wanted to see what he could have been. He could have been like her. Apparently they were twins (???) and both creative, loving, tender, fun-loving children. But his sister had had that side nurtured and encouraged while Ben had been encouraged to focus his creativity into the skills that ultimately led him into the military.

After his brother would not let him see his sister he went for a walk and came across a trailer with security guards around it. Somehow, he knew his sister was being held inside it. So, using his military skills, he broke in and rescued her. I never actually saw his sister in the dream. But I knew that he had succeeded in rescuing her. There were two women who made it official. One was a queen or a senator who allowed him to take her home.

When I woke up from the dream I had a very clear sense that I had just rescued a part of my inner child. That part of me that loves be creative and play and have fun.

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It seems as if there is much more morning activity here than yesterday. Almost as if the land and its residents have accepted my presence. And the really interesting thing is that there is water nearby. No more than 100-feet to the north. I hear it clearly this morning. But I have not heard it before this. It’s hard to believe I would have missed that sound yesterday morning or last night in the silence. But, unless it’s some kind of intermittent spring there’s no way it could just started this morning. There was no rain last night. Strange.

I think after my quest I’ll go visit the little creek and see what it has to say.

Now I’m sitting on my sun welcoming rock. The sun rises in a perfect spot, between two stands of pine trees below me and just in the notch of two peaks across the valley. I could not have planned it more perfectly.

Last night saw two beautiful shooting stars. And I’m still amazed at how clear the Milky Way is up here. All the branches and arms reaching out like tendrils of smoke, but not changing.

I feel good this morning. I don’t think the fasting is going to be an issue. I notice a low-grade hunger. But it is not intense and it certainly is not distracting. My body is definitely weaker than normal. I noticed that climbing up to my sun welcoming rock. But that doesn’t really matter since I’m not expending a lot of energy while I’m here.

I did have a little scare yesterday. I went to purify water from the big guy and put it into my drinking containers. The filter didn’t work. I wasn’t so worried about my time up here since I had already toyed with the idea of not drinking water during the fast. But the thought of hiking out without water didn’t sound like such a great idea. I worked on the filter for a while and finally fixed it with good old duct tape! The o-ring inside the pump handle was not making a vacuum seal in there. So wrapping a layer of tape around it fixed it.

After that I decided to drink a…

Good morning Sun!

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The sun took me by surprise. I wasn’t watching the trees to see where it was and all of a sudden, there it was shining out from across the valley. Feels good. And what I was saying about water is that I’m going to drink as little as I can today and tomorrow.

Today there is no wind. Wonder if it will come up later in the morning. Perfectly still now. Not cold. Probably will get hot later.

Now I’ll meditate for a while.

You can read all of the posts in the Vision Quest Journal Series here.