A Long Drive From The Land Of The Dead

Dreaming last night:
      Tomas and I are in a big house, not our home, with a group of nice people that includes our friend Joe Vitale and his lovely partner Nerissa, who is a special friend of mine. It is a sort of social gathering and in a big kitchen food is being prepared, perhaps like a potluck supper.
      Something tells me that an incredible event is immanent and following my intuition I go outside. I see a road stretching across a sort of semi-arid landscape that leads directly to the house where our friends are gathered. Something in the distance is approaching along the road… to my amazement I realize it is not a car, rather a sort of huge dish that looks something like a coracle, one of those little round boats.
      The vehicle does not appear to have wheels, however it skims effortlessly along the road and comes right up to the house where it parks itself not far from where I stand. Perhaps a few others from inside have emerged to witness this with me; I'm not sure, as my focus is on the new arrival.
      At first, I see nothing and no one in the "vehicle," if that's what it is. Something begins to appear above the big dish shape, maybe first only a shoulder and an ear. Then as if a "cloak of invisibility" has been swept off, a man appears there. How do I know him? Only I do!
      It is Carlos Castaneda--the famous author of a series of books concerning the teachings and worldview of his teacher, the Toltec seer and sorcerer, don Juan Matus.
     This is astonishing, as I know that Castaneda is an elusive character who avoids being photographed, and yet here he is! He shakes my hand and we go inside to join the gathering. I'm interested to see how this might shift the energy of the group. Usually when our friend Joe is among a group in public or even at a private event, a lot of the attention revolves around Joe. After all, he's quite charismatic and also very famous now.
      Interestingly enough, both Joe and Castaneda, though fascinating guys, do not dominate the group's attention, and everyone continues to visit and bustle about preparing food without a major disruption of the preparations.
      I go to Castaneda and say, "How about a cup of coffee?"
     "Thank you, I'd appreciate that," he says with a sparkle of his eyes and a grin. "Especially if it's organic, shade grown coffee."
     "Sure," I say. "That's the only kind we have."
      When I wake up and tell Tomas this dream, I add, "It seems that Castaneda came a long way to join our gathering…"
      "I'll say," Tomas says, "all the way from the Land of the Dead!"
      Indeed, I feel as the late novelist William S. Burroughs would say, that when we dream of people who have died, it is an actual visit from the Western Lands.
      A dream worth sharing with YOU!