i was west seattle, sort of, except that it was sort of like alki beach and the block past the beach, and then, instead of going dramatically uphill, it was all flat. i was with a bunch of people i didn’t know, and we happened on this place which i recognised as a place where a cult was setting up: there were large numbers of ordinarily dressed people taking off their shoes and heading into a back room from this sort of store-front-like building. the people i didn’t know all wanted to go in and see what it was all about, like they didn’t recognise it as a cult headquarters, but i didn’t say anything because i wanted to be polite, even though i was feeling a good deal of trepidation about going in. the cult people told us about their “saviour” (they didn’t use that word, and i’m not exactly sure what word they did use, although it was clear to me that was what they were talking about) who had been an ordinary person who had attained “enlightenment” (again, they didn’t use that word, but it was obvious that was what they were talking about) through a series of mystical experiences with a tree… and they “just happened” to have that very tree out in back. at this point, i was getting vaguely interested, so i agreed to go through their “initiation” (again, not that word, but i knew anyway) so that i could be shown into the presence of the tree. i’m not exactly sure what was involved with the initiation, but i do recall that immediately afterwards, i realised that i had lost my shoes, and spent a long time in the front of the shop, embarrassed, looking through huge piles of shoes, trying to find mine, and then realising that i couldn’t remember which shoes were mine anyway (which is odd, because i have worn the same pair of birkenstocks for almost 25 years), before deciding that this tree was more important than my shoes were at the moment anyway. then i went “out back” with the rest of the people, who somehow disappeared as soon as we were through the door, to find an absolutely enormous tree with flights of stone stairs leading up into the inner branches, and surrounded by five equally enormous indian-style columns, so that the tree and the stairs and the columns were all one big conglomeration that made this enormous tower. i wondered why i hadn’t seen it from outside, but not very much, because at that point i started climbing the stairs, and i realised that this was another “Tree Of Being”, like the one i found on sehome hill in bellingham, a tree that justified the existence of everything else in the universe, and i actually started feeling more at peace, and “enlightened” (whatever that feels like) the further up the stairs i climbed… and when i woke up, i realised that i have forgotten where my tree of being is (i’m sure it’s on sehome hill, somewhere, i just don’t know where any longer), but i still felt very peaceful.

that’s two dreams within a week… something has changed…