In my spare moments I've been trying to work through a dream that I had, last night. It was only a dream; it lacked the power of a vision. Yet it carried a weight of significance that perhaps I should share it. I think in dreams, we discover within ourselves what others hide from us; and you may recognize in others what they hide from themselves. The language of the psyche and the spirit is not in words but meanings.

***

The dream I had was fairly distinct, and unusual because it centered around Jean Chrétien, Prime Minister of Canada. That in itself was strange since I never dream about celebrities or VIPs etc., but rather about the people I know and trust. Anyway the sequence began like this: I was on a dark mountain range just before dawn, waiting for someone important. I did not, at that point, know who it would be; only that I had to wait. Then Jean Chrétien appeared before me and the scenery brightened in golden hues -- I could not look at his face, so I stared out behind him. He appeared to be trailing clouds of glory (for lack of a better description).

I went before him walking a short way down the hillside, and abruptly the scenery changed. We were now in Ottawa on the open fairgrounds, with the Parliament Buildings (the seat of federal government) some distance away. There was a crowd waiting for him, and we walked into it. I immediately 'knew' my task was to set up pieces on a large, 3 foot long chessboard in the center of the crowd. Curiously, the board was entirely in black basalt stone, 2-tiered, and in the shape of Vancouver Island in B.C. One end of the board represented the East coast of Labrador/Newfoundland and the other end was, well, Vancouver Island West. In effect the chessboard was a misshapen representation of Canada.

I didn't stop to think about the distortion. I merely took up the pieces and began to set them out on the 'Labrador' side of the board. Since the board was all black, the actual squares were etched out in relief, at slightly different heights from each other. The 4" figurines in my left hand were light grey, and shaped like the ancient terracotta warriors of Xian, if you've ever seen that National Geographic special about them. In my right hand were 3 pieces the size of walnuts. One was a white soapstone turtle, one was a white carved solid snail shell, and the last piece was a dark grey, wavy, 3D double-asymptotic 'trumpet'. I was putting these pieces out carefully when Prime Minister Chrétien came over to help me. He handled some of the chessmen, then asked me simply, "Is this how they're set up." Abruptly he walked behind me and looked down on the empty 'Vancouver' side of the board. I turned around and saw how the crowd was plucking at his elbows in supplication as he moved. Nervously I replied to Chrétien, gesturing with my hands as I spoke, telling him that "I was setting up the pieces the way I found them," meaning I had 'seen' the chessboard set up before and, in the curious déjà-vu way of dreams, I was supposed to 'know' how to stack them up. I was about to ask how I *should* place the pieces, when the dream sort of evaporated.

***

When I woke up, it struck me immediately that, obviously, the P.M.'s last name in French means 'Christian'. Funny how I had never thought about that before. Also there was no way anyone could have named him Jean Chrétien without knowing his initials shorten to "JC". Yet the thing that disturbed me greatly is that in real life, the real Chrétien has a facial paralysis which only permits him to speak out of one side of his mouth. Detractors have been known to vilify his statements because of that 'flaw'. So in this, I am quite perplexed by what my unconscious, and by what God might have been trying to tell me in such a dream. I know the chessboard imagery evidently arose out of our discussions here on Rinkworks. But overall, in Byron's words... What does all this really mean?