On this the eve of what would have proven Merlin’s 72nd birthday, I share these rather totemic dreams. This November 18, 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of Merlin’s passing of full-blown AIDS, on a cold November Saturday morning when icy snowflakes aimlessly drifted across the city streets. Whilst at dinner recently, a dear friend asked if I am never saddened at the loss of Merlin and if I ever do miss him. Of course, as I write this blog, I am warmed by the fact that on December 2, 2006 – almost 13 years ago, Merlin was reincarnated in a canalled northern European city. Merlin is now female and the third of three children – two older brothers.
What’s more, Merlin reborn has eyes that would now be even more phenomenal than when last I gazed besotted and rhapsodic into those large, soulful hazel eyes. Whereas Merlin was on his sixth life as a seventh level mature scholar soul, now reincarnated and female that soul is now living its first incarnation as a first level old scholar. These next dreams were dreamt in May, 1989 when Merlin was then still incarnate and at that point, he daily listened to the audiocassette recording of my dreams. This he did because they fascinated him; more than that, he did so because ever the director, he was keen to give insight and direction.
“Come on, Arvin, you have to be more descriptive. I have no idea if the car was blue, green, for that matter a convertible and was it a tan or white leather interior?”
Certainly, it can never be underestimated the pivotal role that Merlin played in the depth and thoroughness of the audiocassette recorded dreams. He was ever a loving but tough taskmaster and happy am I to have had his loving input and direction. After having listened to the recorded dream being now shared herein, Merlin came to dinner at our 20 Amelia Street home and declared, “Well, let’s not get too caught up in trying to interpret and figure out the symbolism of those dreams.” After, he winked, we softly kissed; his lips as ever warm and full as internally an unrelenting disease determinedly consumed his body… but never alas his spirit.
These were potent, lucid astral plane dreams. To say that they were totemic would be understating fact. The dreams were a glimpse beyond the veil as Merlin shamanically wound down another incarnation and got ready to put to rest another life. Ever focussed on my spiritual maturation, I am immensely proud to have survived so long after Merlin’s passing. Had anyone wagered that I would be still in the game 30 years later, I would have said, “You are reading the wrong tea leaves.”
Well, here I am still shaking arse and the Rathore to the core. These totemic dreams were dreamt on Monday, May 22, 1989, audiocassette recorded on tape IX of the 250 audiocassette recording of my dreams and yet to be found in Volume one the 25 Volume dream opus. Too, at the time, the Moon then transited both Sagittarius and my seventh house – wherein my natal Moon is posited. Truly few are they who are brave enough to drink from the chalice that is life.
Your support and choice to be focussed herein are both humbling and a source of inordinate pride. I am immensely grateful. Sweet dreams and as ever do remember, death is just a shift in focus; one is merely focussed at a different frequency. Besides, as one rather beguiling astral plane habituée put it, “Trust me, death is not wasted on the living.”
Dreams serve as the most expedient conduit for sustaining the bonds and communion of souls between persons who are no longer focussed in the physical plane but refocussed on the astral plane between lives as astral plane habitués whilst resting, reviewing and weaving the tapestry of future incarnations. So, drink and live in the moment. Take a deep breath, open your eyes within – don’t be afraid – and there within the silken folds of self is the massive beauty which is spirit.. go on explore and discover the true you. I love you more.
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The first dream found me posited on a hilltop looking down into a valley which then rose up into a lower hill. From the vantage of the mountains in Sandy Point, St. Kitts or Nevis, the view was of being down towards the ocean. Topographically, it seemed more like St. Kitts – however, this was definitely set in Nevis. I looked out and what did I see but a house on this hill; it was a very huge and lovely house.
Down from the sky, before the house on the rolling plains, fell a column of white light that shimmered. The manifesting light had the power of a tornado and it was a force that moved… it undulated. Truth be told, this was a liquefied white light – not unlike a waterspout. As compared to the left and right sides of the shaft, it was as though the centre of the light was faded. The centre of the column of light seemed invisible but it wasn’t. As a matter of fact, it was sort of greyish-coloured.
*A very fleeting dream this was but it was one that was potent. The sky overhead was ominously dark as though the cloud cover was simply to mask something else. There was no getting around the fact that the light was used as some sort of transport or conveyance. The light was being used for the relay of energies between the house’s occupants, if there were any, and whatever was beyond the clouds.
The dream seemed to have abruptly collapsed because I had happened on the scene. There was no one else about. Too, it was the only house on the landscape. I felt as though I had been ejected, from the dream, for having been there and witnessed what I wasn’t supposed to have been privy to. The dream collapsed around me; I was deprived any further knowledge of what was going on. In light of the dream that would follow, it became fairly obvious that the light column was channelling.
Eventually, the astra-human soul quality of Merlin’s would quite potently manifest. Of course, just as in the dream of Thursday, July 7, 1988VI, again, there was a lone house on the landscape. As will become evident, in later moments of the dreams, Merlin’s soul quality would manifest. END.
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The next dream immediately found me in bed with Merlin. He got up and he looked very old. Looking very tired and old, he turned around to me then went out into the hallway. He turned around and asked me, “When are you going to start moving on because I’d like to die by the end of this year? When are you going to go back to school? I’m really tired of this; I’m tired of this illness… I just want to move on.”
He was terribly impatient. Indeed, Merlin here was very forceful. That was when he began shapeshifting; Merlin underwent a metamorphosis before my eyes. He became, as he spoke, more impatient. I watched spellbound as his physiology morphed into the very astral-looking faun – though elfin-looking, he was taller than his known humanoid self; Merlin became the archetypal Chiron. I started crying sounding real childlike and said, “No… no! Please, please don’t!”
His face then became part of the pink walls, thus his transformed face was flesh-toned. Here his face looked faunlike; his eyes were on the sides. He had the face of a faun and I only ever saw the right eye. The eye was black-within-black. The eye looked down at me because the head – which was the only thing visible when mounted – was up on the wall. Shapeshifted, Merlin’s was a very hard-looking eye.
Merlin’s eye rapaciously looked right into the soul. An ancient eye it was. I caressed the softness of the fur-like skin and pleaded with him and said, “Please, I can’t live without you. I couldn’t go on. Please don’t lose your strength and get ill,” I pleaded with the shapeshifted Merlin and cried. I was aware of being here in bed asleep whilst dreaming and that my body was going through the motions of crying and being pained. Merlin did not hear me, although, I thought that as I slept that I was talking aloud in my sleep.
*This was an intensely upsetting dream because it dramatised how Merlin wished to be allowed to move on. He no longer cared to be focussed in the life. Though it was obvious that he could have soldiered on for months more, he simply lost the desire to go on being focussed. Clearly, this was owing to the bilious discord created by Tytanikka and Oleg’s betrayal.
Though he never physiologically resembled the classic centaur, Merlin’s face not only further morphed becoming like a fawn’s, more accurately, his head and face did have the eventual shape of a young bison’s – very Taurean, strong and potent.
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On preparing for the video to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Merlin’s birth back in 2017, I decided then to head off to the costumer, Malabar on McCaul Street where artist and lover George Hawken lived in the late 80s to early 90s. Inspired by the first dream of Merlin had 41 years ago in July 1978, I decided to get a cowl as a tribute to the cowl Merlin wore in the inaugural dream encounter with him, four years before having met on Friday, October 1, 1982 in New York City. So, there was I at Mount Pleasant Cemetery on Saturday, July 15, 2017 in my cowl and the panama hat purchased at Versailles to escape the heat. I thought it fitting as Merlin always loved wearing panama hats.
My trusty friend, J.J. who happens to be an artisan entity mate whom I have known in 20 past lives –- which is a high incidence of contact -– was the director. Initially, I had hoped to throw a white party on the lawn to the southwest of the chapel at Mount Pleasant Cemetery and have a drone film the event where a gathering of friends would raise a glass to Merlin on the anniversary of his ennobled birth. Merlin always threw a white party each year for his birthday at his parents’ stunning backyard in north Toronto’s Servington Crescent.
The plan was not approved by the cemetery and thus, one had to improvise. I got my panama hat and my cowl and together, we proceeded with a dozen long-stem white roses to visit Merlin’s resting place. I had a pretty good idea what I was after. With the matching white cowl, I wanted to evoke the magic of meeting Merlin in that initial dream which is shared in volume one of the dream memoirs, which is already published: Merlin and Arvin: A Shamanic Dream Odyssey.
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In the hardcover edition of human civilisation’s first dream memoirs, the initial dream encounter with Merlin is shared. The dream begins on page 110 in the hardcover edition. I wanted the same sense of wonderment and magic that I felt for having met Merlin in that first dream four years prior to having met reflected in the video. In that dream, Merlin’s appearance was preceded by a white totemic creature which seemed, in its astral plane outréness, to be part Russian wolfhound, part alpaca, part dog.
So, moving to the lawn, having descended the steps of the chapel, I began walking across the open lawn towards the statuesque lion-festooned mausoleum with the five remaining white long-stem white roses. Seven roses, of course, were left at Merlin’s grave -– one rose for each of our seven glorious years together. As I stepped onto the lawn, it seemed magical… timeless even. Slowly, confidently as I approached the filmmaker at the other end of the lawn, I thought of Merlin and that initial dream.
Just then, I very distinctly thought of Merlin greeting me by purring, “Hello Lambs.” As if right on cue, from off stage left, an adult deer came from behind the bushes and tombstones that line the far edges of the open lawn. Never before had I seen a deer at Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Indeed, the good burghers of Forest Hill who clearly regularly jogged in the park-like setting stopped and were overheard remarking that they had never seen a deer in the cemetery before. All that I could do was tear up and continue walking as the deer then bolted and ran from stage left to right as I continued my stride uninterrupted –- unfazed by the appearance of an adult deer on the grounds of the cemetery. What is more astounding, is that J.J. at the time was filming my walk; at the last minute, I decided against a run-through as I was concerned about the natural light possibly changing if we were to rehearse the shot.
Unbeknownst to me, the deer after having made it to stage right, then returned to the centre of the lawn and stood there perfectly still whilst observing my progression across the lawn. J.J. who was astounded by the occurrence remarked that he had just witnessed a miracle. There is no doubt in my mind as I tried to recapture the magic of that initial dream encounter that there was a subtle validation of that dream from the magical shaman himself on the other side by having had Merlin’s spirit step in as director emeritus and had the deer enter the shot as validation and a token of his appreciation of the love that we shared and my steadfast loyalty to him. After crossing the lawn and turning to watch the deer stand there, looking down the lawn at me, I felt such utter peacefulness and abandonment of spirit — just as when alone and intimate in the dark with Merlin.
Yes, I believe in magic as did Merlin and as though an appreciation of having stridently done everything to fulfil his mandate to me, Merlin’s astral body conjure up the same magic here and now as he had in July 1978 –- four years before slipping inside a Hell’s Kitchen walk-up and readily winning me over with his sexy elfin charm, magic and sex that proved the most grounding shamanic passion… every time. Standing there, I was reminded, too, of that dream in 1989 before Merlin passed wherein he shape-shifted and became a fawn-like creature who morphed and became one with the wall in our Cabbagetown home.
All the music chosen for this 13-minute video is music that Merlin loved whilst incarnate and to which he returned time and again -– whether at Joe Morton’s tiny Upper West Side apartment in autumn of 1983, Toronto’s 20 Amelia Street in tony Cabbagetown. From Glenn Gould’s mastery of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations, to Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight and Dionne Warwick singing That’s What Friends Are For –- in that segment of the video, I included friends whom Merlin valued: Kareem Benezra, myself, Wayne Robson and his oldest and most loyal friend, the ever-gracious, Maxime Gascoigne-de Montigny.
Of course, for Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely, I exclusively included photos of Merlin and his very handsome and gracious father, David Ben-Daniel. Whereas I favoured Sir Paul McCartney’s Hey Jude, Merlin ever loved George Harrison and especially My Sweet Lord. Of course, one Saturday, whilst staying at actor, Joe Morton’s Manhattan apartment, when Merlin and I secretly committed to being together, we slow-danced to Supertramp and Roger Hodgson’s unmatched magical vocals on Supertramp’s Breakfast In America.
Additionally, Jeffrey Osborne’s On the Wings of Love which was one of Merlin’s favourite ballads is also included. Merlin loved Black male soul singers: Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Jeffrey Osborne –- most especially –- George Benson, Al Green, Teddy Pendergrass, Donny Hathaway, Barry White. Most of all, I am especially proud of the video that J.J. and I have created; I think that it masterfully captures the depth of my love and fealty to the most fabulously magical shaman encountered on this incarnation’s spiritual odyssey.
Naturally, before having left for Mount Pleasant Cemetery, I had flooded my apartment with the music that appears in the video. Perhaps, unwittingly by so doing, I was invoking Merlin’s spirit, which later joined us when he played ultimate director and pulled off the most magical bit of stage direction –- an adult deer in the middle of a cemetery in the heart of mid-town Toronto. Lastly, I played the sublimely soulful Shirley Horn’s interpretation of, Here’s to Life! Whilst raising a glass of coconut water, I had forgotten to pick up some champagne the evening prior and it was too early in the morning to find champagne anywhere –- the lighting was way too good. Besides who knows if that magical deer would have been anywhere about.
Here’s to life… most of all, here’s to Merlin… here’s to dream shamans everywhere!
Merlin’s mandate to me ever remains:
“Please my darling, I want you to write about our lives together. I promise you, however possible, I am going to send you dreams to include in the story of our love… our lives together.”
Of course, there is my Instagram account: Instagram Arvin da Brgha
The YouTube channel is: Arvin da Brgha YouTube
For now, here’s to life, here’s to you and thanks so much for your ongoing support all these years!
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Dreams are the poetic expression of the soul. 