Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Dreams (2 of 2): Czech folklore rituals.

That same night, I also dreamnt -

I'm in what seems to be the elementary wing of the old school building of the (Catholic) school of my hometown, there and also outside of it, sometimes, and there's this (younger) (late 20s) (somewhat mischievous) (blonde) (Czech) woman who I know is older than me, and she's wearing a long and long-sleeved light tan dress that's floor-length and gets much browner right around the edges like by the hem and the sleeves and the neck, and it's a bridal dress, and she's holding an apple, and she tells me that a real bridal dress would be brown and have more apples.

And, we're inside in the old cafeteria that doubled as a gymnasium space, only it's tall gray walls with light at the top where the windows high up are, and two of her friends are there next to her, and she holds her head out and face upwards and they pull out this thing that I know is a dried sheep foreskin and they put it up to her lips like a tie, and she mimes opening her mouth and breaking the bond, and then she's very happy and confident and satisfied, since she knows she can now speak her mind whenever she wants.

And, I ask her if that represents the hymen, and she says yes.

. . .

(This is all very, very odd, and also very specific, and I wonder if the whole Czech folklore thing is from when I read Milan Kundera's "The Joke" a few years ago, since I loved how it represented folklore reenactments. The whole thing with the sheep foreskin as a broken hymen almost makes sense as a folklore ritual, where a bride who consummates her marriage is now more free to say what she thinks, since she's bonded to her husband and no longer has to play games out of fear.)

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