The Bull Cart

The Bull Cart - Dec 2, 2009

I am traveling to a seminar and I am in another country. I believe that I am in Greece. The setting is a pastoral setting. I am traveling on a two-wheeled wooden cart pulled by two huge bulls (not oxen) down this dirt road. There are homes and barn-like structures along the way. It's a beautiful day, sunny and cool. One bull is white and one bull is black and they have the personalities of my two dogs, Stella and Venadito. I am very close to these bulls. They are almost like family.

Along the way, in one section of the road, there are many children's toys strewn about in the middle of the road. I do a great job leading the bulls through this maze of toys. And they do an awesome job navigating and being led my me.

I am almost to my destination, a combination inn and restaurant. But one of the harnesses breaks on the black bull and we cannot go further. So, I leave the cart and the bulls alongside the road. They are happy to rest for awhile. I walk the rest of the way into the little village, broken harness in hand. When I arrive, I am greeted by the owner of the inn, a middle-aged man. The inn and restaurant are run by a family. While I don't speak their language, we communicate in a friendly manner.

Upon my arrival, the man seems to know that I have a broken harness and takes it from me. He disappears into a back room and repairs the harness. It looks like new. I can hardly believe it. I take the harness back to the bulls so that I can bring them into the village. When I return, both bulls simultaneously plop themselves down onto the ground. And they speak to me. They tell me that they need water, that they are very thirsty after their long journey. I immediately recognize that they are quite tired and thirsty and decide not to ask them to travel into the village until I refresh them.

So, I walk back into the village. I ask the man's daughter if I might have a bucket of water. She is so friendly and accommodating and gets me a bucket of water straightaway. But as soon as the father finds out that the bucket of water is to water my bulls, he turns rather disagreeable. He seems to have a problem with animals drinking from his bucket. He begrudgingly allows me to have the bucket of water.

Then when the man finds out who the speakers will be for the seminar, he becomes very, very angry. A real estate friend of mine from Merida is providing the speakers, and they are all American and the people of this local village don't like them or what they stand for. And there are only three speakers who speak the mind of the locals. The other speakers outnumber the local speakers considerably. When the man finds out that I am attending the seminar, he begins to treat me very badly. This is funny to me, because the only reason I am there is to support this real estate friend of mine. I really have no interest in what the seminar is about. As a matter of fact, I don't even know what the seminar is about.

Later, after I have watered my bulls and return to the inn, the seminar is beginning. When I enter, I am given a pink gift bag, and this has our evening meal inside. But, I notice that all of the attendees (mainly women) have eaten all the baklava that was put out for dessert for after dinner. I wasn't really bothered not to get a piece, but I did think it indicated that the attendees had the mentality of, "We better take it now or there won't be any left." I kind of chuckled at this. And I wondered if the man already knew or sensed this mentality.

Notes: This is a really different kind of dream for me. It's full of challenge, polarity and illustrates how people perceive things in different ways. Further, it illustrates just how much drama we create. I guess we do this because we are conditioned to be adversarial, perhaps. There are some beautiful metaphors in this dream, too. I think this dream has something to do with my situation here at our hotel and restaurant. We are firing our chef in the next few days. He decided that he would steal a whole bunch of steak arrachera and shrimp, 64 orders to be exact and only in the last 15 days. That's a lot of food. And it's really behavior that we don't like, for obvious reasons. This chef asked me for a sizable loan a couple of weeks ago. I declined. It was just too much money and he doesn't have a very good track record for repayment. So, I think, perhaps, that he thinks, "I will take what I can before it's all gone." Perhaps. That's my projection anyway. But, the chef had such a good situation here with us. He makes great money, has health insurance, benefits, retirement, etc. But, he just made a choice based upon something he perceives that may or may not be real, just like in the dream. What is encouraging to me is that I feel okay. I am not angry, upset, or harbor any hard feelings. We will liquidate him (a term that's used to basically pay someone to quit.) I don't anticipate any hard feelings under these circumstances. But still, the dream is very different from the dreams I usually have.