"...we cry to thee"

I had another of those dreams.
It was always noon in this place. 
No morning night nor evening.
I was walking. ...so very far. 
My feet were bleeding. 
I left prints of blood in sand.

I was on a beach. I wandered it's shore. 
This washed the blood away.
There were submarines diving. So many. It seemed as if squadrons of them were slowly going down one after another. There was singing.

The "Sailor's  Hymn"...I could faintly hear it.

"Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bid the mighty ocean deep,
It's own appointed limits keep;
Oh hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the Sea!"

The dream morphed, and I was sweeping the floor of an abandoned building.  I wore scraps of rags. I heard crying down the hall. I went opened the door, and saw a child's shadow.
The room held a shadow which cried, and cried. ...morph.

A person handed me a shirt jeans, and a silver dollar. She said I could sleep on the roof. That the birds would protect me. 
She said "they protect everybody" here.
And I did sleep. I slept in the eternal noon of that world. I lay there as swarms of birds flew above.

"Anyone Out There?"

As for prayer. I said recently that I would pray if I thought anyone was listening, and if listening...cared. Being a western rationalist I see the old sky-g-d faiths as profoundly unlikely.
Also science now tells us...sorta. The multiverse didn't have a beginning. It always was so didn't need a creator.

So Steven Hawking said.

Maybe...we'll see. Despite all that I still have a faith in the spiritual realms...this from subjective experience. So... If there is a presence about us or a G-d. I don't think it interferes in our lives...exactly.
We at most 'might' get nudged in the right direction now, and then. But that's it. ...if that. Btw a Spiritual Realm or realms doesn't actually need a G-d. These other levels of awareness might be part of an as yet unknown scientific reality.

So projecting positive thoughts...energy or if you will prayers is not a waste of time. This is why it seems to work. Those "Prayer Circles" that seem to have positive results. Individual prayer the same.

On the other hand maybe there's a really neat Great Grand Mother around us all the time nudging us in positive directions. Positive energy projections or Holy Grandma it's fine with me.

...and yes it could all be just coincidences.

'But I doubt it.

"Passing Forward"

I've recently passed on to my oldest niece my Great Grandmothers music box. It's a simple pewter bowl. The top is a powder puff box, and the bottom is a music box. It's cover was the best part. It's beautifully engraved in the "art nouveau" style with a painted cameo of a lovely young girl in the center.

I used to play it all the time when I was little. Till I broke it, and my Mom had to send it to a jewelers to be fixed. You see before air conditioning people used to powder themselves lightly to stay cool, and prevent rash. I recall being powdered by my grandma, and ma in all my seen, and unseen places from that box.

I felt the time had come to pass this particular gem on. So when Kimberly my brother John's daughter came out east for a visit I gave it to her. I told her that it had been in our family for a hundred years. My Great Grandmother, her Great Great Grandmother got it as a birthday present from her father in 1915.

Great Grandmother whom we remember as "Grannie" gave it to my Grandmother, Violet, in the 1930's. Grandma Violet gave it to my mother Carmen when she was married in 1948. My Mom gave it to me shortly before she passed away in 1988. In time I gave it to my dear niece Kimberly, and told her to keep it in the family for another hundred years.

"Another hundred years", that's what I told her, and that's what's going to happen. I gave her the music box, and all the stories that surround it for her to pass on into this not so new century.

Amen.