Saint Anthony Dream

Hello All,

My Italian Grandmother (the other one is Cuban) came from a small rural town in South Eastern Italy called Rio Nero in Vulture. Our family's patron saint is (was) St. Anthony. Even super-secular-me has two statues, and an old nightlight of Saint Anthony. The photographs in this post are of me this morning, and if you can peer back through all that stuff, it's a photo of a statue of St. Anthony that once belonged to my mother, and is the same statue that figures in my dream.

I had a dream about my grandmother back in the 70's when her hair still grew brown (if not a little reddish with age). She wore one of those big loose Mummus (sp?) so popular in the 70's. In the dream, a family member narrated as the scenes rolled through my mind like a movie. My grandmother took this little Saint Anthony statue to the church in Rio Nero in Vulture every year as a pilgrimage.

She placed the statue in one of those little fake potpourri terrariums (you know the kind with pussy-willows glued to a piece of mulch, and eyes dotted on them to look like little animals), and then walked through town to the beige stone-made church with the little glass-encased statue on a platform of hay tied around her neck, kind of like the platform a cigarette girl would wear around her neck to sell her wares.

Once she got to the church, I saw her join a large group of people in an outside courtyard within the church. People drummed frenetically, and a pipe was beeping in short bursts (more like a pipe from North Africa than Italy). The scene really looked more like Santeria, than rural Italian Catholicism. I remember feeling bad because the little potpourri terrarium she carried the statue in ended up being something I'd use as a house for my little miniature Hello Kitty dolls.

I have had about three other dreams in the past few days, but am trying to err on the side of tacitness to keep my blog readable. I might in the future decide to recant those dreams, but who knows. Well, I had better get on with my day. Thank you Michael (http://michael-in-norfolk.blogspot.com/) for mentioning my blog on your own.

Thank you for reading,

Marc