I am in a school, full of worn polished wood, glass display cases, and the chalky, dusty smell that all schools have. All around me are young people, some going to class, some relaxing in the library, some in the gym playing basketball. I am met by a couple of teachers and taken into a large classroom and told that I was to design settings for some rooms. They provide me with sheets of bristal board, markers, pencils, and swatches of fabrics. I feel excited about this and am eager to begin, but in spite of my best efforts, it's not going smoothly, and I soon get frustrated with my attempts.
It does not help that kids keep running back and forth through the room. All have some good reason or another for being there, but it disturbs me, and I finally give up. Just as I get up, however, I suddenly see exactly what I am supposed to do and sit back down again. Taking a fresh sheet of bristal board, I begin to sketch a circular room from different angles and find the precise fabric that will enhance the setting - a filmy drape with which I create a tent-like effect.
Having done that I go to find the teachers who welcomed me first, and find myself in a small room occupied by two young men who are arguing. One tells the other he's glad that it's dead and mounted, and looking around I can see what he's talkking about - a huge monarch butterfly on a pedestal. It looks lifeless, but as the young man comes over to it, it suddenly begins to flutter its wings before flying up, around and out of the room. I follow it as it flits into another room, this one filled with its companions - giant butterflies of all different hues and colours. They settle on the surfaces and walls, but in very specific patterns, creating wall-sized flowers, jewelled chains, geometric arrays every few seconds. I feel that they're also having far too much fun to be bothered by the likes of me. I am reluctant to leave them, but must go to continue my work.
I cannot find the people, and so return to my work station to continue refining the design of the "Inner Sanctum" meditation room (as I have now come to call it). On the table, I find a small container of sapphire blue and gold crystals, and am delighted with this colour combination. I take out a couple of the crystals and am startled to find that they seem alive. Even as I think this, they begin to flow and reconfigure themselves around my hand. As with the butterflies, flowers and a myriad of geometric patterns emerge, like a kelidascope. I gently put this down on a silver dish and think of a specific design, and it immediately takes that shape - gold and blue interweaving in such a way as to create a deep turquoise tones.
It is with this design that my gauzy draperies will be banded with. I send my vision to the crystals, and before they comply, one gently caresses my fingers with a delicate tendral...
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