I lived in this town, in this very building, some twenty years ago. I moved here the first time just after my father died, and I moved here with a lot of unresolved grief. The grief is now resolved for the most part (though I'll always miss him) but there's probably some unresolved guilt left floating around. Since moving here this second time, after evacuating from Katrina, I dream of my father a lot. Okay, flash back to several years ago, while I was still living in England. Lots of things I like about England, some things I don't. My spiritual life there was pretty sterile for the most part. But one night, I had a vision of Ganesh, the Hindu elephant-headed god. Ganesh was not, at the time, a deity that I found in any way compelling or interesting; indeed, I knew very little about Ganesh, beyond the fact that he is portrayed with an elephant's head. And yet, that night, I saw Ganesh dancing. He was crowned, draped in lace, huge but incredibly graceful and beautiful. And was so close to me I could almost touch him. Ganesh, in Hindu myth, is the remover of obstacles. Not long after this vision, my marriage started to disintergrate. I've often wondered if my marriage was an obstacle to be removed, since in many ways it my husband, to whom I am still very close, was a hindrance to my spiritual development. Ganesh is a beloved god, and benevolent, but sometimes the movement of obstacles is painful, even if its for the best. Anyway, that vision has stuck in my memory since then, and often arises at odd times. It is in no way a faded kind of memory, but still very fresh and vivid. Its is easy to recall with clarity and detail. Ganesh has especially been on my mind the past few weeks, and also tends to enter my conversations suddenly and with no apparent purpose. I have also been running across elephants frequently online, or they pop up in books I'm reading. So two days ago (I sleep in the day), I had a dream. It was a particularly distressing dream about my father that brought up a lot of guilt feelings. Toward the end of the dream I was going through an old steamer trunk, searching for a gift for my father. I pulled out a tiny carved figurine, in the shape of an elephant. I woke up feeling very calm, contented, and with a vague feeling of awe. And a feeling of "rightness" - a kind of cosmic consciousness awareness that I've experienced on the rare occasion in the past. Last night, I went for my usual midnight stroll. I stopped at a tiny park, to sit on the bench and watch the fireflies - which seemed particularly colourful and vivid. On my way back to my building, I got the urge to go around to the back of my building and go in the back entrance. There was no logical reason for the urge - I usually go in the pool entrance since its a nicer walk. . The rear entrance is not a scenic route - nothing but a parking lot. And it smells bad because the garbage dumpster is near the back entrance. But I followed my intuition and went around back to the back entrance. Sitting next to the dumpster was an abandoned steamer trunk, which I thought would look nice in my foyer. I lugged it upstairs to my apartment. When I opened it to clean it out, well you guessed it, there was a tiny carven elephant inside. When I found the elephant, I got the same feeling of rightness and connectedness I had from the dream. Tonight, though not as strong, the feeling still lingers.