"Surrounding Darkness": Dream 1 of 3

This is the second part of my post earlier today.  In that earlier post, I just listed some interesting things about a marketing email from the Book of the Month club relative to Bald Men and other random things.  I read this email after I was already thinking about a few short dream sequences I just had.

I am going to actually even break this post up into probably 3 more separate entries.  I originally thought I was going to be able to do it in one, since the dream sequences were short and I initially just had some quick reactions and thoughts.  But, some things have grown a bit as they stayed on my mind, even as I first started to write this follow-up post.

Interestingly, the dreams, I believe, tie back to at least Eowyn-Ilmare (The Anchorwoman, which I will get to shortly) but also potentially Asenath.  In prior posts I have highlighted something I've termed "Deseret's Book", and so it was interesting that some of these connections happened in an email from the Book of the Month club as I was in the process of trying to process and think through some of the dream meanings.

There were three primary dream sequences, and so I am planning on one post per dream.  This post will focus on just the first dream.  The second will touch on "The Anchorwoman", and the third will be about some interesting speech problems.  I will try to get these done before anything else, but no promises - if something else comes up that is interesting in the meantime that I feel I need or want to get down, I will reshuffle.

"Surrounding Darkness"

The first dream sequence I actually don't remember all of, at least not the actual words used.  It was a verbal explanation of things, and I lost some of the detail in multiple stages - first as a I woke up, and then even more later in the morning as I thought back more and realized I had lost even more.

Despite that, however, this was an important one in reshaping some of my thinking relative to a place called "Embaru" and event reconsider who is speaking in an important dialogue that I covered with the events of the Sawtooth Stone last falle.

The primary phrase that I recall was about a "Surrounding Darkness", and I retained my understanding of what this referred to, or at least the context it was being presented within.  Specifically, this has to do with following up on my post from two days ago, where I talked about the thoughts growing out of the "Artu Heal" phrase from the magazine in my trash can.  I introduce briefly, and then concluded by further discussing, the concept that when it comes to "Holy Places" such as Tirion and Asenath's house on Eressea - Jerusalem and New Jerusalem - they are not yet in a position to play the roles they are destined to.  This has to do with the "Darkness" that currently dominates all lands of the Earth, including Valinor and Eressea (and our world).  The Holy Places are surrounded by darkness, and they themselves are not yet the Light that can shine and break through that darkness.

In that "Artu Heal" post I concluded with a reference to 1 Nephi 14.  It deserves a longer post, but just for our purposes here, Nephi in his vision sees the state that I currently believe all of the lands of this Earth (Valinor, Eressea #1 and #2, and this world) are in.  He relates:

And it came to pass that I looked and beheld the whore of all the earth, and she sat upon many waters; and she had dominion over all the earth, among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people.

And it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few, because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon all the face of the earth; and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw.

Ungoliant has come up enough to probably correctly identify her, if not the, at least part of this vision of the darkness that covers Arda at this point (see A Vampire's Weekend post).  I think Leo, who comments on this blog, also had the insight as well, relative to this Being and this specific reference in the Book of Mormon.

At this time, here-now, her darkness spans across everything, I think, and it is a darkness that started all the way back with the destruction of the Two Trees in Valinor, a Light that has yet to be restored.

So, basically, what I am saying, unfortunately, is that if you are imagining an idyllic "Heaven" right now where countless Beings are lounging around in a state of complete happiness, without a care in the world, and that you are going to go there when you die and join them and it is all taken care of, then you may be surprised.  Rather, most of the Beings we would imagine being in Heaven - the place that is there home - are scattered across all of the lands that currently Darkness has dominion over, waiting on promises, even if they have forgotten and aren't aware of it.  Only a few are left who know anything, by design, and they are holding down their respective small dominions, surrounded by this darkness.

Asenath and Eowyn-Ilmare are two of these Beings, who stayed 'behind' in this capacity while much of their House has stepped into the darkness itself, in a very real way become part of it as they have become blind to much else, not remembering who they are.

Potentially a depressing picture, but in some ways I like it better than other traditional views of our situation.   The Beings of Heaven have thrown their lot in with the rest of us - Family and Friends in an all for one, and one for all plan -  and I think it is all part of Jesus' larger and intended plan, and it is going to come out OK.  More than OK, in my view (and my hope).

Anyway, based on this dream and some of my additional thinking today, I have also changed my mind on an important element of the Sawtooth Stone story.

In my post, Asenath vs. the Son of Baal-ox within the Sawtooth Mountains, I suggested, or indirectly alluded to, Beings leaving from Eressea and coming to our world in their quest to recover the Sawtooth Stone (following Joseph's rescue).  I didn't directly state it there, though my have summarized it in a later post, but I had these Beings interacting with Asenath as they left Eressea.

"Embaru" was the name of the place there Beings were at, and were leaving from, and I originally thought this was another name for Eressea, which seemed to make sense.  However, I do not believe this is the case, but rather refers to Tirion.

Consequently, my story changes slightly, with the Beings now leaving from Tirion instead of Eressea, and interacting with Eowyn-Ilmare rather than Asenath.   The Beings themselves would have been the Three Disciples, I believe.

Here are the original words from March 2020 (in looking back at the post where I included them, I realize I didn't include the March 10 words, nor give my guess as to the March 11 translations... here I have included the missing words, and given my guesses):

March 10, 2020

V1 (Eowyn): Aimarao back nice embaru power come bed [trans.  Hail Holy/ Good Ones back to small/ little mother-home.  Power (or permission) to go Bed of Wheat and Tares (our world)]
V2 (Three Disciples): We go. You keeping your cool?
Eowyn: Urge on.
Three Disciples: We reading rock-stone

March 11, 2020

[Internal dialogue of the Three Disciples, I think]
Now we go today
we must go to sail
Ausir ungmar besse garilyo [trans: Wealth spider-gloom-home wife defending/ holding]
jewel-house to gather 
made white

These dialogues from those two days make even more sense than they did before based on my thinking today following that first dream sequence.

Here, we have Eowyn welcoming the Beloved Disciples to her small dominion at Tirion.  She tells them (or perhaps is just confirming) that they have permission to come to our world (a land that has been referred to before in my words as the Bed of Wheat and Tares).  This permission I think would have come from Jesus based on the events at Bountiful as captured in 3 Nephi.  They tell her that their plan is to go, and then ask if she is keeping her cool (which is a strange/ funny way of these words being conveyed, as I am not sure that is how they would have actually asked in whatever language they are speaking).

She tells them they need to hurry ("urge on"), and they reply that they are "reading" the stone.  By reading, I think they mean one of the alternative or archaic meanings from Etymonline, something like advising, counseling, learning about, searching, deliberating, etc.  Meaning, they haven't been idle, but have been engaged in activities regarding the extraction of the stone.

It appears that after assessing the situation , the next "day" the Disciples make the decision that they must 'sail' that day to begin the quest for the Stone.  The reason given or implied is that the spouse of Ausir (the name that means Wealth), who is Eowyn, is holding down or defending her home amidst a spider-gloom (the "ung" in "Ungmar"), and so there is some urgency, perhaps? I am not sure.  In any case, "Ung" in the dialogue above can mean both "gloom/darkness" and "spider", and I suggest here that it in fact does mean both.  One can see this root in the name of Ungoliant herself.

Ausir is an interesting name.  This is traditionally an alternative name, even in Tolkien's writings, of Dior.  I know it is confusing to keep track of all the names and identities, but Dior is also Joseph of Egypt, and his wife Nimloth is Asenath.  

At first blush, then, it seems that Ausir's wife must refer to Asenath here, and that is what I assumed up until today.  But as thoughts just kept building, I realized that this doesn't have to be the case, and as indicated above, I believe it is Eowyn instead (but this is a relatively new thought I am exploring, and although it makes more sense to me right now, again I reserve the right to be completely wrong).

I have identified Faramir-Eonwe as the Seer from Lehi's recounting of Joseph's prophecy that he gave to his own son Joseph (a Seer because he will be in possession of Stones, it seems the Anor and Sawtooth, perhaps).  In that prophecy, Joseph remarks that the Seer will be named after him.  For ~200 years Mormons have assumed this fits nicely with Joseph Smith, who was clearly named after Joseph, and also his father, Joseph Sr.

What I am proposing, however, is that the name that Joseph was referring to was not that name, but his name of Ausir.  Ausir, then, would be a name that both of these Beings would be called or referred to at some point in their lives.  It may seem like a stretch if this is a new concept, but to me it makes complete sense.

Thus, we have a reference to Eowyn-Ilmare surrounded by darkness, holding her small dominion against the spider-demon that has dominion over pretty much everything else, with a few exceptions (such as Asenath's own small house on the outskirts of Eressea, Nerdanel's home at Foremenos, Tom Bombadil-Abraham's House here in our world, and likely several other Beings and places that are holding out against the darkness).  But she asked the Disciples (back in 2020) to begin the quest for the tools that will at some point begin to bring the light back, starting in Tirion.

That then fits into the rest of the narrative regarding the link between Tirion and here, and between her and Faramir, the sharing of stories, the actual travel of individuals, and the re-kindling of Light or a Beacon in defeating the darkness.

Dream #2 from this morning will further cover Eowyn-Ilmare, actually, with this reference to "The Anchorwoman".  That is my plan for the next post unless something else comes up.