Last night I had the weirdest dream. I know that we had pizza for supper, but I'm not sure that explains it. I wish I could videotape my dreams. I could sell them and make a fortune - the special effects alone would drive sales. Still, I'll try to give you the full effect:

At the start of the dream, I had wandered away from a family gathering that was being held at someone elses house. I had either gotten lost or was so upset about something that happened that I wasn't paying a lot of attention to my surroudings. It was sunny and warm and I was walking along a two lane road. I saw a sign for a Catholic Boy's School and turned and started up the lawn toward it to ask to use the phone to let someone know where I was....

"Excuse me, you can't go up there" said a woman's voice behind me.

I turned and saw an older white woman in a nun's habit. She was wearing a head covering like the Sisters of Mercy, but a habit like the Carmelite's. I thought it was odd, more just something I noticed than a sign of anything. "I'm sorry?" I said, " I just need to use a telephone...sit down and gather my thoughts and say a few prayers."

"The campus is restricted to men and boys only. You are not permitted on the campus." she said.

"Oh. Well, surely there must be some provision for female visitors. Isn't there a chapel or rectory nearby."

She got a strange look in her eye as if debating what to say. Finally she asked. "Are you a seeker? After God? After the Truth?"

"I can say that I am a seeker after God and the Truth." I answered.

"There is a chapel over the hill. Behind the pet cemetary. You should go there." she said, and she was gone.

At first I couldn't figure out what she meant, but I could sort of make out a grey building on the left behind a stand of trees. I would have had to cross the school campus to get there, though, so I walked down the road to see if there was a driveway. Sure enough, there was little lane between two grey stone posts. On one of the posts was a brass verdegris sign that said:

Ilahe / Cat
(pet)
Cemetary

In real life, Ilahe is the name of a brand of tile, but I didn't think about that in the dream. Over the low fence and through the dense trees I could make out tombstones as elaborate, in their own way, as any Victorian headstones. And I could see a family of...cats. Or cat-like creatures. Okay, I thought. NOT cats, but cat-like creatures. The two I could see most clearly were standing very naturally on their hand legs. They were dressed elaborately: the male in a stiff collared vaugely Elizabethen shirt, vest and breeches and the female in a high necked lace collared dress with a great deal of lace trim. They were larger than the average cat, even if the average cat could stand up on it's hind legs and walk, but not that much larger. Still, I had a very clear mental picture of all of them, there must have been about 20 of them, setting upon me at once. Without a weapon I would be no match for them. The female I could see looked shocked and surprised, but the male just gave me a cold hard look.

I held his gaze to let him know that I had seen him. Then, I remembered that actual cats take direct eye contact as a threat. I didn't know if it was the same with these creatures whose graveside service I had seen. Even as I looked away, I saw the ruffled collar morph into a ruff, the layers of lace turn into a stripes and the cat like creatures turn into ordinary cats and start down the lane. I stepped aside elaborately, bowed my head, and put my right hand over my heart - this last an effort to show respect. They were, after all, a funeral procession. But it was the kind of respect that is 49% sympathy 51% fear. I did not want to cheeze these creatures off, especially not on what appeared to be their home turf.

Sure enough, a line of cats ran by, including two twin kittens who still had little bits of lace clinging to their ears. I guessd they were too young to achieve effortless transformation. The others ran by me quickly, but the male I had seen sat down at some distance and continued to observe me cooly. Eventally he turned with his tail in the air and strode off.

" I gotta sit down" I muttered. Had I seen that? I started down the path into the pet cemetary. Each tombstone was about as tall as I am in a triptich formation. At the center of each was a rendering of the image of the deceased, in what appeared to be it's natural form....specifically that they eyes were set a little more closely together than a "cat" the nose more narrow. They were portraits: some painted, some photographs under glass

Up ahead I could see the grey stone building more clearly. It was a gothic looking collection of angles in stone and slate, and it was a large, sprawling building. There was a small cottage alongside it, and, as I approached, the nun came out again. "There's a service in the chapel. You should attend."

"Is that the chapel?" I asked. She nodded and I headed toward the forbodding building. Inside there was a split level stairway. A young man an ackolite vestments with suspiciously leonine features, directed me downstairs, where I could hear the hub-bub of loud conversation. Reaching the end of the stairs I found myself in a hallway, into which it looked like every artifact of every single high church tradition had been jammed harem-scarem. There were silver menoras mixed in with baptismal candles and a bishops mitre. There were vestments being used as curtains in the windows. There was a small door that had a sign on it that said "confessional". I opened the door. It was a closet.

It was as if someone had taken all of these things without knowing what they were or what they meant and tried to make something up out of them. But, as strange as that was, the rest of the scene was even stranger. Because it appeared that some of the most orthodox members of various religious traditions were also gathered in this hallway and were being shepherded by small statured, bright eyed "people" wearing an amalgamation of vestments into a larger room up ahead. But they were arguing as they went both with other members of their own group and with each other. Among the Muslims and Jews it looked like war over the Gaza strip was going to break out all over again.

We all got into the larger room, mostly stone, lined with benches and lit with candles and natural light filtering down from lofts above us. As I came into the room, more arguing broke out at my presence because a) I was a woman and b) I didn't have a head covering. There seemed to be a few rational people around who had the idea that there might be something more important than arguing fine theological points here going on....but they were the minority and were having to expend all of their efforts keeping the more narrowly focused members of their particular tradition from coming to blows with their enemies. In the name of God.

I thought the whole situation looked particularly dangerous. We were a group of people with extremely diverse views on important theological issues being hosted by a foreign, even ailian people. These people were obviously clever, they might even be wise, but they did not strike me as being particularly
patient.

I stood up, and noticed I was the only woman in the room. I raised my voice and said that I would be happy to cover my head out of respect for those who wanted me to if someone would loan me something to use as a scarf. A bearded older gentleman in a volumonous robe nodded and tore off his sleeve, handing it to the men around him, gesturing to pass it down. As this was going on every door to the place, without being touched, slammed closed with a creak and a sigh. There was dead silence. Like everyone else there I tried estimate the weight of the doors and looked carefully at the openings. There was not a crack of light around them. We were sealed in. And the gravity of the situation seemed to be grasped by everyone.

This was the spiritual equivelant of two preying mantisis being stuck in a jar by elementary school boys who wanted to see what would happen. I struggled to think of a way make this point, even as a Sunni and Shiite Muslim started to blame each other in whispers.

Shortly, though, one of the doors opened, and there stood a female child dressed in the lace and ruffles the cat creatures seemed to be so fond of. She looked 98% like a human girl. "Excuse me." she said, "I regret to tell you that one of you must come with me." and she sounded genuinely sorry and dreadful about it.

"Which of us must come with you?" I asked, because I was standing up and close to her.

"I regret to say that it is you." she said sorrowfully. There was a murmer of fear in the room.

"I will be happy to go anywhere my hosts require of me." I said, with much less dread than I felt. I moved to the door and looked at the assembley, "Gentlemen, please pray for me." I said hoping that would stop them from arguing while I went off to face whatever new challenge was in store for me.

As soon as the door closed behind me the girl looked up at me, "You will not be harmed. It's only that one of your people has come looking for you."

"You mean a different kind of person than the people who brought us all here? Different than the kind of people buried outside?" I asked.

"I don't know about any different kind of people. I just live here with Sister and help her take care of her cats, empty the litter boxes and all." she said innocently.

This was so absurd that I laughed as we climbed back up the stone steps. "Sister must have given you a very good religous education, since you know that it is sometimes okay to tell lies to protect your friends."

"Indeed, the Ilahe are my friends. I was an orphan and they took me in. One of them was living in my house at the time. They live among us as cats, you know, they have for thousands of years. They are the survivors of a shipwreck. They can live as humans if they want to, but they don't fit in as well, being very small and thin. The cat shape is closer to their own and easier for them to hold."

"That makes sense" I said. And it did- in a dream!

"They are very few in number. They cannot reveal themselves to human kind without fear of being hurt. Still, they cling to their rituals, even if they don't fully understand them. I think the Ilahe are a spiritual people, but they have forgotten so much. They have always had the hope that they could reveal themselves to religous humans and there-by build a bridge to other humans. Occassionally, they gather groups like the one here today: to see in what tradition are people kind and respectful to those who are different from them."

"Um. I'm not sure there's gonna be a winner in that group back there." I said.

"Indeed, more than a few of them will meet with great misfortune. But you should find it much easier to find the things you need."

"There's no need-"

"No, that is one of the most sacred and deeply held traditions that the Ilahe have: to protect those who protect them. They will not be disuaded from it. But, see, here is your kinsman who has come looking for you."

And, up the path standing before two small men in priests robes, was The Hub.

"For goodness sake, what are you doing back here in this wierd place? They told me you in some kind of service and I couldn't come in! How do you get into these situations? What was it, a funeral for a cat?" The Hub went on in his naturally loud voice. ( he talks lat the volume of some one who worked in a trucking terminal for 12 years hich he did)

"Did you feed Vio-kitty?" I asked.

"Huh? Yeah, of course I did. God,this place is creepy. All these tombstones,all these cats sculking around."

"Will you lower your voice?!" I said urgently.

"What's wrong. Hey, look at that!" he said, brightening up.

At the end of the lane, a small man in a cloth cap was taking things out of a shed and lining them up beside the trash cans. There was a practically brand new extension ladder, several pieces of wood, an antique wood plane. The Hub rushed up to the "workman"

"Sir! Excuse me, sir?" he asked, pleasantly, " Are you throwing those things away?"

"Si, Senor" the Ilahe man answered. The sun came out from behind a cloud and, for an instant, I saw the Ilahe man from the funeral, then he morphed back again as The Hub looked up. He winked at me.

Then I woke up.