Dream: The Wasps Had Flats by the Tea Hatch

I was weeding. It was an allotment but it was inside the church hall, the soil was right there on the floorboards in long beds, and the stacking chairs were still out round the edges like there was going to be a meeting after. I had one of those forked weeders with the wooden handle and I was doing dandelions. They came up whole, root and all, every one, long white roots like string, and that felt so good I kept doing it even after the bed was done.

There was a pig in a crate by the tea hatch with a load of piglets and one little one that kept getting pushed off. The runt. A man in a fleece said that's the reckling, we don't bother with that one, and I said right, and carried on weeding. It kept coming over and leaning on my leg. Warm. Very light.

Up in the corner where the wall meets the ceiling there was a wasps' nest, the grey papery kind, but huge, and somebody had built it on purpose, there were little windows in it and a door, like the flats by the ring road. I could see them going in and out with bits of chewed fence. The man said they're all from the one mother, every single one of them, the whole block, and he said it like it was a complaint about the council.

My hands had gone sticky. Some kind of gum, brown, smelled like cough sweets and old church, and it was all up my fingers and I couldn't get them apart properly, they kept sticking back together in a sort of claw. I tried wiping them on the soil and that made it worse, now there was soil stuck in it.

There was a raffle. I didn't have a ticket. They kept reading numbers and people kept going up and coming back with tins of biscuits and bubble bath.

I looked down and the runt had gone and there was a gap in the bed where I'd already weeded and something was coming up in it already, green, fast, I could actually see it uncurling, and I got down to look and my knee went in the soil, cold, and the wasps had gone quiet, all of them at once, and the man said number forty-one and

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Day residue: "oshac reckling", two words from the dictionary: oshac (an old name for gum ammoniac, a sticky resin) came in as brown gum gluing my fingers into a claw, and reckling (the weakest of a litter) as a runt piglet nobody bothered with; "weeder" became the forked tool and the whole night of pulling dandelions; "unigenetic" surfaced as the man saying the wasps were all from the one mother; insect architecture as a paper wasps' nest built like a block of flats; "commassee" didn't come.

Carrying forward: I kept it near 400 words, let nobody hand me anything or come looking for me, and for once let me watch something change with my eyes on it instead of only while I looked away.

Waking up: Hands first. I woke with my fingers curled and I pulled them apart to check, and they were just dry and fine. No jaw. No toilet panic this time. A quiet, slightly sticky, kneeling sort of morning, with a cold patch on one knee that I think is only the duvet.

What's still sharp: The dandelions coming up whole, long white roots like string, and how good that felt. The little one leaning on my leg, warm and so light. The brown gum smelling of cough sweets and church. The green coming up fast in the gap, uncurling while I watched.

What's already gone: The man's face, though I can hear his voice, bored, blaming the council. Whether I ever won anything. The number he called was forty-one and then it stopped, and I'm not sure what I'd have done with it.

That's from yesterday: Gum and the weakest of the litter are two words that turned up in the seed, easy. The wasps all coming from one mother, same. The flats by the ring road I just pass. Hands that won't come back as they were is 186 again. And the warm breathing thing against me is the dog's blowhole on my wrist (219), but this time it picked me and I wasn't left holding it for anyone.

In the light of day: I carried on weeding while a piglet got pushed off, and said "right". That's the unsettling bit. The wasp flats are ridiculous and I liked them.

On waking: Still with me, because the runt went and I never looked up when it did, though I did get to watch the green come.

Carrying forward: Whether I notice who is quietly leaning on me before they are gone.

The items:

• The runt leaning warm on my leg, the man saying "we don't bother with that one", me saying "right", and it gone before I looked up: Warning: I planned for nobody to hand me anything, and still something weak and warm came to me by itself, and I let a bored stranger decide it wasn't worth bothering with and kept weeding.
• Pulling dandelions out whole and carrying on after the bed was done: Echo (219's ring, 207's tea towels): a chore I chose, so it proves little, but the pleasure was in clearing things out completely, and it kept my eyes on the wrong thing.
• Brown gum gluing my fingers into a claw, and wiping it on the soil made it worse: Echo (186, 219): my hands won't come back as they were, and cleaning makes it worse, like wiping the ring.
• The green uncurling in the gap while I watched, knee in the cold soil: Echo (219): I planned to watch a change with my eyes on it, so passing that test counts for nothing.
• The raffle with no ticket, everyone else coming back with tins: Echo (107, 208): everybody's number but mine. Planned.
• The wasp flats, all from one mother: Fog: a dice word and a joke. I liked them.
• "Number forty-one and": Fog: my usual stop.

The whole dream: A Warning. I asked last time whether I'd reach for something, name the room, or blame myself. None. Instead the one thing I didn't plan came to me, leaned, and went while I was busy.

What we carry: I can be so taken up with clearing and tidying that I agree to ignore whatever is small and needs me, just because someone says not to bother.

One line to carry: Before I say "right", look down at what's leaning on me.

Carrying forward: I can get so busy clearing things up that I let someone small who leans on me slip away, because someone else said they weren't worth the bother.

Archetypes present
The runt is the Child (what is still to come), the weakest of the litter, warm and very light, and it chose me instead of being handed over. The man in the fleece is the collective voice, "we don't bother with that one", and my "right" is the Persona (the face I show to get along) agreeing. The wasp block, "all from the one mother", is the Great Mother (the one who founds and holds) as a whole household grown from one woman.

Compensation: what the unconscious is supplying
Sorting it out, I called it a Warning: I let the small thing go on someone else's say-so. A Jungian reading suggests the dream adds what came next. The runt was gone, and in the gap I'd already cleared something green was coming up. What I agreed to drop came back as growth, in the very ground I thought was finished.

Amplification
In English folk speech the smallest pig of a litter is the "tantony pig", after St Anthony the Abbot, patron of swineherds; "to follow like a tantony pig" meant to trail after someone. Mine leaned on me in a church hall. In Psalm 118 the stone the builders refused becomes the head of the corner.

Me as one psyche
I planned watching the green, so I discount it. Not the gum. Hands that wiped the ring all night in 219 were glued into a claw, and wiping them on soil made it worse. Sorting it out, I ruled the wasps Fog: fair as a sign (a pointer to something known). As a symbol (an image still alive with meaning), a whole block from one mother fell silent the moment I knelt.

Across the series
My seed asked whether the ring stays green, the bottom drawer opens, the glove's owner returns. None; my questions keep waiting on objects. In 156 I stopped unravelling her sock rather than leave "a plant on a pile of string". Tonight roots came up "like string" and it felt good. The stacking chairs are 115's church hall, where the tea is after. Not-mine things keep reaching me: the baby (110), the hives (181), the dog (219).

Individuation: the task this dream sets
Stop before "right". Pick up the light warm thing, sticky hands and all.

A question to carry
If the runt nobody bothered with came back as the green in the very gap I'd cleared, what am I weeding out of myself as not worth the bother?

Carrying forward: I may be dismissing my own small, needy feelings because other people seem to think they aren't worth bothering with, and what I clear away keeps coming back as something trying to grow.

Manifest content
I weed soil beds on a church hall floor, stacking chairs out "like there was going to be a meeting after". Dandelions come up whole; I can't stop. A man says of a runt piglet "we don't bother with that one", I say "right", and it leans warm and light on my leg. Brown gum glues my fingers into a claw. A raffle, no ticket. The runt is gone; green uncurls; my knee sinks into cold soil, the wasps go silent, "forty-one and".

Day residue
Oshac (a sticky resin) gave the gum, reckling the runt, weeder the tool, unigenetic "the one mother". I ruled the wasps Fog, but 109 had wasp paper too.

The dream-work
Condensation (several ideas fused into one image): a church hall with chairs out and a tea hatch is where the funeral tea is held (115). Tonight it has soil on the floor. The gum is her too: a clawed hand (186's knuckles), cough sweets, church.
Displacement (feeling moved onto something minor): I planned to watch a change and did, on a shoot. The watching went onto the weed bed so the runt could go unwatched.

The latent wish
A Freudian reading suggests the runt holds two figures: me, the grandchild pushed off, ticketless while others carry off tins (107, 208), and her at the end, warm and very light. The wish is for someone else to say "we don't bother", so not tending her was never my decision: 207's tired wish it over, spoken by a stranger.

The apparatus at work
Asleep, my id loved clearing everything out whole, unlike 156's sock I stopped unpicking. Waking, my superego accused the "right". Sorting it out, my ego's secondary revision (tidying a dream into sense) made it a lesson in noticing. A slip: both said I never "looked up". The dream says I looked down.

What is being resisted
The ground: soil, a cold knee, sudden silence (186's dryer stopping). And a draw going on without me, like her things shared out.

Across the series
Change I don't watch: 110, 186, 219, tonight the runt. My falsifier asked for a change watched with my eyes on it. It came, on a substitute, so the pattern held by moving.

A question to carry
When the man said "we don't bother with that one", what part of me was relieved to say "right"?

Carrying forward: Part of me may have been relieved when others decided nothing more could be done for my grandmother at the end, and I keep busy clearing things so I don't have to watch her go.

What I dreamed: I was pulling weeds in a church hall, with soil right on the floor. A man said a tiny weak piglet wasn't worth bothering with, and I said "right." It leaned warm against my leg, then it was gone, and something green was growing where it had been.

What I thought about it:

• Waking up: My hands felt sticky, and I remembered the piglet's warm weight more than the green.
• Sorting it out: I let something small that needed me go because someone told me not to bother.
• Thinking like Jung: What I push away may come back as something growing.
• Thinking like Freud: Part of me may have been glad someone else decided, so it wasn't my choice.

Where I agreed with myself, and where I didn't: Every part of me agreed I said "right" too fast. We differed on the green: I trusted it less because I had planned to watch it.

What's new since last time: Nobody left me holding their things. Instead, something small came to me on its own.

The one thing to remember: Before I agree to stop caring about something small, I should look at what is leaning on me.

Carrying forward: I may have felt relieved when others decided nothing more could be done for my grandmother, and I keep busy tidying so I don't have to watch her go.