John: In this dream I’m cleaning up an outdoor area – it’s kind of like an outdoor patio. The house inside is empty, and I eventually realize that it has already been cleaned up. As I’m working on this patio area, I see a huge hornets’ nest, and it’s built in a square shape. It looks dormant but, you know, I’m not 100% sure.
So I figure if I’m going to clean the area, I can’t leave this eyesore hanging there. I take a shovel, just initially to test things, and I whack it with the shovel and cut into it a little bit. I might have even knocked a small chunk off. It surprises me how hard the nest is.
All of a sudden, a couple of hornets come out. So, uh oh. I know how badly hornets can get you, so I run into the empty adjacent house and I try to close the doors behind me. I go from room to room to block the attack of the hornets.
There are still only a couple of them, but my imagination is that there could be a lot of them. I only see two but who knows. At some point, I duck down into the garage and close the basement door above.
As I come down the steps, I can hear voices so I think, okay, now I’m stuck. I can’t go back up because the hornets will get me, so I’ve got to continue on. It turns out it’s not the owners of the house I’m hearing, but two cleaning girls who have already cleaned upstairs and now they’re working on this area.
That relieves a certain concern that I must look like a trespasser, just running around this property. I mention that there are hornets up there so they might want to be careful. They don’t seem to be concerned. I wake up as I’m looking for a way out, thinking that I’ve eluded the hornets.
Well, the dilemma is that a part of me, when it comes to a certain aspect of life involving the outer physical reality, feels like I’ve paid some dues and moved on. Yet there are still things that can come after me. There are still hornets, so there are still agitations that can come over me.
The house is empty – it shows I’m moving on. There are just a few details left. So even though I’m cleaning up the last area, I end up leaving behind a bit of something that’s quiet now, yet can be agitated, i.e., the hornets’ nest. The nest isn’t alive and buzzing with thousands of bees. There are just a couple. I’ve come a long way, perhaps, but there are still hornets that can be stirred up.
It’s almost like joke in some ways, or even a warning that the work is never done. It can be seen as part of an ongoing process, but it also disturbs.
