Being Potato Yin

Last night I had one of my strange dreams (note, I have these very odd I-am-another-person type dreams fairly regularly). Here goes:

I am sat waiting waiting with other women in a staggered seat audience and am called down. This does not feel like a good thing. I am aware of feeling scared. I am also a small boned and fair skinned Chinese woman.

Later. I am trained and ready (for what I never know). There are many of us women, maybe ten gathered around Her. We are nervous. We know that after this gathering, some of us will die. I am feeling desperate, searching for a way not to go through with this; I know I will be one of the unlucky. I am wearing wine red robes with elbow length draped sleaves. We all lift our arms to show pouches strapped to our right wrists. They are delicate and embroidered with familiar looking Chinese flowers. We all must unfastened our pouches and empty the contents, mixing them in a heap and re-selecting the tiny instruments/tools within. This is for fairness - for an equality: we made these instruments ourselves. It is my turn to hand over my pouch to be emptied and when She takes it, inside amongst the carved penny sized tools is a small ragged ruby. I see it anew and remember He gave it to me. It is taken and held up, Her eyes narrow and She gives me my new name as I knew she would - as my sisters are being named. She tells me I am now 'Potato Yin'. I am frightened, this ridiculous name I know, somewhere in my mind, the future me has read all about, and this mysterious event too. I know this woman, me, Potato Yin, will die tonight. There is noise from somewhere outside of this small arena, confusion, a sense of danger and we scatter outwards seeking safety. Political unrest. I know this. I take my ruby and slide into a shadowy lane near a huge towering wall. He is there! I knew he would come. The me I know does not recognize this Chinese man, but the eyes I have known from the beginning of me, of time. When I kiss him there is no emptiness, only a forever and a knowing and understanding of life. A happiness and joy that transcends the body and soul. There is a man's voice behind me, prophecies future wars of which are so distant form this now, they hardly seem to matter. Another me knows I should remember this. It is important.

It is weeks later, maybe months. I arrive and it is dark and wet and my hair is slick and I am shiny with rain. I am torn and ripped, my hands, my clothes and feel I have been running from something for a long time. She seems to be an empress. She recognizes my skin tone, angle of my face, embroidered cloth and I am led by a man servant away to be re-robed for a ceremony. This is why I am here I know now. He dries me. He ties white cloth around me. He take a rag and cleans my teeth with powder. He holds my face and rubs oil into my skin. Behind him is a vast open shuttered window looking over mountains. We are so very high up. As he puts down the bowl of oil I see his eyes and know I have known since he led me away from Her - it is Him. He has resisted looking at me for this whole time of dressing. But then we look, and look, in shock and remembrance and there is no time. We kiss and I am home and complete and everything is dark.

It is later and we are stepping from a vast raft onto the darkest of black, a steep and porous looking rocky mountain path. The procession way is flanked by peasant women in white and coloured cloth moving too and fro. She is ahead of me, striding forwards, desperate, strong and determined to prove herself to someone. I feel she is my enemy. I stumble and fall and in cracks through the rock, my face pressed low I can see down thousands of feet to waves crashing upon rocks. A hand on my arm to steady me, it is Him.

Then I wake up.