Dream Journal: Fire!

Extensive vivid dream this morning about wildfires in the hills. In the dream I was more or less in my current location, but it was in the context of a group of people camping. When I woke (in my dream) I could see an absolute wall of smoke rising up over half the sky, and in the other part of the sky there were long streaks of smoke from other fires. The ridges of the hill were all ablaze. And periodically in the camping area, there would be small spontaneous blazes that would need to be put out immediately. Most of the people were just going about their business as usual but there were a bunch of us frantically running around collecting and filling buckets and trying to keep ahead of the little spot fires. I was working with a small boy who wasn't strong enough to carry buckets but wanted to help and I was showing him how to kick apart the sodden bushes after someone had dumped water on them to make sure there weren't any embers still hiding inside.

Likely triggers: news about the fires in Texas (especially from Texans on my FB feed), local news yesterday about possible lightning storms this weekend creating fire hazards, and in fact since there were a couple of actual lightning caused fires in the Mt. Diablo area overnight, it's even possible that the wind might have been right to bring a hint of smoke through my window.

Underlying metaphoric meaning: possibly some frustration with the usual tendency of organizations to be carried on the backs of a small set of people, even in emergencies, but no immediately obvious specific mappings here.