Feast of Lacking: A Dream of Shortages"

Dream Journal Entry: July 5, 2025



I had this dream where I was heading to Alaska for some reason I couldn't quite figure out. The area was totally unfamiliar to me, and I ended up walking a lot or taking the bus. My brother was with me for part of the journey.


At one point, we stopped at this place that felt like an old reserve. There were kids running around playing, but they seemed pretty careless. They were shooting at some targets they had set up and accidentally grazed a guy’s hand and nicked his back with a bullet. I thought he was lucky it wasn’t worse—just a couple of scratches. Eventually, someone stepped in and told the kids they needed to be more careful, and thankfully, they got the message and stopped.


We were also in charge of hosting some business folks, who we brought back home for some meetings. There was a mix-up with our feast schedule; ours was supposed to start at 2 PM, but there was another feast happening before ours, so we ended up starting around 6 PM instead. It was super frustrating with all the confusion, and adjusting to the changes was tough.


On top of that, there was a wedding happening at the same time. I couldn’t tell if it was my wedding or someone else’s. My brother and I were too busy dealing with the business guests to make soup or anything for the potlatch. Everything felt so chaotic, but I spotted some familiar Fireweed Tribe faces from the community around. Family didn’t seem like they were rushing around cooking like their usual selves, and everyone seemed so calm about not being ready in time to serve food. They didn’t look like their organized selves from before, when major food was ready to serve, and there was usually more than enough soup. I wasn’t even sure if they had made any food for the feast.


The hall was all set, and the business guests were already hanging out in the back office. I didn’t have time to explain the potlatch system to those who were new to it. The whole dream felt really disorganized, with people just getting up to grab food on their own. Time was dragging, and my mom seemed unconcerned about the chaos, while everyone else around us seemed happy and relaxed. My brother and I, on the other hand, were feeling really stressed and frustrated, embarrassed that our potlatch feast was lacking.


Finally, we were about to kick things off, but I had no idea what we were waiting for. My mom led a prayer and asked a young woman to finish it for us. After the prayer, it was clear we had no idea who was serving what, and no one moved for a moment. Then I went to grab food to serve where my brother was standing. I started to panic when I realized we didn’t have any trolleys for the soup. Luckily, Cheyenne offered me hers, but then I found out we didn’t even have soup. All I could find were a few trays of lasagna, which I put on my tray. But every time I went to grab something, it seemed to vanish. I was really worried there wouldn’t be enough food for everyone.


From a distance, it looked like we had a lot of food, but once we got started serving, there wasn’t nearly enough. I went to serve a lady at one of the tables, trying to scoop pasta and salad onto her plate, but no matter how much I put on, it always looked like so little. I apologized, saying I didn’t feel like I was doing a good job, but she smiled and was grateful for what she got.


I kept trying to serve people, but only managed to help that one lady; the food kept disappearing, and it never felt like there was enough. Even though I thought we had plenty at first, it turned out the food wasn’t traditional, and as I served, the bowls just never seemed to get full.

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