Dinners, dreams and the damage done ...
I HAD a rather disconcerting dream during the early hours of Wednesday last week: I dreamt that I went to dinner in a giant marquee in the garden of the State President's home, Mahlamba Ndlopfu ("new dawn" in Shangaan).
This part was in fact "true". On April 27 I was invited to the awards ceremony of the national orders - Orders of Mendi, Ikhamanga, Baobab, Luthuli, Mapungubwe, and Companions of OR Tambo - and there was a dinner afterwards in a giant tent.
But in my dream, I also had - in front of everyone! - a rather intimate rapprochement with one of my many enemies (this one, female). And, goodness me, James Randolph Vigne (Order of Luthuli, silver) and Lord Joel Joffe (Companion of OR Tambo, silver), and various other medal winners or their representatives, were right there.
What might be the meaning of this embarrassing performance by my unconscious? What would Daniel (of the Old, or main, Testament) have made of it? Could it hold as much significance as, for example, Jacob's dream of the angels ascending and descending on a ladder?
I wondered about this because it also occurred to me that May 6 a year ago was the day on which Parliament voted Jacob Zuma to be the fourth president of a democratic South Africa.