pond dream

wow a dream!
Can't remember much of it--by the time I get down here to the computer they've faded away. Or I try to keep them in my head, fall asleep, and lose them.

I was at some kind of healing center, and it vaguely had something to do with Tlakelel's visit this weekend to Kapulli Chaplin (which I am going to), but Tlakelel wasn't there. There was an article in the paper, which someone had with them, saying he was thinking of converting to some kind of extreme right-wing Christianity, had attended a meeting and been thrown out.
There were two ponds, linked together, in this healing center. Not little garden pools which hold fifty or so gallons, these were PONDS, like you'd bring a cow to drink at. And like I said, two of them, on two different levels. The ponds had a bunch of web cams on them, and a monitor flicked through the cams every few cycles, cycling through them all. And ALL of them had living things on them: baby alligators, frogs, turtles, fish. Not one showed empty water or an empty rock.
I thought it was so cool and for some reason I decided to get into the pond and play with all these friendly creatures. So I did, I slipped through the bushes and over the edge. The water was about waist-deep. (I was in the upper pond.)
But of course when I did so, the creatures fled. Or so I thought. In reality I had managed to get between the edge of the pool and its liner, trapping myself, and somehow letting out all the water in BOTH ponds AND all the creatures escaped. By the time I realized the water level was going down, I couldn't pull myself back out (no buoyancy) and I had to call for help.
The person, Robert, who came to my aid used to be my Healing Tao teacher. He got me out of the pond but he was sad because all the creatures were gone, and all the water, and they had paid money for the critters and tamed them. Another lady went around picking up the web cams and shutting them off. I felt terrible. I could see where all the water had drained out the door and through the sloping yard to some kind of culvert.
I said I would go outside and try to catch some of the creatures and bring them back. People were already repairing the pond liner and starting to refill it with water. It was 1:30 and I was supposed to be staying for some kind of ritual at 2:00 involving a pregnant woman because I was going to give the information to my best friend (who is no longer pregnant; she has a 7 month old baby). And somehow I was going to get home, change, gather up my stuff, and drive back to Chaplin for 3 p.m. even though Chaplin is over an hour away and so was home from whereever I was. In fact people were talking about carpooling to the Kapulli, and when I offered my set of directions they all looked at me funny; from whereever we were the directions weren't valid.
I went outside with some kind of net and container and started looking for critters. The first critter I found was a huge cottonmouth (water moccasin--snake). (Really I don't even know what a cotton mouth looks like, but in the dream I knew.) I went back to Robert and asked if there had been cottonmouths in the water (they are poisonous) and said that I would pick up a black snake or garden but not a poisonous one. He said there were not poisonous snakes in the water and the cottonmouth must have eaten all the tame critters. (I have no idea what cottonmouths eat.) One of the ladies was outside doing something with a hose in the mud where the ponds had drained, and I thought there was a hose behind her, and it was a huge (6'/7' foot) copperhead (which I DO know what they look like, having seen many in my life), which was squished flat in the mud and just starting to stir. I warned her and she got away, and was grateful.
Then the ritual for the pregnant woman was starting. They were carrying her in a bier like she was dead, with flowers and dried herbs strewn on her. She was wearing a dark blue full length dress which might have been embroidered with flowers or that might have just been the flowers thrown onto her body. Everyone stopped dealing with the pond and went to this ritual. I looked at the clock and it was after 2:00 and I panicked, realizing I could not go home, change, get my stuff and get back to Kapulli Chaplin by 3:00 (in real life, I don't have to be there until 7:00 p.m.). But if I went to KC right away, I'd be muddy, wet and not have my sleeping gear or change of clothes.
I don't know what I decided. Don't remember anything else.
Not surprising I dreamed of snakes when I spent two days scouring the net for pictures of serpents and snakes for my Queztalcoatl/Kukulkan portrait.