Then we’ll do an earthquake. That’s Israel attacking Athene.

This is a badly fragmented dream or series of dreams. Still, I'll report what I can remember 

I was paging through an English (as a foreign language) textbook for children. The general style and layout of the pages made me think it was from the Explore Our World series, which is published in partnership with the National Geographic Society and includes lots of their photos as illustrations.

One page was dominated by a closeup of the bow of what looked like an 18th-century sailing ship. The only text, at the top of the page, read, "Then we'll do an earthquake. That's Israel attacking Athene." I thought I should photograph the page and post it, because Bill would have a lot to say about it. Still dreaming, I began anticipating what his interpretation would be: Who could "do an earthquake" but Poseidon, the god of Atlantis and founder of their dynasty? Athene, of course, is the goddess of Athens. In Plato, Atlantis was sunk after an attempt to conquer Athens, so Athens would correspond to Aman in Tolkien's version of the story. Bill normally takes "Israel" as referring to the good guys, but of course the name has been appropriated by various groups who consider themselves to be the "chosen people." The first person means that "Israel" is how the enemies of Athene see themselves, and Pharazon (as Daymon Smith tells it) saw himself as the Chosen One and wore a belt with that title on it.

How'd I do, Bill? Close to what you would say?

Instead of taking a photo as I'd initially intended, I turned the page, and at some point the pages became a movie-like view that filled my visual field. I saw ships sailing towards each other, preparing for battle. The ships and their crews looked very similar, and I couldn't tell which represented "Israel" and which "Athene." All the ships were badly swamped, with those on deck standing ankle-deep in seawater, but they were still moving forward, and everyone seemed to think it was normal, as if this type of ship was designed to operate mostly-submerged. All the people on the ships were young and good-looking, and an improbable number of them were women. They reminded me of the actors in that "It's Goin' Down" video Bill shared a while back.

There was a "big gun" (cannon) which was going to be used (I'm not sure by which side) to score a decisive victory. However, at the last minute this gun was destroyed, maybe by an earthquake or a lightning strike or something, and none of the other guns could be used, either, because the powder got wet. (I guess that's one of the downsides of sailing mostly submerged.)

After writing the above, I remembered a piece of an earlier dream. I was sitting on the floor under a Christmas tree, gathering up small plastic figurines of animals and putting them into the inverted lid of a Royal Dansk cookie tin. While I was doing this, some other people in the room (whom I couldn't see) were discussing whether eating horsemeat was good or bad. One male voice insisted that if people occasionally ate horse and donkey meat, it was "good for the herd" and helped to "prevent infection" among the livestock, but nobody could follow his logic.

I had mostly filled the lid with animals and hesitated over whether or not to include a tiger and a horse. I felt that by putting them in the lid, or not, I would be taking a position in the ongoing horsemeat debate. Finally, I put them both in. I can't remember any of the other specific animals that were in the lid.

Writing this now, I think it may relate to Acts 10, to which I alluded in my last post. In a vision, Peter sees a vessel full of all kinds of animals and is told they are all permissible to eat because God has cleansed them. This ties in with the lid full of animals and with the debate over whether a traditionally taboo animal should be eaten. Royal Dansk may be relevant, too, since the Danish do eat horse. The horse is also sacred to Poseidon, which may tie this dream to the other one. There may also be a link to "I will restore all things that were put in the dish."