Dreams

I have mentioned in previous posts my interest in dreams. I have been slacking on writing them down when I wake up...usually it's the first thing I do before even getting out of my bed. The more you write down your dreams, the more often you remember them. Today was the first day in months I wrote it down.

After writing it down and remembering key parts, key items, I proceeded to look up several of the key elements to get a light interpretation. There is one scene in particular from my dream that coupled with the supposed "meaning" of certain elements, it is pretty much a perfect representation of current events in my life. I woke from this dream curious...curious because it was so heavily laden with a specific theme, a common denominator throughout, something that has been on the forefront of my daily thoughts for the past week or so. And I rarely dream of things that are blatantly relevant to my life, my present state of mind. Usually it is very gray as to what is going on. Last night's was much more black and white, much more pertinent to where I am right now.

Maybe dreams are really just a garbage disposal of random meaningless items in our minds. Maybe they mean nothing other than to clean out the mind in order to start a new day. Maybe they are a release of pent up energies, pent up issues that we need to release somewhere. Maybe they really are a gateway to our subconscious, a telling of current events, symbolism for current situations and things to come. "Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives."

Most people are on the world, not in it

John Muir said it well..."Most people are on the world, not in it-have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them--undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate."

I once read that fear was recognizing that there is something worth losing. But as John Muir said above, it's as if many people avoid the direct connection, the complete immersion into the world, into life. It's easier to live on the periphery, to avoid pain and loss, to avoid conflict, than to dive in head first, to embrace what lies ahead, good or bad, and allow yourself to take it all in.

I'm a classic jump-ship kind of person. When the going gets tough, I get going. But sometimes things change. Sometimes people change. Sometimes there is enough fear there, enough of something worth losing that a person steps off the world and into it. But not everyone is willing to take that risk, to take that leap of faith and let life happen to them. We can't control anything but how we approach life...from the sidelines or in the thick of the game leaving fear of pain and loss aside and enjoying what's right in front of us for as long as we are graced with it's presence.

Uncertainty

"The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next"

If that is the case, then life is at it's utmost possible state for me right now. I'm in the most uncertain place I've been in a long time, a holding pattern, a waiting room w/no clocks, a courtroom waiting for the verdict. I have great patience in many things in life, but surprises and uncertainty, I have zero. The only way I like surprises is if I have absolutely NO inkling of it, not an ounce. If I even sense it, I go crazy. When someone says to me, "I got you the BEST birthday present", I just assume you give it to me immediately b/c I'm going to pester you until you tell me what it is. I ruin things in that way. But I can't help it. I'm an answer seeker, info seeker. Being in the dark is like a personal hell for me.

The next few hours will be long. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, so that's good, but wading through the dark is going to be borderline excruciating.

Aurora Borealis

I'm sure that everyone has a list of things that they must do or see before they die. For me, it shifts and changes over the years as I grow and change. The one unchanging item on that list though, is seeing the Aurora Borealis...the Northern Lights. I have caught a glimpse of them once, on a chilly night out in Stowe. They were faint and looked almost like the equalizer on an old stereo, but they were there. However, I don't qualify that as seeing it in the form I want to truly see it in to be satisfied. I want to see them from the great northern...the arctic or Alaska. I want to see the myriad of colors, the pulsing waves, the dancing lights. I want to see the sky overtaken with them. I want to be engulfed, entranced. There are days that I think about it for hours.


I don't know what it is that draws me so strongly to them, but it evokes such strong emotions in me, I have no idea what I would do, will do, once face to face with this magical earthly event. I don't know if I'd be able to stand on my own two feet.

One day I will see them from far up north. Hopefully sooner than later.