Again with the dreams...and not for the last time

RubberMoon stamp.

Last week's episode of GLEE, which I saw last night, had a theme of dreams...aspiration married to wish. My dreams feel like Divine mandates, they feel like promises inscribed on my heart and, as with the fictional students on television, I sense that they transcend the ordinary reality of this moment. I would not call them enormous, as in sailing solo around the world, being the first civilian on the moon, yet they still represent a distance between here and the yearned-for there. My dreams, however they might be classified as to likely, remote or you've-got-to-be-kidding, are, as I have come to discover, an essential part of my authentic self.

Thomas Moore's book, ORIGINAL SELF, is a collection of 50 meditations, which "...offer fresh interpretations of living with originality rather than conformity, presenting multi-dimensional portraits of the creative self...what it means to live from the burning essence of the heart, with the creativity that comes from allowing the soul to blossom in its own colors and shapes." It is to be grabbed with both hands by anyone suffering disenchantment, disconnection or merely seeking a voice of rich experience to remind you that, in your eccentricities, ample thighs and unmatched socks, you are not doing it wrong.

For people will, you know, eagerly admonish you about the impracticality - or impossibility - of your dreams. It is not an easy path, being the odd duck, yet I have, if not proof at least a strong hunch, that those who read these essays on a regular basis don't visit here looking for lessons on how to march in a straight line. Coincidences don't exist for me as such; the facts that yesterday morning I sat and saw new products, new designs, new forms open before my eyes, then felt my spirit singing along with the flat-out dances of joy I saw on television, seem mutually confirming. I know that what we dream matters and we must heed it. It is not necessary to know how it will be reached, if it will be reached or if we've been pointed in that direction because of what we will find along the way.

Do your dreams fill you with doubt of ever seeing them materialize, or do they warm you with the magic that comes from embracing them? I think it is important to love our dreams, to treat them respectfully, perhaps as sacred, and find as much delight in befriending them in their dream incarnations as we anticipate doing when they take form. A dream makes a reliable sidekick. We can exhale with relief, for something that sees the world as we do has our back.

Our dreams are gifts, perhaps that we give ourselves, chosen from a dim cupboard of ancient knowing. Dreams don't require - or even tolerate - explanation. I see them as the ultimate post-hypnotic suggestions: they are the notes pinned to our coats when we left wherever we'd been to come here. They are the messages we carry. I love the notion and the fact of them; I love how they both pull and push us toward expanding, whatever that means in each of our hearts. As a recovering hyper-vigilant, I don't want to let my dreams down, yet I know that the simple act of holding them, giving them voice and honoring their presence is, for today, enough, but a few new sketches, between friends, couldn't hurt.