In a new place, with great rains and a storm over the water and volcanic mounds, Three Elements of a dream arrive with the morning light. The sun shines onto the volcano-side and as if liberated from a lightless cave I love and love and take in all the light. Somehow the lake is coming in through to window, too. The new day; all has been washed away.
Just as I think No, I dreamt nothing, the three elements come back to me. Days earlier there was an earthquake and I was with my Dad - Dear Ol' Dad as the song goes - and we were on a coastline. I'd been at this coastline before; it was like some of the coast back home, long stretches of dunes and foreshore flora scattered across, along with the hilly-ness of the dunes and the ocean creating this scene I know so well. As familiar as family itself. The earth shook in big booms, rhythmic and moving the entirety of everything. That feeling of this force being everywhere and our movements "away" from it really being movements to where might be safer within it. There were others, but the focus was with me and Dad; and as the earth and everything moved, I looked to the sea, as if peering around a corner, and I saw that the ocean had risen. Toward the shore came rolling a wave, not of immense stature, but of immense power and volume. It wasn't tall, like in a film; it was backed up by volumes of water that cannot be described so well with words.
And what I find most touching about this dream was that neither me nor my Dad were afraid. Something was different, in this dream, to the apocalyptic-like dreams I'd had before. And I have had a few - wars, disasters, fleeing. But no; this one was different in its feel and in the feeling I felt in it and after it and reflecting upon it. This dream was calm. The earth was shaking and the wave was rolling in and yes, we were moving to a safer place - but there was a special tranquility. Christ, I thought, reflecting on that dream. I'm ready for the end.
And today I find myself confronted with these Three Elements, so distinct in the dreams that I cannot help but see three layers, three levels, three...
One. Childhood. My present self is in the countryside somewhere. It is green everywhere and there are fields and fields of lushness, of the greenest green and grasses and green crops and perhaps somewhere a barn or a shed, but the most if it as leafy and grassy as anywhere I've ever seen. I remember once, landing in Amsterdam, looking at the countryside around that city - this was a little like that, but euphoric and dream-worldly. There is a group of children about on some sort of field trip, or excursion. One of the kids, a little boy, splits from the group, and I join him and we run around the fields, the grass. Water is everywhere, also; in dew, in the wetness of the grasses. We run about and play and have fun and at one point I say to the boy, "Don't forget to always have fun." Not like a parent to a child; no, more like myself to myself. The little boy - and tears well as I write - is of course myself, scooting about in a focused way, roaming these fields and playing. And I know I'm reminding myself, in this beautiful present of growth and delving and understanding, to remember that little boy. To remember to have fun.
Two. An element of the teenage years. I'm walking with a friend, with someone, on a cobble-stoned street (I think - I know it wasn't a paved road or walking path). And I see a flash, an apparition, of a girl I knew once; she is with her friend and she represents the awkwardness of my life experience, because when I see her - as when I saw her some time ago, at the start of high school - I am overcome by foolishness, shame and uneasiness. Me and my friend say hello; she and her friend do the same. But as we walk out together, I'm lost for words. My heart beats fast. I don't know what to say. And then it's all gone.
Three. The present. I ask an older woman how a ceremony she attended last night was and she tells me it was rough and terrible. She's confused and wide-eyed. We forget about that and I hug her and in a short time we're playing. Karate. Or Tai Chi or something. Or maybe we're just playing like kids play - that would make more sense, I'm sure. We're in a workshop and there's plenty of space to move about one another in various poses, kicking and chopping at one another from a distance. We're out of something. We're playing again, the both of us.
The Three Elements off the Dream.
And what of it all? Well, nothing that can be understood by anything but an open heart. The poetry of the soul seeping out, reflecting on my reflections and telling me that it's me telling myself that I am all that I am; and that this is beautiful. Every step is brilliance, even if it's a step of great pain, of chaos, of disaster. Mirror, mirror, on the wall - you are everywhere, after all.
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