On September 1, 2019, I had the craziest, most elaborate dream.
It’s evening. I find myself outside in someone’s backyard. There are people casually hanging out by a pool in a well-lit section of the yard enjoying each other’s company. As I glance around, I see that the yard isn’t too large and that it is fenced in by a brick wall. Everything outside the yard, on the other side of the brick wall, is dark and has a bit of a mysterious air to it. I look up at the starry night above and feel the desire to venture right on up into that vast sky, so I do. I jump up and take off soaring with my eyes peering straight up into the darkness. I feel light as I drift up into the sky with ease, sensing just a bit of the coolness of the night. I don’t know how far or how long I ascend upward, but at some point I stop and simply float there among the stars in a peaceful state. Suddenly, I wonder if I can go back or if I’ve gone too far. I turn around and I’m thankful I can still see a glimpse of the yard and the pool far below. I choose to go back.
Upon returning, I see that it is late afternoon and then suddenly realize that things don’t look quite the same. I perceive it is many hundreds of years into the future. I see the house where I grew up...or is it the house where I raised my children? It doesn’t look the same, but somehow I know it is my home, and I know that the people living there will certainly be my descendants. Surely, they will take me in. As I approach the house, I am surprised to see it is on stilts. I knock but I am still standing down below on the grass looking up at the door. A man opens the door and looks down at me. I ask how I am supposed to enter, as there are no stairs. He throws down a thick rope to me, but as I climb, the door shuts and a small monitor appears before me. I turn to ask a couple people who are watching me climb the rope with curiosity what this monitor is all about and why I can’t just be invited into the house without delay. Apparently, the governments that rule this territory are very careful about newcomers and have to run some background checks to determine exactly who I am and from where I have come.
Suddenly, warning sirens begin to sound. I perceive all residents making their way hurriedly back to their homes. In this way, the governing bodies can more easily find the misfits and the outcasts. I run to hide. I quickly find a spot in the shadows under a pier near my descendants’ home. Night is closing in and I feel sleepy as I lie there quietly. A few feet away, I hear the voices of three men. I think they see me. I close my eyes. If I don’t look up, maybe I will vanish from their sight. Their voices get louder as they approach, and it feels too late. But then I notice their voices being slowly drowned out by the sounds of a distant celebration.
I open my eyes and I’m called upward back into the night sky. I swiftly sail toward the stars and witness what appears to be dancing souls in unison to the sound of their singing. I immediately join them in their dance and in their song. We are singing about the moment one recognizes we are each like a unique star in the sky and that together we are brighter and more beautiful than any one star by itself. Our dance and our song are both in perfect rhythmic and harmonious timing. We are celebrating. Down below, I know the townspeople can’t see us. They continue their search for misfits and outcasts. They don’t realize there is a celebration going on right above them, in their midst but also just out of reach.
I both pause and continue dancing. (Not sure how to explain that, but that’s what I perceived myself to be doing in this "dream.") I pause to scan not the city scene right below us but the horizon. I see that this earthly dwelling is quite beautiful with its oceans and islands and cities with all kinds of created grand structures. But I also notice that this earthly dwelling, and even this celebration in the night sky, is enclosed. Not like the yard was with the brick wall, but it is that same feeling. That sensation that something wonderfully mysterious lies just beyond this place.
I take off yet again. Not up this time but out. I make my way through a structured, illuminated maze with tunnels. My soul shoots out through the other side, and I once again see bodies of water and islands and what seems to be a very beautiful type of dwelling place; but I do perceive we are on the outside of the previous earthly dwelling. Even though on the outside, I can see the previous earthly dwelling off in the distance somewhere. (That’s not quite accurate. It’s not really “off in the distance” as much as it is somewhere within that I can still tap into. No traveling or place to go other than to just look inward, and what I have known before comes into focus. This is very hard to explain.)
I feel like this is just the beginning of an endless journey. That it is time to expand. I don’t know what that means, exactly, but I know it is exciting and I know it is what I am meant to do.
And then I woke up.
[This is the best I can do to explain my dream. There is so much missing that I’m not quite sure how to articulate. It’s like when they say the book is so much better than the movie, because it’s not possible to squeeze all that substance into the movie. Same with this. The dream was so much better than this writing, but I had to share anyway.]
Featured artwork by Martin Péchy
