dreams – Page 6 – One Woman's Quest

Canine Calamity

Those eyes – simultaneously
pleading and apologetic –
sweet eyes begging for attention
which I cannot give – understand
that I am unable to extend any
more responsibility – am over-
taxed – just want to retreat, be
burden-free – the affection you
crave from me unavailable.

Remember simpler times?
How you and I would curl up
arm in arm, on the rug in front
of the television – inseparable.
Disinterested, you would turn
your back to me, and I would
nestle into your solidity, feel
comforted, accepted, reassured.

Oh, how we’d play – outdoors,
you chasing me on my bicycle,
teasing, threatening to topple
and I’d laugh till I cried – I loved
you so. And at night, you would
sneak into my room and without
waking me, fall asleep – it was
our undoing – you were exiled.

I know you only wanted to be
near, but what you didn’t know,
couldn’t know, was that I was
never meant to be so attached
to another – that your loyalty
was affecting my well-being –
that unconditional love, such
as yours, was never in my
karma – please understand.

When I let you in my life again,
I was not the same person –
already worn down, unable to
open my heart – it was not you –
you are guileless, pure of intention –
I could never blame you – it is all
me – don’t give me those eyes –
you know I’d love you in a nano-
second if it were not for this
terrible affliction – this bodily
reaction to any contact between us.

Now you come to me in dreams,
eyes still tender, gentleness your
constant demeanour, still asking for
my acceptance and even in such
a state of unconsciousness, I both
remember your love and reject you –
what am I to do? I know you will
persist, have witnessed your dogged
determination – but do not know how
to respond – so undeserving, am I,
of your resilient love.

Celebrate With Me, Love

We’ve set our sights on exotic locals;
imagined breathtaking shores; success
a sun-kissed cruise across the ocean:
effortless indulgence catering desires.

Cornered by adversity, we’ve sailed on,
tabled our dreams, re-examined goals,
argued over pronouncements; tensed,
forgone celebration, awaited reprieve.

You focus on the destination, denial
your fortress; whilst I take a stand,
grab an oar; proclaim merit in moments
fumble attempts to acquiesce – love you.

Sanctuary is not found in distraction:
uninvited invades: suffering assured;
ours is to embrace, appreciate, cherish
the gift of togetherness; joyous union.

Day 249 “The Deep Pool”

A figure of breathtaking beauty
glides across the center square,
his classic attire announcing success,
his god-like countenance turning heads.
His velvety deep voice hints at an accent,
stirring imaginations and desire.
He pauses every so often to greet another
with warmth and genuine compassion,
but his heart is set on me.

Juxtaposed to my husband,
I huddle next to the storefronts,
sidling between columns
hiding my agedness and homely visage.
I wear my unworthiness with shame
Confident only of the precariousness of this union.

He is taking me to the seaside,
Proudly leading me to the water’s edge.
Reluctantly, I follow
the shimmering lure of the water
sparkling in the distance,
and the broad open beach leering with disdain –
under the blazing reality of this day
the world will see me for what I am.

* * *

The hotel window overlooks the square
and the crowd that has gathered there.
Searching for the source of commotion
I glimpse a woman, shackled by the wrists,
chained to an ox and cart.
Horrified, compelled to help,
I rush to save her, but am too late.
She stumbles just outside my reach
and is dragged to her end.

I reel with revulsion,
My mind racing with confusion,
What crime could this woman have committed;
what sin to commit her to such a vile death?
She seemed such an ordinary woman,
tall and proud, not long out of her youth,
She had the weary look of a young mother,
stern, yet impassioned – the lioness,
protective of her brood –
now the victim of public persecution.

* * *

I stand in a darkened doorway,
a beam of light from the street
casting an eerie glow on the scene before me:
a baby, despondent from unanswered cries
abandoned in its playard
stares at me with deep, black eyes,
and attempts to rise,
raising one hand to reach for me,
then falling back on his sodden bottom.
I will myself to pick him up,
rescue him,
but am wrenched back into consciousness –
it has all been a dream.

* * *

Ego drives in the waking times,
delusions of self-understanding,
control and clear motivations
its steering wheel –
It is only a facade.

Below the surface,
a history of turmoil,
unrequited desires,
and untapped resources
simmers in anticipation,
conjuring dreams to awaken us –
metaphorical mysteries to
tantalize and illicit questioning.

The self is a deep pool,
harbouring a wealth of treasures,
reminding us there is always more to strive for,
inviting us to take the plunge.

Somewhere inside me is unparalleled beauty,
confidence, and grace,
there is merciless persecution –
both victim and participant-
and there is innocence abandoned and neglected.
Somewhere inside me,
this self-defacing identity
has hope of reparation –
and this relenting sense of futility
may uncover renewed purpose.

Day 226 “Resistance to Change”

The magician rehearses and I, alone, observe from the front row of the theater.

Assisted by two women, he plans his piece de resistance: the illusion of transformation, one woman appearing to give birth to another. Dark, terrifying, and magnificent.

In the final run through, one woman walks away, and because of my proximity, I am drawn in. The part is now mine.

“No!” I protest to no one listening. “I don’t know what to do. I’m not prepared!”

Everything around me turns to chaos: the stage manager suddenly falls ill, as does the stage hand. I am alone and the curtain is about to rise, and I have no choice but to play the role.

“Improvise”, I tell myself. “You can do it!”

Concealed beneath the cloak of mystery, my partner and I merge and appear as one entering the stage. Strobe lights cut through the dim atmosphere and the magician begins his spell, gesturing and waving cloths, and just at the right moment lifts the cloak and I’m pulled off stage, out of sight, and the new woman emerges: transformation has occurred – suddenly, magically, efficiently – and only those behind the scenes know the fear that led to this moment.

* * * *

The dream repeats itself again and again, and I toss and turn trying to shake it loose.

It makes no sense to me at first consideration, but then I see it: “All the world’s a stage,” Shakespeare penned, “And all the men and women merely players.” Reluctant players at times, as I am in the dream. Improvisational players.

No matter how much we prefer to sit in the audience and watch others perform, time comes when we are called to play our part – or as, in this case, the part chooses us.

Is this what this illness is about? Am I being called to transform myself, give “birth” to a new woman? Is this an opportunity? Or am I just participating in a grand illusion?

Change is never easy. I have certainly been dragged against my will into my current state, and I know I fear that my self is lost.

I do feel as if I am playing someone else’s role; this is not supposed to be happening to me. And yet it is. And why not me?

The woman who walked away – whose role I filled – she did so because she felt too vulnerable and didn’t want to be exposed. I didn’t have that choice. I had no rehearsal. I get one shot at getting it right. What pressure I am putting on myself to succeed at this illusion of transformation.

Thank goodness for the magician’s skills. I couldn’t do it without him.

Wonder who this magician is that makes change appear as easy as 1, 2, 3. I could use some of his magic.

Day 209 “The Multiverse”

In innocence, I first encountered her;
I, a mere child of five:
wide-eyed, curious, and unafraid;
she a creature of Nature.

The woods where I wandered were hers,
densely populated, untamed.
She eyed me with bewilderment,
this unattended sapling in her path.

With feline instincts she stalked me,
considering her moves
I was hers, undefended –
and so she took her time,
waiting for me to ripen for the attack.

She followed me through the fields
of adolescence,
pacing the perimeters
patiently biding her time.
And I, with growing awareness
came to understand her threat.
And I picked up the pace.

Into adulthood I ran,
seeking safety in the concrete walls
of business life, and fast-paced living
and like a cat with a mouse
she toyed with me,
knowing I’d be hers in the end.

She shrank back into the shadows
when motherhood became my calling
no doubt a Mother herself,
and therefore compassionately courteous.
But she never gave up.

Into old age I run, but –
the cougar grows closer,
her senses fully alert;
she smells my fear, and
fully powered she leaps
towards me,
and even
though
I seek
the safety
of my home
she easily
penetrates
the ineffective
doorways
of my
mind
and
pounces…

The Tao says that we live in a universe
of multiple possibilities –
a multiverse –
but when your life is spent
in survival mode,
in constant flight,
always looking behind
It is difficult to see the vast horizon
that lies ahead,
or even dream of possibilities

Day 205 “The Best of Times”

My dreams drag me back into my past; into lives and loves long forgotten, and my mind follows, driven by nostalgia, full of hope. Last night, it was my former husband, inviting me back to the marital home, needing my help, and I naively following, thinking all is forgiven; life moves on. We don’t make it past the local variety store, and a few old neighbours before I realize that I am mistaken. There is no innocent intent here, only an attempt to use me once again, and the rage surfaces propelling me out of the dream into the light of a new day.

Why do we always associate “the best of times” with the past? Is it easier to look back and gloss over the unpleasantness, focusing only on the good? Why can’t we then do that in the present?

I cannot remember a time when there was not some sort of stress in my life, and yet, undeniably, always an accompanying joy. Today is no different.

Struggling to come to terms with a chronic illness and the life changes that brings, on the back of a year of health hell for my husband, there is stress and times of frustration, however; our love for each other has grown proportionately, with a new depth of caring and compassion. There isn’t a day that goes by that I am not grateful for this man in my life, so that even in the darkest moments I know that I am blessed.

These are the best times, if I am truly honest. These very days in which we wish things were different: wistfully dreaming of another time, a brighter future. There are no better times than right now.

So today, as the sun shines through the window and blows off the nasty remnants of my dream, I sit at the edge of the bed and ponder the perfection of now (or the “perfect imperfection”, as the popular song says) and make a commitment to myself to embrace the day, whatever it brings.

Day 201 “Mental Balance”

I am travelling in the South with my son and one of his friends. We stop at a roadside restaurant and after being seated and ordering drinks, realize there is nothing that I can eat, so we decide to leave. John and his friend go to get the car while I settle up with the waitress. I spend a bit too much time talking and explaining and when I emerge from the restaurant, John, friend, and car are gone. My son has grown impatient with me and moved on. I am in a state of disbelief, rage, and then deep concern for my baby.

When I wake up, I can’t shake the emotions. Usually I dream that it is Thor that abandons me, but now it is my son? Obviously the dream is about more than being abandoned by my loved ones. So what does it mean?

I think back over my day leading up to the dream. Even though my new regimen requires that I sandwich exertion between periods of rest, I decided yesterday to proceed as if I wasn’t sick. I rolled from one activity into another and ignored the growing state of dis-ease. I pushed through, without pacing myself.

I’d always thought my abandonment dreams about Thor were related to his illness and my fear of losing him. John is a steady and loyal son, and never gives me reason to fear. Clearly the dream source is trying to tell me to revisit this particular theme. Who is abandoning whom? What if the dream is telling me that a part of me is neglecting another part of me? What part of self does Thor and my son represent? What part of me is always left feeling angry and forgotten?

John is typically patient and compassionate with me. He loves me like a son loves a mother: wholeheartedly. He laughs at my foibles, and shares with me his concerns. It would be totally out of character for him to drive away and leave me stranded in some strange, isolated place. So what part of me that is typically patient and compassionate, left me out in the cold yesterday? That is easy. It was the part that makes sure I am setting boundaries and taking care of myself. That part was definitely missing in action! I even went to Costco, even though I was overextended before I left the house, and walked the store despite my immediate recognition that all systems were overtaxed by the crowds and overabundance of stimuli. Then I came home and ignored my need to retreat into restful silence and chose to socialize with my family, staying out of bed for the remainder of the evening. I was like a pouting two and a half-old-year refusing to go for a nap even though I was well past my limitations.

Another idea starts taking shape in my mind. There is something else that I have been ignoring, and “leaving behind”. It is my creative self. I spent the greater part of the weekend in Toronto visiting Ester and her family. As I usually do, I packed a notebook for writing and my ipad, and while I had several inspiring thoughts, I did not stop to jot them down. Not even on the train ride home, when I had more than ample opportunity. My mind was so ripe with creativity that I lay awake for hours last night, despite my fatigue, replaying my storylines, and still I did not venture to record it.

“I know what the abandonment dreams are about,” I tell Thor. “It is about the many ways I sabotage my writing. It is my writer self that is so disappointed, enraged, and heart-broken.”

“You have always wanted to write,” Thor agrees. “And I can’t imagine that writing takes too much energy in comparison with everything else. Wouldn’t it actually recharge you?”

I cannot argue with him. So why do I deprive myself so? Why have I been unable to commit to this innate, and eternal passion of mine?

Derek Linn suggests that in order to manifest we need mental balance: a state of harmony between the outer ego self and the inner wounded self (my words). The ego thrives on accomplishment, but the inner sense of unworthiness sabotages by pulling back. I have long recognized in myself the ability to be brave and courageous when what I stand to lose has little value, but highly resistant to put myself out there when the outcome means the world to me.

Writing, being a writer, means the world to me. To write, and be published, and acknowledged would be the ultimate life accomplishment. It feels so risky, so vulnerable, so potentially disastrous that there is no wonder I abandon it time and again; writing anonymous blogs, like taking that part of me on a trip, and then leaving it there – somewhere far away from home – where it can’t hurt me.

I love my writer self. I adore her with all the emotion of a tender spouse or loving child, but I just can’t seem to make that commitment. So I leave her behind, telling myself that one day I will give her what she needs – make her a priority.

And in the meantime, she wanders the unfamiliar corridors of my mind, alone on the dark streets of my fearful psyche, wondering what she has done to be so blatantly ostracized: abandoned and deeply pained.

Day 194 “Buddha Nature”

The bus I am riding on is actually a small house. The bus driver sits at the front door and collects fares. The front door opens into a dining room, where riders are playing cards. I move back further, into the adjacent sitting area. My friend Sandy is here and she has a young child; a girl. The girl remembers me although I am sure I have not seen her in ages. The bus stops, and panicked I rush to get off, only to discover this is not my stop, so I rush back on the bus. I feel frazzled, but laugh at my error and return to my seat trying to relax. Then I realize I am missing my purse. Thinking I’d left it at the last stop, I holler to the driver to go back, but then see that I’d left it on a table in the front hall. I pick it up and notice that it is lighter than it was. In fact, it is the purse, emptied of its contents. I am outraged, and accuse all the occupants of the bus. As it turns out, I know many of them, and I rifle through their belongings looking to recover mine. Worst of all, my passport was in the purse and losing that is a nightmare. I know the culprit is on board.

Coming to terms with the diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is difficult, not unlike being robbed of one’s identification. In the dream, it is my passport I am worried about. My passport, in particular, is the only document that bears my full legal name. More importantly, it allows me to travel.

Replacing a passport is possible, but difficult. Metaphorically, I have lost my passport to come and go freely. Life now needs to be measured or paced, and I do not have credit to draw on. My purse has been emptied.

The bus that I travel on is me: the driver, the same robotic ego that takes me mindlessly through my daily route. The passengers are me also. Sandy is my over-analytical, uptight self, which is balanced by- or, perhaps (if I am more honest) protective of- my little girl innocence. The card players, and readers on board are me too. So is the thief.

Why is my bus a small house? My husband and I bought a small house over a year ago to retire in. We haven’t moved in yet, but it continues to be our promise for the future. Is this a premonition dream then? That the greatest struggle, or lost, will come when we move to our little house? Time alone will tell.

Derek Lin says that we each have a Buddha Self – an enlightened, loving self that lies at our inner core. As in the dream, I am struggling to find my bearings, conscious of the need to register my progress, and be on alert. I have long since moved away from a time when I trusted the process, and I am feeling disconnected from my Buddha Nature.

I can only hope that those who surround me don’t lose sight of it also. Reconnection will be my saving grace.

Day 185 “The Desire to Control”

In the bedroom, my mother is trying to settle the baby. I am in the kitchen trying to clean up when a gust of wind, followed by a wall of water hits me. The floor around me is quickly filling up with this flood of elements and I push my way through to find the source: the sliding glass window on my third story balcony is bent and off the track, unwilling to close.

“Grab me duct tape,” I yell, but no one hears me, so I rush to find it, trying desperately to minimize the damage.

Duct tape is no match for the storm brewing outside. There is no way to fix this problem.

This dream has unsettled me. I can’t shake the image and the feeling of hopelessness. Too many responsibilities. Too many things in need of repair. How did everything get so out of control?

I know it is a dream, but the need for my inhaler coming out of it is real. I have been struggling for weeks, no months, to get my breathing stabilized, and it is weighing on me. I am the same age my father was when he was diagnosed with emphysema; is this to be my fate also?

I try to go back to sleep, but can’t shake the image and the feeling that there is no solution. This is the end, my dream self realizes. When I do slide back, the images are no different: my baby daughter drowning in a pool and no one reacting but me, and I am too late; trying to take a shortcut home through the woods, only to find it is a dead end, blocked by police who turn me around, then realizing I have lost everyone, including myself.

Deep despair.

The dream is flooded with images from my life.

The setting is reminiscent of the apartment I rented after my first divorce. Marriage was to have been my salvation, but instead, here I was, more broken than before thrown back into the turmoil. Just released from the hospital, my sister Mai came to live with me. She was too fragile to live with my other sister, but the two were often present, adding to the chaos in my home.

The kitchen was how I defined myself at the time. I could cook – had cooked at home for the family – and I became the mother figure for all lost and single souls looking for a home cooked meal and a warm place to land. No one seemed to mind that my schizophrenic sister sat rocking endlessly in a chair in the corner, nor that my ailing (mentally as well as physically) older sister would drop in unexpectedly, bringing with her a constant storm of drama. Maybe it was dinner theater for those whose lives were comparatively tame.

The baby is my middle daughter, who traumatized by illness during pregnancy, struggled in the first years of her life, unable to sleep and constantly screaming in pain. For three years we dragged her from one specialist to the next desperately looking for an answer and eventually found one, but I remember the daily heart wrenching feeling of inadequacy as a mother who couldn’t meet her child’s needs.

The path into the woods was the one I took so many days as a child to find solace. Deep in the shelter of trees, there was peace and tranquility and it filled my soul many days and gave me the courage to carry on. The path is long gone and many have been lost in my life, myself included.

All my life, I have fought to overcome. Overcome failure, dis-ease, dis-order, and in-sanity.

Bottom line, as the dream so eloquently points out, is that there never is a way to fix all that. There is no sudden solution or ending. The storms of life rage on, ready to unleash their power at any time, and the only hope – the only answer – is to hold ground through it and humbly pick up the pieces afterwards, knowing that this is the best anyone can do; the best anyone can be.

Control is an illusion.

Day 147 “Existence”

We are not islands: isolated, insulated, to be ignored.

We are humans dancing through relationships,

weaving our tales,

intertwining stories,

with lovers, friends, families, enemies,

and our selves.

Yearning for love’s repricocity

Delighting in wonder of discovery

slugging through painful demise

striving to be better.

I dream of walls, and towers

and paths that lead nowhere

and these are the nature of my relationships –

artificial barriers,

lofty ideals,

dead ends.

Then I dream of hands that hold me

and gentle waters, soothing

and warm, passionate kisses

and I remember love’s rewards.

I exist.

Not for the possessions that I accumulate

but for the gifts I receive

when my heart opens and

my mind expands

in relationship with others.