Lovely to have, but it can be so complex to work them into life!
I had an amazing dream last night. I was in a garden, a bit like the one here in Ransberg, and it felt like a revisit, because I saw a tree that had grown well – maybe a nut tree? – which in my dream I had been involved in planting, must have been several years before. At the end of the garden there was a high screen. I felt that behind it was what had been done, been built, since I was there last. So I asked – maybe I begged, but it wasn't a person I was begging – to be allowed to see that. I was allowed. I don't recall the details, but it seemed awesome. The flashes I recall suggest that it was partly a work of tended nature: a garden full of lovely things; and partly something built, but somehow built to fit in with fruitful human use.
I don't recall the last time I had such a visionary dream. I have often had dreams about being able to fly, or glide, either above the ground or actually in the air, and that always feels good. But this was a different kind of dream. Then to add to that, this morning, relighting the stove (a high-tech ‘kachel’) there was a still live (wood) ember that was glowing red and was clearly in the shape of a heart.
But I don't know what it all means, if anything. Was it to do with recent conversations, perhaps? Meanwhile, my mind turns back to the biblical story of Moses, where it is recounted that he led the Israelites out of Egypt, and through Sinai, but was not allowed to enter the Promised Land himself. He did get to see it, though, from a nearby mountain. This also resonates with the story of Simeon in Luke's gospel, where it is enough for Simeon to see the infant Jesus, not needing to wait to see all his works. The Nunc Dimittis is what he is recorded as saying.
I don't yet see the promised land, if indeed it ever was promised, which seems to be ever less clear as year succeeds year. Waiting for Godot, perhaps. But I do have this sense, deep inside, that in some way I will see something of that promised land on the horizon, before I die. My dream reminds me of this sense.
It also makes sense. When the idea of CHOICE came to me, some 27 years ago, I was thinking that I would be able to see it developed in the following ten years or so. I did try. But now, 20 years after that didn't happen, I can take a more detached view. I don't have to wait around, self-importantly, for the world to change because of what I did. The story never finishes, in any case. What I would love is simply to know that the idea is out in the open, is actually implemented – I have no detailed idea how it will change things in the long term. However long I stayed in this life I would still not have any definitive answer. It is enough to see the tree firmly established and growing, and bearing its first fruit, perhaps – because it will be the fruit that will count in the end.
And there's another side to this, too. Doing something that is just my own is never going to satisfy me fully; nor doing something that is just someone else's. I'm sure that CHOICE will not be implemented in exactly the way I have imagined it – no one can see into a complex future that clearly. Rather, I see it as being slotted into place as one piece of a much larger jigsaw, and I am on a quest to find that jigsaw, step by step, and mould my jigsaw piece to fit in.
It seems to be long-standing wisdom that a man needs to prove himself, to individuate, to get beyond being sociable and pleasing, and do something of his own, before ‘settling down’ to stable relationship and family. I missed out on that for several reasons. And I carry this paradox with me: that to be fully myself, to prove myself and individuate, involves me being in relationship. Now, for sure, I've been sorely mistaken in the past. I started out thinking I had a way forward of my own, but it was really all in my head, so bound to disappoint. Later on, I must have been sending out the wrong messages, and attracting others who saw my willingness to comply with their agenda. I guess it is really difficult for others to see through what may come across as wanting to please, and understand that what I'm really looking for is reciprocal, co-creative relationships where the quality of the relationship is part of the essence of my individuation, at least. It does look paradoxical, doesn't it?
I experienced the limitation of my personal ability as a lone individual when doing a PhD. I found an interesting, challenging line of research, but in the end, when I looked around, there was no one else there! Occasionally I keep on sending out messages to people in closely related fields, in case my work is of some interest – it would be great fun to feel my old work joined up with an ongoing thread.
All in all, after recent conversations, my sense is still that my calling is closely bound up with building working relationships, where there is a shared motivation, brought by a common purpose and common values, to collaborate in bringing something good and new into the world, that we could not do as individuals. And where that something new includes a fusion of what I bring and what the other person brings.
More of that, please: dreams coming true at a deep, not a surface level.
Topics: CHOICE; Personal development
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