The Mystery of Dreams

Consider dreams- those fanciful stories that arrive, without our bidding, while we sleep. I have been noticing and pondering my dreams for 25 years now, and the longer I study them, the more I am amazed. After all these years they continue to surprise me with their creativity, and with the way they evoke things which had been going on beneath the surface of my consciousness in useful and surprising ways. As my teacher Rev. Dr. Jeremy Taylor was fond of asking “Who writes this stuff?” – because it is surely not our conscious mind, and yet here they are, showing us night after night a prolific creativity outside the light of conscious control.

We humans often think that what we see, hear, feel, and think with our waking mind is all there is. Our dreams hint that even our own psyches hold mysteries we have yet to uncover, parts of ourselves that our conscious, waking minds are not really paying attention to, parts of ourselves that are still emerging, still in formation. There are many theories about what dreams are, and I believe dreams probably have multiple purposes? One role of dreams is as a reservoir of creativity. Dreams help us process our lives without using the rational mind, or in a way that is complementary to the relational mind.

Paying attention to dreams can be a fruitful spiritual practice. Even if you haven’t remembered a dream in years, you might find that you remember a snippet of a dream here or there just because you read this column. If you wake up in the morning with the sense that you have had a dream, be still, don’t fully wake, just allow your conscious mind to go back inside the dream and review it, revisit it. Notice the landscape, notice the colors and how you feel. Have you been to this place before? Have you felt this way before? Jot down a couple of key words once you have revisited your dream.

Just remembering a dream with your conscious mind now and then, letting it accompany you back into waking can offer some insights or new feeling tones or colors to some aspect of your life. Once you are fully awake, think back over the dream and notice if any parts peak your attention, and invite those into your waking day. I once dreamed I had an armful of oranges, and when I woke I was inspired to draw with my orange pencil. I noticed how much that beautiful bright color was missing in our long dark winter, and how just having orange in my life seemed to cheer me up. Another time, when my son was young, I dreamed of a female lion, and happened to have a little figure of one that I put on my desk. It made me think of all the ways I was like a mother lion, fiercely protective of my son. It made me feel powerful at a time I was struggling with the chores and challenges of motherhood.

More details may come back to you in the simple act of writing the dream down. You could keep dreams in your regular journal if you already have a journaling practice or create a special journal just for dreams. Some folks start the day with their cup of coffee at the computer capturing dreams from the night before in a digital journal. Sometimes as we turn our dreams over in our waking minds insights are revealed, but other important insights may be hidden from our conscious minds, and so sharing our dream with an understanding friend can be fruitful.

When I first started exploring my dreams back in seminary, I wrote in my class notebook “I am concerned that my subconscious will not have exciting new messages for me, only things I already know.” But the more I pay attention, I find there really is something new and radically different to be found in dreams, an invitation to use the non-rational part of our minds. Our dreams are a fresh well we can draw from when we are ready to be surprised, when need reassurance that we are more than our thinking minds.

Seeds of Autumn

There is a lot of poetry written about autumn, much of it praising the brilliant colors of the leaves, and the melancholy as the trees let them go, which remind us of the things we let go of in our own lives, or that final letting go. As I was walking through a park with my friend I asked “what else is there to be said about fall?” She thought for just a moment and then reached up to the nearest tree, a sycamore, to pull off a seed ball. She ran her thumb across it and hundreds of tiny seeds were set free, each with their little puff of fluff that helps them travel. “Seeds – they are everywhere this time of year” she said.

As I have taken my morning walks each day I see that it is true- the milkweed pods with their cottony fluff. The bean tree pods that rattle when you shake them. The gross goo of the gingko tree fruit all over the sidewalk. A shower of little maple-tree wings fluttered by my window in the wind yesterday.

Seeds are the reason of the cranberries and apples and winter squash that show up on our tables at this time of year. Seeds are the reason we have the holly berries and pinecones with which we deck our halls. Here in the northeast the end of fall, beginning of winter there is a great abundance of seeds- so many plants taking this moment to release their investment in the future, feeding us and all the animals who need that nourishment to get through the coming winter.

I usually think about seeds in the spring, when it is time to start my garden, but the plants have been preparing their seeds all season, packing them with the crucial DNA, with a shell to keep that precious material safe until it’s time to grow, with a bit of nutrition to get them started, and with their own unique strategies to help them find just the right spot when it is just the right time to spring to life. All the seeds dropped now by trees, floating on the wind, or squirreled away by squirrels must wait. Many will wait until spring or summer, some will wait for years.

How hopeful I feel as I walk through my neighborhood noticing all the clever plant parents releasing their precious seeds- none of which are going to germinate in this frozen soil. So many of the trees and flowers and weeds that come to life next year will have had their start in this cold and blustery moment. Perhaps it will give you hope too, to think of ourselves releasing our own metaphorical seeds, year after year, some of which will sprout in another season, while others may wait for years to find their right time to grow. Blessings for all the seeds released this season: the ancient wisdom coiled inside their very DNA, the hard protective shell for the waiting, and the faith that the right time to burst forth and grow will come again- as it always does in the ancient cycle of life.

What Heals?

One summer the whole family got Covid. Ugh. I asked my friends on social media for advice, and the frequent refrain was “rest, rest, rest!” My doctor agreed, so I did. Even when I couldn’t fall asleep, I tried to rest. One day when I was feeling somewhat better but still sick I spent some time sitting in my comfy bed reading a book. When I stood up I noticed I was sore. A light-bulb went off in my mind as I remembered that folks who have a serious long-term recovery in the hospital must be turned regularly so they don’t get bedsores. Resting is not the same as being perfectly still.

My wandering mind made another connection-- usually when I have an injury from my yoga practice, or from sitting at the computer, the first thing I try is to not-do the thing that hurts; I rest the parts of my body that are telling me something is wrong. For years I had done this with a particular injury, but no amount of resting seemed to help. Finally my doctor sent me to a Physical therapist who taught me exercises that would help strengthen the muscles needed to support the joints that were hurting.

I hadn’t done any of my PT exercises while I was struggling through the first few days of Covid, but that day I rolled out my yoga mat and did the most basic, gentle exercises. The fatigue and some of the symptoms lingered, but I realized (again as if for the first time) that some problems need something more than rest to resolve. That rest must always be balanced with challenge, with gaining strength and using our capacities. This is true not only for our physical strength and capacities, but for our psyche and our spirit. [If you want to learn more, look up “behavioral activation” for some interesting research on how this can help us with our mental health]

I remember riding my bike up and down the hills in my neighborhood as a kid. I remember how hard I worked to pedal up the hills, and the joy of coasting down the other side. Now that I have celebrated enough birthdays to be officially “over the hill” I think there is a temptation to want to just coast. But as long as we are alive, we must balance resting and strengthening, pedaling and coasting, fiery sun energy and the passive reflective light of the moon. In yoga asana, we are challenged, even in the same pose, to notice which muscles are working, and which muscles can relax and rest (like how clenching your jaw actually doesn’t help with a challenging balance pose). This takes a perpetual discernment- today in this moment, whether I am doing chores, working a busy office job, running a marathon, or recovering from illness or injury, what balance of effort and ease, of challenge and rest would be most healing and fruitful?

Wobbling

My son Nick, in early days of standing on his own, balances on this ancient redwood, a grin of success on his face.

 

Recently I started Physical Therapy for a problem I’ve had for a long time. Frankly it’s making me grumpy. I can’t tell if it’s working, but I ache in new places and I just feel off kilter. There are lots of reasons for us to get off kilter; it could be a loss or injury, a new job or relationship. From new traffic patterns on our commute to a bathroom under construction, even minor changes can ripple out in surprising ways.

I remember noticing, when my son was little, that periods of discomfort and frustration were often followed by leaps of growth, like teething, learning to walk, learning to talk, or mastering some new skill. When we are very young this cycle repeats itself in quick repetition, so it is easy to see that a period of frustration precedes a period of new mastery and confidence. Now that we are older, our growth spurts can be harder to spot. We assume because we are adults with bills to pay and laundry to fold that we are done growing, we are “grown up.”

But living beings are never done growing; being alive always involves change and growth. Our changing world requires change and growth. And as any teething toddler can tell you, growth is not comfortable.

Have you ever watched a child who was just learning to walk? There’s a lot of wobbling as they learn to balance – a lot of falling too. Adults don’t like to wobble. Not only does it undermine our adult sense of competence, but it feels a bit out of control. When my grandmother had a stroke years ago, it took her weeks of physical therapy to learn to walk again. She sounded amazed when she told us that story- both amazed that a full grown adult could have to learn again one of the earliest tasks of life, but also that such learning was possible. Of course not all people are able to walk, and this offers a different form of the same challenge- the wobble of learning to get around in the world in our own way.

I have a friend who was an advanced student of martial arts. He told me that whenever they learned some new sequence that required balance, he would wobble around experimenting. He assumed the other students judged him for wobbling, but he knew that the process of wobbling around in a new position ultimately gave him better mastery of it. Imagine all the years of wobbling it takes Olympic gymnasts to stick the landing, then light up with that victorious grin on their faces.

So if you find yourself feeling wobbly in your ever changing life -- physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually -- perhaps it would help to remember the toddler growing from a crawler to a walker. The bigger the growth and change, the more wobbling may be required. Sometimes a period of wobbling and disorientation means that new growth is just around the corner. Blessings for all who wobble.

Faithful Moon

  

I have taken many disappointing photos of the moon over the years, and a few good ones. I noticed, as I searched through my photos, that I mostly have photos of the full-ish moon, and no photos at all of a crescent moon. I gave myself a summer discipline- I would take a photo of the moon each day for a month. I’d always been a bit confused about when and where the moon would appear, and hoped this practice would help me finally understand. I downloaded a moon app to my phone, so I would know what time the sun would rise and set each day.

 

Fortuitously, on the first day of my new discipline, a waxing gibbous moon appeared in the sky while I was taking my dogs for their evening walk. I rushed to grab my camera and fiddled with settings until I got a passable photo. The next night I couldn’t find the moon, so I explained my daily-moon-photo plan to the family and asked them to please yell out “moon” whenever they saw it. The first time my partner yelled “moon” I rushed to spot where he was pointing – there it was! I ran for my camera, but by the time I got back, it was covered by clouds. Disappointed, I added another app to my phone so I could more reliably locate the moon in the sky. I checked my app several times each day and began making progress toward my goal. 
One night that great super moon was due to rise right at bedtime. I live in a valley and it would take hours for the moon to appear above the hills and tree line from my house. Not wanting to miss it, I jumped in the car and drove to the top of a hill, finally capturing a lovely photo in a gap between trees and through whisps of clouds. 

I was starting to get the hang of it- the moon rose later and later each day, generally rising at one side of my yard behind one clump of trees, and setting near the front of my house behind another clump of trees. I looked forward to my first morning photos of the crescent moon, but between the trees in full leaf and the morning clouds, days went by with no photo. Soon my app showed me that the crescent moon would be right near where the sun was appearing, but I couldn’t look at the spot without hurting my eyes. I finally understood why I had so few photos of the crescent moon!

Each day I searched the sky multiple times, the disciple no longer about snapping a photo, or even spotting the moon, but just following the trajectory by holding the app up to trees or buildings or whatever blocked my view. At least I was learning something. A Jewish month always starts on the new moon- historically months began on the day that the first little sliver is sighted in the sky by 2 witnesses, and validated by the trained astronomer Rabbis. As my month of moon watching approached the time of the new moon I understood why it was traditional for folks to stand on a hill together awaiting that first moon siting. Even with my partner and son helping, it was a full 6 days after the calendar told me the new moon had appeared before I saw it with my own eyes.

Then the rains began, and I tracked an invisible moon holding my app up to the cloudy sky for several days with no photograph at all. Finally the waxing gibbous moon appeared as I walked my dogs in the evening, just as it had the month before.

Through all those days when there was no visible moon to photograph, a phrase kept popping into my mind “Faithless as the moon.” I went to look up the text, sure it was Shakespeare, and found I had made it up. Because in fact the moon is not faithless, she is right where she should be in her transit whether we can see her or not. What Shakespeare did write (in Romeo and Juliet) is: “Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly. then your love would also change.” This is also not quite true; the appearance of the moon changes, and where she hangs in the sky and when, but the moon itself is quite predictable if you track her patterns and do a little math (or download an app).

The moon is actually quite faithful and changeless -- it is only our point of view that changes. As a preacher this spoke to me. In these quixotic and dramatically changing times. In a summer when both rainstorms and long dry periods came in unprecedented and anxiety-producing ways, I liked the idea that the moon was always there whether we could see it or not. I came to enjoy and look forward to the practice of noting the moon’s rise and set and following her transit on the sky, even when she was invisible to me day after day until finally, right on schedule, the clouds parted and she appeared where she was supposed to be. Perhaps the moon can help us have faith in those things we know are there but cannot see, like the Love that never lets us go. Like the inescapable web of life which holds us in relationship even when we feel most alone. After a summer of searching for the moon, she has become a reminder, when we see her and when we don’t, that there is more to this universe than we can see, and we can have faith in that.

I have taken many disappointing photos of the moon over the years, and a few good ones. I noticed, as I searched through my photos, that I mostly have photos of the full-ish moon, and no photos at all of a crescent moon. I gave myself a summer discipline- I would take a photo of the moon each day for a month. I’d always been a bit confused about when and where the moon would appear, and hoped this practice would help me finally understand. I downloaded a moon app to my phone, so I would know what time the sun would rise and set each day.

Fortuitously, on the first day of my new discipline, a waxing gibbous moon appeared in the sky while I was taking my dogs for their evening walk. I rushed to grab my camera and fiddled with settings until I got a passable photo. The next night I couldn’t find the moon, so I explained my daily-moon-photo plan to the family and asked them to please yell out “moon” whenever they saw it. The first time my partner yelled “moon” I rushed to spot where he was pointing – there it was! I ran for my camera, but by the time I got back, it was covered by clouds. Disappointed, I added another app to my phone so I could more reliably locate the moon in the sky. I checked my app several times each day and began making progress toward my goal.

One night that great super moon was due to rise right at bedtime. I live in a valley and it would take hours for the moon to appear above the hills and tree line from my house. Not wanting to miss it, I jumped in the car and drove to the top of a hill, finally capturing a lovely photo in a gap between trees and through whisps of clouds. 

I was starting to get the hang of it- the moon rose later and later each day, generally rosing at one side of my yard behind one clump of trees, and setting near the front of my house behind another clump of trees. I looked forward to my first morning photos of the crescent moon, but between the trees in full leaf and the morning clouds, days went by with no photo. Soon my app showed me that the crescent moon would be right near where the sun was appearing, but I couldn’t look at the spot without hurting my eyes. I finally understood why I had so few photos of the crescent moon! 

Each day I searched the sky multiple times, the disciple no longer about snapping a photo, or even spotting the moon, but just following the trajectory by holding the app up to trees or buildings or whatever blocked my view. At least I was learning something. A Jewish month always starts on the new moon- historically months began on the day that the first little sliver is sighted in the sky by 2 witnesses, and validated by the trained astronomer Rabbis. As my month of moon watching approached the time of the new moon I understood why it was traditional for folks to stand on a hill together awaiting that first moon siting. Even with my partner and son helping, it was a full 6 days after the calendar told me the new moon had appeared before I saw it with my own eyes.

Then the rains began, and I tracked an invisible moon holding my app up to the cloudy sky for several days with no photograph at all. Finally the waxing gibbous moon appeared as I walked my dogs in the evening, just as it had the month before.

Through all those days when there was no visible moon to photograph, a phrase kept popping into my mind “Faithless as the moon.” I went to look up the text, sure it was Shakespeare, and found I had made it up. Because in fact the moon is not faithless, she is right where she should be in her transit whether we can see her or not. What Shakespeare did write (in Romeo and Juliet) is: “Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly. then your love would also change.” This is also not quite true; the appearance of the moon changes, and where she hangs in the sky and when, but the moon itself is quite predictable if you track her patterns and do a little math (or download an app).

The moon is actually quite faithful and changeless -- it is only our point of view that changes. As a preacher this spoke to me. In these quixotic and dramatically changing times. In a summer when both rainstorms and long dry periods came in unprecedented and anxiety-producing ways, I liked the idea that the moon was always there whether we could see it or not. I came to enjoy and look forward to the practice of noting the moon’s rise and set and following her transit on the sky, even when she was invisible to me day after day until finally, right on schedule, the clouds parted and she appeared where she was supposed to be. Perhaps the moon can help us have faith in those things we know are there but cannot see, like the Love that never lets us go. Like the inescapable web of life which holds us in relationship even when we feel most alone. After a summer of searching for the moon, she has become a reminder, when we see her and when we don’t, that there is more to this universe than we can see, and we can have faith in that. 

An Abundance of Stones

We live not far from Cayuga lake, and when we speak of “the lake” that is what we mean -- deep cold water surrounded on many sides by rock face and tree-covered hills in alternation. I had never lived near a lake before, and we are still somewhat amazed and grateful to have it as a neighbor. Imagine our surprise on our first visit to Lake Ontario- we thought of Cayuga as a large lake (it is the longest of the Finger Lakes) but it is small compared to Lake Ontario whose opposite shore disappears beyond the horizon. Unlike walking the silty shore of lake Cayuga, where I can gaze at the landscape as I walk, we noticed walking the shore of Lake Ontario day after day, that our eyes were constantly drawn down; the shore where we walked was covered with smooth, rounded stones making a bumpy and uncertain footing -- at times like walking on marbles. On our Lake Cayuga shore dark grey shale rocks, pointy and flat, predominate. The shores of Lake Ontario collect some of the most diverse rocks in the world rounded and polished by the motions of the lake. 

As my we walked and rambled and gazed my eyes were drawn to particular stones. At first I was charmed by the perfectly smooth oval stones in pastel colors- many had subtle stripes or concentric circles showing the layers which formed the rocks over time. Others sparkled and looked like diamonds reflecting the sun in the shallow water. My husband and I noticed some that made us laugh- one, he said, resembled Fred Flintstone’s remote (we brought that one home). Many had flecks of bright colors -- pink, red, yellow. The green ones were rare, so I had to pick those up when we saw them. Some we admired for their smoothness and rubbed them between our fingers. Some had beautiful stripes like the landscape. I could go on. In fact, all week I admired the stones, in piles and one by one. We filled our pockets with stones and made stones into beach sculpture. I brought some up onto the deck, to admire them once again -- to notice how dramatically they changed when dry. 

There were just too many stones. Too many beautiful, unique, interesting, smooth, shiny stones. I put my very favorites (still too many) in a container to take home when we packed up, and we brought the rest back to the beach where, of course, there was still an unimaginable number of stones beckoning.

This is a good problem to have. I remember days when I’m so down that nothing seems beautiful; hard feelings obscure my sense of joy and gratitude like clouds in front of the sun, and everything seems dull and grey. What a blessing to have days where I am cheered and inspired and moved by the beauty that is all around us, even the stones beneath our feet. “Taste and see” encourages Psalm 34 and truly there is goodness all around us, even in this world that also has struggle and sorrow. 

On such a morning, standing at the edge of the lake looking at those stones sparkling I feel, somehow, responsible for seeing, tasting, enjoying and being grateful for it all. There is so much when you gaze on the world around us in wonder and awe; some days it overwhelms me. It is too much for our human hearts- it is simply too immense. Perhaps we can only really love it one stone a time -- one flower, one sunset, one friend at a time. I can imagine coming to know this so deeply that I no longer have to fill my pockets with rocks, that I could hold a lovely thing in my hand, and then set it down, knowing that there are truly an infinite number of beautiful things all around us. In the meantime I do enjoy that bucket of rocks I brought home from our time away. For now it is enough.

 

How We Hold On In Discouraging Times

from the Smart Anglers Notebook by Carl Richardson, illustrated by Ted Walke

While stopped for a travel break at the Pennsylvania visitor’s center, we found a display about ice fishing, including a description of how to make and use your own ice awls. The helpful illustrations showed how, if you fell through the ice, you could use the awls by driving each spike into the ice, pulling yourself out of the water and onto the ice, and then rolling to safer ice. Though I will probably never do any ice fishing myself, I was so impressed by the clear instructions and practicality that I grabbed a flier on my way out.

Later on that evening, the family was talking about Habitat For Humanity’s first ever 3d printed house. We were charmed by the idea- how pretty the house had looked, how quickly it had been built. “Maybe this could make a real difference,” said someone hopefully. A young person in my family expressed a long-time frustration that no matter how many small improvements we make, great suffering continues. We offered examples of big changes in the world, like in the fight against Malaria and AIDS, but he countered with the big persistent problems of our time. He's right of course. There are many people suffering right at this moment. And some of that suffering could be relieved if we came together a did all we could, yet the great problems persist.

It's important to look critically and realistically at the problems of our world. But when we do, it is easy to sink into despair. “Despair” I offered “can be a slippery slope. We can always come up with more and more reasons to feed our despair, and once we begin, it has a kind of addictive quality and a limitless appetite. It sucks us in. In my experience, despair is not helpful.” I grasped around for a metaphor. “These little bits of good news, like the Habitat for Humanity houses, they are like the points in the ice awls. We grab on to them to pull ourselves out of despair, so that we can roll to safer ice.” Once we have pulled ourselves out of the suck of despair, then we can look for solutions, and do whatever things we can do to make life better for all we touch.

Our spiritual practices can be like those ice awls. When I feel the pull of despair, they anchor me in whatever solid ground I can find. One practice I use is looking for what my teacher Brook Thomas calls “basic goodness”- by which she means not necessarily something that feels good (it can be hard to find anything that makes us feel good when we are truly discouraged) but any ordinary sort of neutral feeling. If I am having one of those days when “everything hurts” I might notice that actually the tops of my feet feel neutral. If my worries are weighing me down, I notice those basic things I don’t often pay attention to; right now I am in a dry, warm room with working electricity that powers my computer and a nearby lamp. I have a full belly and am able to breathe without effort. I hear the sounds of my housemates and neighbors. All of those ordinary good things are like the solid ground on which we can anchor ourselves. Even if, say, your heating goes out, or you have a respiratory illness that makes breathing onerous, we can shift our anchor to some other basic goodness- the people who will answer if I reach out to them, the solidity of the comfy chair that holds me up, the warm blanket I wrap myself in.

I believe that there is a basic goodness that is deeper and larger than all the troubles of the world. One of the most important practices that sustain us in unstable times is to remember and connect to this deeper goodness. I encourage you to locate or build your own “Spiritual Awls,” and keep them handy whenever you notice yourself sinking towards despair. This is one of the reasons for spiritual practice, so that we can anchor ourselves in what is good, what is enduring, even in challenging times. Anchored in basic goodness we are able to see the beauty in even the coldest winter, and to help and support one another from that stable ground.