"A Dream"

A Dream of Keith’s

(Early in the morning of Thursday, July 17, 2008)

One of my favorite stories is an American folktale by Margaret Prescott Montaque. It is entitled “Big Music.” Here are a couple of excerpts that speak to me:

“All a feller had to do was jest to jump into a tune and let it carry him on away. For when the big music comes it ain’t like little musics, you don’t dance to it, it dances you . . . It’s like I say, when the big music comes it dances you, you don’t dance to it, but every feller’s free to pick his own tune.”

Recently, I’ve been thinking about what my “tune” may be, and if anyone would want to listen to it and maybe even dance to it. I think that “our tune” is the things we are passionate about. It is the thing that makes as “glow” when we are doing it. It is the thing that we’d choose to do whether we got paid for it or not. It’s our “bliss.” Joseph Campbell once said:

“FOLLOW YOUR BLISS”

[I]f you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.

(Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, p. 120)

One of the things that I love to do is to write. However, there is a part of me that is afraid of sharing—afraid that I’m not a very good writer and that no one would care to listen to “my music.” I found it very affirming that I recently had the following dream:

I found myself in a very crowded “ship.” It was like the cruise ship that Kim, my wife, and I sailed on for our cruise to Bermuda. However, this ship was a self-enclosed “space cruise ship.” Also, it seemed to be some kind of life boat. All the people aboard were there because it was our last best chance. It seemed that earth had been destroyed or was no longer habitable. The ship’s capacity had been exceeded many times over. The people were really packed in there. I remember being in one area of the ship where we were all lying around on the floor or sitting in such close proximity that we were actually touching or nearly doing so. Initially, I had some feelings and thoughts of: “This is crazy!” “How are we ALL going to survive with such limited space and limited supplies?” “Whew. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this.”

Surprisingly, everyone was really well behaved and considerate of each other. There was no chaos or rioting. Basically, everyone sensed that we were in a fix and that we had to get along together. I don’t know if it means anything or is significant, but I remember that one of my classmates from Simms High School who was also a wrestler came to me and jokingly started to wrestle around with me. I was kind of in a sullen mood and just wanted to be left alone. I quickly grabbed his inside leg and rolled over so he was underneath me. After somewhat immobilizing him, he looked up and with a smile on his face said something like, “Next time it will be me on top.”

I next remembered that we were all in a big dining area where all the tables and chairs had been cleared from the center of the room and pushed against the walls. I found myself in a crowded back area doing up some dishes. I had some of my “stuff” with me. I remembered that I had a video tape of It’s a Wonderful Life, and some DVDs, CDs, and cassettes that I don’t remember the titles of. I do remember that dad was back in this crowded area, and the two of us were doing up the dishes or something like that. I got kind of perturbed, or irritated, because dad had dripped some water on some of my “stuff.” It wasn’t a big irritation, just a kind of, “Geez, I wish you’d be a little more careful.”

I guess someone heard us talking because they said, “Hey, what do you have there?”

I replied, “Oh, it’s nothing. It just some old movies and music of mine. You wouldn’t be interested.”

I was really surprised when some of “my music” was put on and played over the loud speakers in this dining area. Everyone stopped what they had been doing and gathered to listen and dance to it. It wasn’t like a regular dance. Basically, everyone lined up in two big groups on either side of the room. People would be moving and swaying to the music until it was their turn to join with their partner from the other group, and then, the two of them would invent a dance as they danced together towards the front. The dances were all really original and actually in some cases kind of bizarre. However, no one made fun of anyone else and everyone waited patiently for each partnership to complete their dance.

So in summary, we were all of a “life space ship” crowded together. We were uncertain where we were going, but there was no going back because what had been would no longer work for us. I didn’t think that anyone would be interested in what I had. However, I found that people were really longing to have someone organize something for them to do or be involved in and that, surprisingly enough, what I had to offer was of interest and worth to these people.