My dream vanished. It’s going to be one of those weird days, I reckon, soon confirmed by a fleeting glance while passing a mirror. My morning ritual includes stretching muscles while coffee filters into the cup. I breakfast before the screen, skim through emails and various online papers, shake head at captions ranging from atrocious, futile to hilarious, the latter due to brexasparation. The scene beyond the window calms – wispy clouds, birds flitting from hedge to tree to hedge, familiar cats slouching across frosted grass, the ginger, the black & white bushy monster, the nimble black tom with white paws and white-tipped tail, much like an exclamation mark.
With no commitments today, I embark on my weekly shopping trip to town. Small wonder I can’t get warm, the steep drop in temperature is topped by a bitter wind. Minding the weirdness of my day, I’m super careful on the road and pay for two hours parking, anticipating a disorganised shopping round. Sure enough, I miss items on my scrawled list and retrace my steps time and time again through a lattice of chilled shelves. I tell the woman at the checkout, ‘I can’t get warm today,’ a detail of hardly any interest to her or anyone, including me.
‘It will get colder,’ she nods, shrewdly.
At home, I store away stuff and screen up again. Beast from the East weather forecast, blog posts, articles. Weirdness continues. I cancel plans for more editing on my second novel, Shapers, and grab the vacuum cleaner instead, as if it could suck the dust from my mind. The effort earns me another coffee. Then a thought tumbles in from nowhere …
Often people are worth more dead than alive – where the heck did that come from?
My vanished dream lights up. Faces re-emerge, of friends who passed on during the last two decades, some through death, others through metaphorical deaths, that is, circumstantial rifts and distancing. The dream brought a vivid afterglow of relationships, insights of unconditional love, as well as shadow aspects – what I judged and misread in the behaviour of others, what others judged and misread in my behaviour. The dynamics of projections are illuminated by a revision of experiences through layers of time, and through the imagined intuitive eyes of others. Broken threads reweave into fresh patterns, consciousness expands.
I deeply appreciate the dreams that provide an afterglow to the relationships in my life, be it the ones marked by kindness and love or the ones distorted by projections and a narrow reading of intentions. The insights that dreams bring help me to renew my sense self, no matter how delusional, it’s what I need to function in this world.
We can always benefit and also contribute towards collective harmony with a widening of perspectives through other eyes, including the eyes of strangers.
I’m reminded of one of my first posts, about the shadow
Click on the above link and you’re there.
Course of Mirrors 
Thank you for this – on at least three counts. First of course is your writing, which I all ways enjoy. Second, I am identifying with ‘brexasperation,’ realizing I need to coin my own phrase for the US version [although perhaps I’ll hold off sharing it online just now]. And third, I spent the day reading over an extraordinary exchange I ginned up with my sister in the months prior to her death one year ago – extraordinary because for the one and only time in her life, we were able to get to some pretty deep sharing based on writing prompts we gave one another and then responded to. It was a last-ditch effort to keep her involved in something; today it is a sweet gift with such an afterglow, I can hardly speak it. Thank you for the image and the chance to reflect that glow here.
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Thank you Sarah. The glow around the images in the dream opened the heart, which made for a deeper and wider attitude. The significant things move into the light, they can be very small gestures of kindness indeed. But in some cases, we need the distance to notice. ☼
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Hello Ashen
A “Collective harmony” I suspect could be that of as little as two participants, or only that.
The expansive times of collectivism are usually hand-in-hand with comfortable social and/or financial eras. Ironically, it’s likely to feel “at one” with a crowd of protesters fighting for better conditions.
But true collective harmony is surely a pipe dream when one considers the inner needs of the mind to express and be free?
Great to able to read your work again Ashen and I’m sorry to hear you are feeling the cold.
B
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Hi B. In my experience, our individual attitude, the way we perceive others, even if not outwardly expressed, has a powerful influence. Certainly with people around us. But I believe, our attitude to people, to situations, also leaves a trace in the collective consciousness. Otherwise our singular existence would make no sense, would be futile. At least that’s what I like to believe. 🙂 Often, ironically, it is discord that leads to a greater harmony.
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Ashen, you’ve put me in a dreamy and contemplative state of mind. It feels good!
Take care —
Neil S.
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Thank you, Neil ☼
Today is super dreamy here in the Surrey UK. … fluffy snowflakes dancing in sunshine. ☼
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Yes, yes, and yes. Also a needed post for me today. Step back, watch, breathe, dream.
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Thanks Mary. Will do, must do. ☼
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that first paragraph described my mornings perfectly – except for the monster paart.
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🙂 Thanks for the visit.
The black & white bushy monster has been hanging around for years. When I catch it chasing other cats I sometimes use the garden hose.
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Ashen, a beautifully reflective post … I love the idea of collective harmony and often wonder about the essence we leave behind us, the effect we have on all who touch us.
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Thanks, Annika ☼ I imagine every signature tune joins the symphony – how could it be otherwise?
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This is great! You have a way with words!
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Thank you, Savannah ☼
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