"I wake up in the morning with a dream in my eyes."
Allen Ginsberg
I woke up this morning with a dream in mine. It was a long and intricate dream that began with pages of my novel in galley form and me being somewhat astounded at the profoundness of my words on the page that way. Switched to a labyrinthine journey with my horse, Keil Bay, by my side, the regular path blocked, detours and new directions to take, (horse folks will appreciate the detail that at one detour I noted a gigantic stack of Adequan boxes, filled with vials of the expensive glucosamine fluid - the fluid of ease of motion, forward motion, relief...)
Ended with me and Keil Bay in a room, facing several doors: one that led to a wall, another that was blocked but passable with some work, one that was locked, and the one we had come through, marked "exit."
Remarkable to me was the feeling of peace and stillness that ended the dream. It was okay to wait, to be, to Not Act, which, by the way, is often hard for me to do. Being without action. :)
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billie hinton’s camera-obscura:
life and lessons on November Hill Farm
5 comments:
It was definitely not a no-exit scenario...
In the movie version, I'm quite sure Keil Bay would gallantly kick the door down for me. :)
But in the small artsy indie version, you'd likely hear Keil Bay's soft blowing snort of alertness, see me quiet him and perhaps read into that gesture my awareness that we need to move on to where we're going. I would certainly aim for the door that was blocked, not locked... having, after all, some familiarity and experience with removing blockages. :)
Depending on how long it took me to clear the door, you might see a dominant and very large horse start to express his impatience to get to pasture/stall with hay/home... in Keil's case this would be a rapid nodding of his head, not so subtle nudging with his nose, and if truly pushed to his limits, pawing and stomping. I can easily see him nosing in to help out with the clearing at that point. :)
You'd feel the partnership he and I have. Maybe suspense as to what might happen when we actually get through that blocked door. Would we encounter something unexpected? Or just the path to the barn?
I still don't know the answer to that!
billie
I'm trying an experiment, based on the Wendell Berry poem in the previous post, on the line: "Everything we need is here."
It could be a clue in this door situation and in a lot of others in the course of an ordinary hour.
Peggy, report back on your experiment!
And yes, in the dream, there was some sense just before I woke up that that was reallly no need to go through any of the doors.
I guess if you look at the dream through the lens of book/publishing stuff it is pretty representative of how I've been feeling - a wall, a locked door, a blocked door, the exit...:)
One of these days there will just be The Open Door.
Without any work on my part. (except, of course, providing the pages)
Here's my report: I forgot about my experiment as soon as I'd decided to try it.
So, here goes again.
On second thought, maybe it was in the background of my thinking: I've gotten a lot of big things done easily today. Shipped off my book proposal to my agent after adding the bit of material she thought it needed. Asked a Biggie for a book blurb. Blogged-- well, I guess that's not huge. Plus, endured a miserable medical test--well, maybe that wasn't so easy.
Still-- I think the experiment was working without my knowing it. I wasn't uneasy or procrastinating or perfectionistic about anything.
Your day sounds mightily productive to me! Here's to a quick sale, a Big Blurb in The Bag, and successful medical procedures that are In The Past.
As seems to be the way of it, my riding lesson this afternoon mirrored the lesson in the dream. There are so many goals in any given lesson, and inasmuch as my ability to keep legs/hands/seat/shoulders all in balance does actually resemble a labyrinth ending with a host of closed doors, the way it works best, and like zen, is when I ride what Keil Bay gives me in the best way I can in that moment. Trusting that and being with him always leads to breakthroughs.
Have I ever mentioned that the way I found Keil Bay was on a late-late-night whim, I went to DREAMHORSE.COM and typed in criteria for my very own dream horse? This is a national website with many thousands of horses in the entire country. ONE horse popped up. In Hillsborough, NC and his name was Keil Bay. I know synchronicity when it hits me in the face - I went and did a trial ride, terrified b/c he was far more advanced than I was, and had the ride of my adult life. When I got off and he rested his head on my shoulder, I knew, despite the fact that I had in no way intended to buy myself a horse at that point, that it was time to leap. :)
What we need is here.
billie
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