Dreaming of peace

I'm not one to remember dreams easily. I keep a dream journal for the ones that are vivid enough for me to recall more than just a few images, but the entries are rare, usually spaced a month or more in between.

Last night I had a dream in which I could remember most of the storyline. As with many dreams, it has laughably unrealistic elements, but upon waking, I was struck by the thread of transformation that runs throughout.

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I dreamed that I, together with a group of nameless acquaintances and friends, was sent into a building with an important task: to search the building for an escaped criminal who had not yet been found. His crimes were unclear to me, but he was thought to be dangerous.

Our group ascended the floors of the building to the very top, many stories high, into a darkened attic. We began to search the shadowy space, cluttered with boxes and furniture, and I was afraid. Before long, a member of the group found the fugitive hiding in a corner. As soon as we all saw him crouched there, it became clear to me that he was not a man, but a large dog. The man who had found him grabbed him, but he escaped. I was one of those closest, so I dove after him in pursuit.

The dog had escaped down a sort of passageway that led downward to the ground floor of the building. Rather than stairs or an elevator, there were a series of platforms and ropes, and somehow I knew how to use the ropes to swing myself down and down past the platforms, sort of like Tarzan's vines, but only straight downward. After doing this for a short while, I figured out a way to descend two platforms in one swing, which was twice as fast. I found the dog and grabbed it tight.

It wasn't the large dog I thought I had seen earlier - it was only a little shih tzu. It bit and gnawed my hand so that it bled, but I held on while someone ran to get help. 

As I continued to hold this little dog, I cradled it against my body, and soon looked down to find that it was not a dog at all - it was a newborn baby. The baby fell fast asleep, and I held it against me as it slept.

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When I relive the story in terms of its basic events, it's nothing more than a funny collection of weird occurrences that can only happen in dreams. But as I reflected on the dream this morning, I was moved by its incredibly hopeful depiction of "evil". In this case, evil was personified as an escaped criminal, who devolved step by step into a large dog, then a small one, and finally a peacefully sleeping baby. When my dream self faced the perceived danger head-on, I found that it wasn't dangerous at all. There was only love.

May it be so with our perceptions of evil in the world today.

With love for a flower and a poem

Apparently it's National Poetry Month! So it makes sense to share a poem that always floats through my thoughts (for obvious reasons) during the first few days of spring every year. Because who doesn't love to see (or even just think about) daffodils?


I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.