I had the most amazing dream last night! I woke up this morning before the alarm thinking about the series of dream segments that I’d just been in.
I’m in the passenger seat of a big truck. It’s being driven by a man I know to be one of the most competent, thoughtful people on the planet. He would do anything for anyone. Anyway, he’s driving and I’m reading Ender’s Game, at least it’s supposed to be Ender’s Game, but it’s much bigger than that book, and it’s got a number of bookmarks in it ahead of where I’m at, also the next page that I’m to read is missing a big chunk of text. It’s been torn out from the top. So, I’m reading away in this book and I look up. It’s dark out and we’re driving down a very winding road, much like the roads I drive around on to get to and from my home in waking life. I look up and see the curving road ahead and glance to the side and realize that now no one is driving the truck. I’ve been riding and reading in a truck driven by no one!
So, naturally I panic and schooch over to take the wheel. Now, I have to tell you, I had been in the most comfortable seat, but this one, the driver’s seat? It’s all squishy, there’s no room for my legs, and I buckle myself in and now the seatbelt is cutting across my neck in a very uncomfortable way.
So, now I’m driving, incredibly uncomfortable, and I drive into what turns out to be somebody’s workshop. It’s devoid of people when I arrive. I get out of the truck, and look around. I’ve managed to park the truck on top of the worktable. Soon, two fellows show up to ask what the heck I’m doing in their workshop. Can’t I see that they’re trying to make chairs here? There are the forms of chairs hanging on the walls, and I’ve managed to park the truck on top of some screen that they need to line the chairs (Yeah, I know, it doesn’t make any sense. It made sense somehow in the dream though.)
Now, the segment switches (as often happens in my dreams), and now I’m sitting, buckled back into the driver’s seat, but the seat is now out of the truck. It’s just a lone driver’s seat, with me buckled (and now I can’t get the buckle to release, so I’m stuck in the driver’s seat) in the middle of the room. As I sit there, struggling with the buckle to see if I can get out of this contraption, people start to show up. Apparently I’m at some sort of meeting and while I thought I’d put myself in such a way as to be able to sneak out, now I’m literally smack-dab in the middle of the room. People have come in and brought chairs and surrounded me.
At this point I wake up.
I’ve had the chance to tell this dream to three different people and each time I tell it, I get some new awareness of the gifts in the dream. It was when I started telling it to Mark that I realized that before I panicked and decided to get in the driver’s seat, things were going along just fine, around those winding curves, etc. I was doing what I wanted to be doing, which is reading a book, and life was moving along merrily. It wasn’t until I panicked and got into the driver’s seat that things started to go haywire.
So, after I tell the dream to Mark, we start to get ready for our day. We’re in the kitchen and each time I go to get something, or think that I need something, he hands it to me, as if he were reading my mind. It was the most amazing, ease-ful morning I think we’ve ever had. So much fun to be handed exactly what I need and to thank him and then have it happen again and again.
Now, I’m headed out the door to go have morning time with my buddy, Pamela. We meet on Thursday mornings. We used to work out, but things happened along the way, and it morphed into coffee and a walk and a long talk, and occasionally it included running errands, and now it mostly is running errands. And what’s really funny about that is that we have a blast! Sometimes we have deep, profound talks while wandering around Trader Joe’s and sometimes we just laugh and laugh at the silliest things. One of the things that I adore about our relationship is the deep level of trust that we have with each other. We trust each other implicitly. The result of that is being able to work through whatever might be “up” for either or both of us and trusting that the other will keep us on track as we try to distract ourselves from whatever wants to be explored.
It was a marvelous, laughter-filled morning, and then I headed off to do my Christmas shopping. I’ve never waited this long, nor have I ever headed in without some sort of list or idea of what I was getting for people. Today, I headed in without any idea other than to follow my impulses. To be in action, but not in the driver’s seat, if that makes sense.
I had the most amazing morning, wandering through stores, finding exactly the right thing for people. I knew even before I got out of the car that I was eventually going to end up in the East/West store, because David’s gift was in there. I had a few other store adventures before getting close to that store and then just as I was about to head into that store, I headed across the street to into a different store. “Really? I thought we were going to East/West?” I thought to myself, but followed that way. I wandered around in that store and found nothing, which seemed odd at the time, but whatever. So, now I head across the street into East/West (which probably isn’t even the name of the store, but there you go). I head in, looking at things, enjoying all the different colors of things, playing with the “fairy feathers” thingy that I guess goes on folks with long hair, and then looking at all sorts of other fun things. Then, I see it, David’s present! Hooray! I pick it up and keep wandering around and then head to buy it, when in rushes this girl. She’s very excited, talking to the gal behind the counter. “There’s an opal and fossil bracelet on hold for me.” Opal and fossil? I listen for awhile, because it’s gotten misplaced. She’s excited and a little anxious, but clear in what she wants. It is finally found and because I’m now incredibly curious, I ask to see this magical bracelet. Well, it’s opals and ammonites. Those lovely spiral fossils. Three ammonites and two opals. It is beautiful and magical. What a lovely piece of jewelry!
Later I figure out that that is probably why I got called into the store across the street before this one, because I would have been gone and missed this excitement. And here’s where it gets really fun! Because I got to see that one, the whole idea of stones and fossils got in my head, and it turns out that my sister’s perfect gift was in a natural stone store on the way home, one that I rarely go to because parking is ordinarily awful there.
So, I had a marvelously productive day with no agenda. No “driving” from me. I was along for the ride. I moved my body around, using its wisdom to get me to where I needed to go, without my normal “control plan.”
The “I” I’m talking about here is my ego, the one who thinks that she has to run the show or nothing will get done. The one who has been ever so worried about the form or structure of these writings; the one who’s been in a panic and worried about what others will think. I’ve been sending her a whole lot of love, because I understand why she thinks she needs to be in control, but really, the seat belt cutting across the neck gets uncomfortable. And if she’s not careful, she’ll end up stuck, buckled into a driver’s seat not connected to any sort of vehicle in the middle of a bunch of people in a meeting! Let’s not do that, shall we? Dear goddess, I love my dreams and the brilliance to be found in them.
Yes to action. No to thinking that I need to control the outcome. And love to all my crazy, wacky parts, the parts of me I easily love, and the parts of me that I struggle with, those “socially unacceptable” ones especially.
Mwah!
