365 Days of Dreaming

Study of Hope and Turn

Dream:

She says, “It’s time for a National Day of Hope.”

Dream:

All I remember is this: I say, “I just am not going to do it the same way this time.”

~~~

The first day of the year (2019) – I love the turning that happens at the end of one year and the start of a new one. I live in a northern climate, so the days do darken deeply and early this time of year. When solstice comes and the day light lingers a few moments longer every day, I feel it deeply in my body. And this opens me to the turning, too. Turning away and toward at the same time. 

In the first dream that inspired this drawing, I stood with a woman who simply declared the day of hope. No fanfare, no “let’s mobilize and do something about it” energy. Just a simple fact. I woke from this dream filled with the simplicity of it, that hope can be declared, decided upon. Chosen.

I do not always remember to choose hope; to consciously choose it, the way I choose to love everyday, the way I choose my beloved everyday when I say good morning (even when we struggle), the way I choose, here at the end/at the beginning of a year to step into the turn. 

A day of hope, of the remembrance of hope. 

There is, even with all that I have been blessed with, all the gifts I receive, all the profound work I am honored to do with the amazing dreamers I work with, a little place inside where hope does not always reach, where I forget to bring hope. I think many of us carry a place like this. It is a place that was created and reinforced in those moments of loss, of trauma, of survival. A place that says, “…and yet, still, look at what has happened.” It is a small place, this part of me, but it has been enormous in the weight it carries. It has been compass, guide. It takes the flare of hope and possibility and changes its course, pulls my attention back to it, acting as if it is true north – my true north. Telling me that the flare of possibility may be true, but it will always come back to something else, always come back to this place.

This is what happens, I think, for many of us. That our experiences in our lifetimes dictate a truth that we take as true north, that we believe to be our intuition, our gut. When something or many somethings difficult happen to us, then this can become the compass. In fact, we may actually need this kind of compass in order to survive, in order to live through those moments to other moments. 

Our dreams, however, offer something else. They offer a different kind of compass, the true north that is different than just our experiences, just what we have learned from our culture, our upbringing, our religions. Our dreams offer the way to find what is our true north, what is the voice inside that carries not  just the lessons of trauma and experience, but that has, at its core, the context of possibility. And yes, Hope. Yes, Love. Yes, a way to open and take us beyond anything we could imagine about ourselves. 

I am still working on what I can imagine for myself. I have been working with dreams for twenty years, immersed in the unconscious realm that does not want to be categorized, that will not be dogmatized, that is mysterious and terrifying and, for me, offers a new definition and way of being with hope. I am more than I imagined I could be now then twenty years ago. But I am not living or embodying the fullness of the possibilities that my dreams offer. 

Hope. 

On this day of turning from one to the next, I stand with Hope, with my dreams in a new way. And I stand with the second dream that inspired this drawing, the one where I say I will not do it the same way again. I stand with my intention to not let the compass of hopelessness that I learned through the fire of trauma be my guide. To turn from that compass, to turn toward the continuing finding of my true north. With hope and with the guidance of the dreams and the teachers that guide me in them.