Podcast – Page 129 – Lisa Colón DeLay

Dreams

Dreams are something that have interested me since I was very young. I came across this poem and thought it captured the mystique and intrigue of dream life and I just had to share it.
Enjoy.

DREAMS
by Mark Strand (April 11, 1934–November 29, 2014)

Trying to recall the plot
And characters we dreamed,
What life was like
Before the morning came,
We are seldom satisfied,
And even then
There is no way of knowing
If what we know is true.
Something nameless
Hums us into sleep,
Withdraws, and leaves us in
A place that seems
Always vaguely familiar.
Perhaps it is because
We take the props
And fixtures of our days
With us into the dark,
Assuring ourselves
We are still alive. And yet
Nothing here is certain;
Landscapes merge
With one another, houses
Are never where they should be,
Doors and windows
Sometimes open out
To other doors and windows,
Even the person
Who seems most like ourselves
Cannot be counted on,
For there have been
Too many times when he,
Like everything else, has done
The unexpected.
And as the night wears on,
The dim allegory of ourselves
Unfolds, and we
Feel dreamed by someone else,
A sleeping counterpart,
Who gathers in
The darkness of his person
Shades of the real world.
Nothing is clear;
We are not ever sure
If the life we live there
Belongs to us.
Each night it is the same;
Just when we’re on the verge
Of catching on,
A sense of our remoteness
Closes in, and the world
So lately seen
Gradually fades from sight.
We wake to find the sleeper
Is ourselves
And the dreamt-of is someone who did
Something we can’t quite put
Our finger on,
But which involved a life
We are always, we feel,
About to discover.

From Mark Strand’s Collected poems.

Before trouble comes “H.A.L.T” (on awareness)

I’m reading the book by Brennan Manning called, “The Wisdom of Tenderness”.

Here is a gem I read today on page 107 and that I found really potent.

Brennan Manning died last year, and he is probably best known for writing the Ragamuffin Gospel. He accumulated a lot of wisdom through life, but it didn’t come cheap. Poor choices, wrong turns, and hard lessons molded him into a person of great compassion and grace–a sage for the poor in spirit and those smart enough to listen. Many sought him out for his wisdom.

When Manning came into recovery as an alcoholic he learned a buzzword from AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). They use it as a way to create greater awareness in a person who is vulnerable to slipping back into alcohol abuse.

• They stay on the lookout for four qualities that make them susceptible to relapse and are encouraged to seek help when they identify them occurring in their life. Before they take a sip they look for the signs and call for backup.

H.A.L.T.

H – Hungry (not just for food, but a longing in general)

A – Angry (or stressed, or frustrated)

L – Lonely (or rejected, or left out)

T – Tired (often tired from helping others or being otherwise overcommitted)

People in AA have to rely on each other to find support and avoid the demon booze. People in AA need to cultivate an awareness of their vulnerabilities to avoid a slide into dangerous, even life-threatening, behavior. But, don’t we all need help in the same sorts of ways? We engage in all sorts of bad habits from over eating, to binge tv watching, trolling on Facebook, eating a pint of ice cream out of the box, to watching or reading licentious content, to pill popping....or whatever…it’s probably very different for each person.

Sometimes we don’t even realize our feelings or how we are trying to soothe our selves.

Let’s develop the awareness to halt and seek help when we get run down, over-extended, or when we find ourselves feeling in some way hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. It can be the escape route from trouble, bad choices. It is awareness at the heart of any meaningful transformation or spiritual growth.

Will you be able to know to H.A.L.T. before trouble?

I’ll post other tidbits as I find them. Enjoy the book for yourself if you can. You can get it used for pocket change.

Hate labels? [When unexplainable becomes a blockade]

“Fear of the unexplainable has not only impoverished our inner lives, but also diminished relations between people.” -Rilke

We like categories. We like labels. We like things defined.

A common statement among plenty of people (born after the 1960s?) is to claim: “I don’t like labels”. The closer thing is to say instead that, “I don’t like being confined to a box I can’t alter when I want to.”

We all instinctively use and adore labels…(If we didn’t, bringing it up wouldn’t cross our minds.)

“Not liking labels” is of course a label. It’s a classification.

It’s a way to distinguish an individual. It’s a category we hope people understand. We like the differentiation, but that same differentiation can be it’s own prison, and soon. It is not only a prison, but a blockade from human interactions and healthy bonds.

But, this is because Without categories, we have fear. Our world is much harder to navigate and make sense of without them. Without labels we venture headlong into the “unexplainable” again and again. This production of fear has a halting power.

I don’t know the remedy for it. There may be none. It may help, though, to just admit that we are often afraid. The funny thing is the being afraid draws us closer to each other…when it is not busy destroying us.

Time as a Bubble

I used to dread the coming of winter and the long cold months that encased the landscape–making it bleached and barren.

I still find winter difficult. I need the colors of nature to brighten my day and lift my mood. I like wearing sandals and not layers of clothes. But, I’ve finally lived long enough to experience winter as a few uncomfortable months, instead of a dreaded expanse of time.

It seems we experience time in a kind of frozen way. At the time, Winter seems like the only season that exists and the memory of warm weather fades and seems unreal from within the time table in which we find our selves. Time is not a stretch. It is a bubble. Each moment is a short pop away from not existing. Freezing bubbles isn’t possible…at least not completely (though the picture above would suggest otherwise, right?)

Once March comes, I feel much better about the new year. Here’s to brighter days and warm nights and enjoying each moment no matter what.

Freedom from cynicism

“Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. Hope without critical thinking is naïveté.” – Maria Popova

RBSP-Launch-Streak-Double-MKilliancrop There is a balancing act for those of us with a creative spirit and a thoughtful disposition. We totter between hope and cynicism. This is the ongoing waltz, or slam dance.

Hope, without an anchor, leads to some inflated expectations that are soon slapped down by reality or disappointment.

But, in those disappointments, we can become wounded or hardened and grow an exoskeleton of cynicism.

Proverbs 17:22

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

The truth is, I don’t understand life that well. (Not suffering or joy. Both are weird to me, still.) All the pat answers fail desperately, as it is their nature to do. And so, when this happens a few routes remain:

1. You can shut you eyes and re-double your efforts. (You’ve molted but you want to stick the feathers back on.)

2. You can live with uncertainty. This works well for a time, if you can handle it, but in truth, no one is stagnant. This is merely a stage, not a destination, or place of solace and rest. This disposition gives way to a kind of state disenchantment or resignation, and sometimes a tart cynicism. It is the stone in the shoe of hope.

• Or, one can start over, but never in the same place.

3. You can become a contemplative (a mystic, a sage, or a seeker) and this means that you’ve let some things go, but you are still fervent on all the major points. Here, you have freedom from cynicism. You haven’t let the bitterness or the indefinite way of things beat you into a sad lump.

I’m not sure where you stand, but you stand somewhere.