Month: March 2021

#140 Unfinished

~ janedougall ~ 1 Comment

Unfinished.

Back to the subject of dreams. Not even halfway through the night I’ve been brought sharply to an awakened state as three separate dreams have come right to the make or break point then whoosh I was out of there and awake, nearly panting at the closeness of resolve but instead left hanging and wondering. I’ve not been one much interested in dream interpretation via external sources preferring to believe in individual symbolism rather than in overreaching archetypes. In this case it’s the pattern of dreaming itself that has left me questioning. Well, that and a sense of doom or fear facing which, apparently, I’m not (yet?) ready to do.

Dreams are such curious manifestations. While many researchers work on poking at the truth of them–their origins and purpose–most of us remember little upon waking up, our separate selves operate mostly in realms of night or day, waking consciousness or boundless sleep. My sense of it is we could not survive without dreams, that within them lies guidance and the paths that our lives will take, but so much is not remembered. That’s not proof however that dreaming isn’t critical but only that we are very far from understanding the most basic mechanisms of our own being.

Now that I’m here it strikes me that I rarely understand most of where and how my life has unfolded. I came into these later years striving for amalgamation, looking to a time of contemplation where the seemingly separate parts of my lifetime could be pulled together into some kind of (at least) relational story. I wanted to make a whole after so many seemingly separate parts. Just as with tonight’s dreams, that work lies unfinished. Does that suggest that it takes the availability of a more vast perspective than what is available to most of us in our earthy form? Tonight I have only questions and no answers. Maybe a return to sleep will lead to yet more remembered answers.

Later Addition:

Morning light brought slivers of more dream memory, of returning to a place of departure (geographic or mindset) where leaving this life was joyous rather than gloomy, where a soul experienced a sparkle upon approaching this task. The time for departure had come and it was embraced. It seems an affront to even entertain such an idea but there it was with laughter and a sense of lightness and delight. A rested human body perhaps enabled such thoughts. Unfinished, replaced by simply unknown.

#139 Unholy

~ janedougall ~ 1 Comment

Unholy.

Of all the months the one which seems obviously malicious might be October. It is, after all, the time of witches and Samhain (Halloween). However October is often lovely, maybe giving a hint of cold or flurries, but often balmy (and that “witch” stuff has never been what it seemed). The real unholy month is March when even the thought of Spring entices us into welcoming the month forgetting every single time that March often brings the fiercest storms, the ones that truly test your mettle when you are least wanting to be tested.

Last night the NorthWest wind blew without mercy, passing through the walls of the house as if they were non-existent barriers to the icy cold, sixteen degrees and dropping as I tucked under the covers. Anything exposed under that too faint protection tightened and stiffened, joints of fingers and neck knotting while sleep tried to persist but only on faint and shallow levels. The wind continues today even as the sun shines brightly, all it’s warmth shredded under the onslaught.

It’s hard to write anything at this time without referencing the pandemic, even if that is the last place I want to go, but this year in particular our need for warmth has grown out of proportion given that warmth is how we will be able to break our isolation and to be with friends and family. This process is being powerfully fueled with the parallel availability of vaccinations. Nearly everyone I know has had one shot and is waiting for the second, or is through both and now starting to think of re-entry into a world abandoned in a flash of another March. Despite vaccinations we still need mild days to sit with sun on bare skin, to breathe freely moving air, to move around outdoors without layers and layers of clothing, to let our bodies and psyches come back into allowing flow.

I figured that March this year was going to be hard but that concept pales in the face of a wind like sharp steel. There is no getting to be warm today, inside or out. Every gust that tears at the house tears at my psyche. We are nearly past the halfway mark and we know that each year snow falls on the daffodils of April. How will we summon our strength after a year of unknowns, a year of anxiety and fear of something we cannot see that devastates lives, that turns familiar faces into eyes above coverings so that we don’t recognize old faces and will never be able to recall new ones we’ve met during this time?

In lower latitudes March can try the spirit with its capricious variations of weather. This far north, sitting beside the frigid waters of the Atlantic, it will still be months before there is any softness in the air. While our bodies are working hard responding to vaccinations, building still needed immunities, our spirits need a break, an infusion of gentleness and peace. March is just not going to let up and hand us an easier time of it. Here’s where mettle counts, the breaking point. Can you hang on long enough while all those tensions from months of months of plodding through unknowns has tightened your muscles into knots, the cold aiding the process so efficiently?

The prayer is to get through: this hour, this day, this month, this time. If only we can hang on for that first soft evening of total letting go, body melts into ease which has been forgotten, when windows can be thrown open and fresh air can clean out stale house corners. How I hope I can soon laugh off today’s dire thoughts and words, dismiss them because color and warmth have returned, this time meaning more than they ever have before.

#138 What Is Asked of Us

~ janedougall ~ Leave a comment

What Is Asked of Us?

We know that other generations in past times and places in the history of our world have endured pandemics. We may know that these periods in history took massive tolls on human lives, as a quarter, or a third, or perhaps up to ninety percent of populations in specific places and times perished. The awareness of this history was primarily the territory of historians or epidemiologists; the rest of us did not feel it was necessary to pay attention. In this last year we have  stayed focused at tasks at hand. As we plow on our sense is that we are still facing much that still is speculation. This year of worldwide struggle, has left many of us feeling exhausted, despite our hopes the vaccines may be enough to give us a sense of safety that’s been absent and that loved ones, friends and family alike, may turn once again into sources of solace and strength.

These have been the “piling-on” times. Our political divisions have been entwined with the virus, some directly hardwired in terms of public behaviors such as masking as well as administrative incompetence on local, regional, and national levels, while much is obscured still waiting until “later” when we have the perspective of distance for understanding. We’ve been asked to hunker down and persevere. We are struggling to still do so. Our patience and fortitude growing slim.

Climatic changes are becoming more obvious via extremes in whacko weather situations that are, again, entwined with politically expedient and shortsighted determiners. We first saw this during Hurricane Katrina and now incompetence and corruption become exposed once again on all of our various screens in our living spaces or wherever we happened to be. Extremes of fire, of cold and heat, of drought and flood, are imploding place to place event after event. We want to continue with what we knew as normal and want that back despite all evidence that normal was only and ever a tiny, very particular, window of existence. What made us feel we were ever okay? What led us to hold onto beliefs that were being countered by information from science sources, those eyes and ears and voices of those who have been watching and seeing the encroaching damage happening everywhere on the globe?

We now know we are living in topsy-turvy times, where all futures are unknown and absolutely nothing can be taken for granted. Are we prepared? The young feel betrayed by the generations before them who did not act on the science of what was revealed. The old just wanted to keep doing as they had always done. Those in the middle, who were well off “enough” just wanted to keep going with their comfortable lives. We have collectively and individually been stopped in our tracks. Inequalities and injustices, now stand together as overwhelming forces demanding attention affecting all life on our planet.

Did we know we’d come here at this time to be part of this struggle? Did we get caught in events not of our own making and are we resentful that these “interruptions” have permanently shown up in our lives? Do we want to engage fully to find solutions? Do we want to cling to a feeling of being victimized because the life we loved was hijacked? What’s left of this pandemic time-out may be what we need to search for and find new ground for ourselves and those we love. The only certainty is we cannot go back which may be the reason there has been so much grieving during this time.

What is asked of us and what do we ask of ourselves? The answers we find will make a very real difference in what comes out of this time.

#137 Fast Air

~ janedougall ~ 1 Comment

Fast air.

I woke to intense sunlight brightly detailing the carnations I’d bought for myself now sitting on my bureau. Yesterday’s snow and rain had blown the quickly moving storm out to the far open sea leaving behind a clear bright sky with that very welcome intense morning light.

This is a thought dream. It’s not about the science of weather which I too lightly understand, It is about the emotional experience of it of weather, of storms and systems that move along the coast daily.  I find myself wondering if storms systems move more freely once over water unlike those memories I have of weather systems hanging on for days over the high hills or valleys in my geographically plunked pasts. What I experience now on an overcast day is far easier to tolerate if there is reasonable certainty the day after will bring back the cheer and warmth of the sun.

If I truly grasped meteorology no doubt I’d understand the movement of fast and slow air in more precise and scientific ways. I would not be relying on my observations and guesses but then again, there is comfort in believing the fairy tale versions of things such as the belief that light follows dark in predictable ways and that, when in the midst of oppressive clouds of gloom or a raging wind, there is certainty in next day relief.

In a far Northeast winter the presence of sunlight is a game changer. Yesterday’s ice storm which coated trees in icy jackets becomes a magical morning fairyland of shimmer as the sun rises. Yesterday’s rain, frozen by overnight temperature dips means black ice will hide in the shadows, unsafe surfaces for cars and legs alike, but such shadows disappear as sun creeps into their recesses. Overnight heavy snows covers everything leaving us to marvel at the transformed landscape. Nature as artist can swirl snowdrifts into sharp peaks and valleys, using violent winds as brushes, creating impossibly beautiful sculptures in mundane places. 

Dark times, bad weather, and overcast gloom that moves quickly can be tolerated and brings, by the way of contrast, a particular kind of joy. Lingering, incessant stagnation (of weather and everything else) is a much harder condition, one that  challenges us to dig deeply into our psyches to get ourselves through.

So bring on fast air. Let’s rejoice in the movement made possible of air moving fast over water, unrestrained, unsnagged by peaks or valleys, flowing freely, as beacons for the way our spirits want to flow.