Yeah, I know. A lame question. And ripe for some smart a** remarks. But this is my answer:
Create.
I don't care if it's writing, sewing, gardening, painting, beadwork......as long as I am creating, the time speeds by. I look up hours later and realize that I 'worked' through lunchtime or for longer than I was aware.
What do you love doing more than anything ..... what makes your heart sing? What do you do so that time and money are of no concern?
Visit my ETSY store and see what I've been creating lately: https://www.etsy.com/shop/FrenchBoundary
Peace, and keep creating!
Monday, August 5, 2013
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
More Writing Quotes
If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.
- Isaac Asimov
Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.
- Barbara Kingsolver
Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.
- Anne Lamott
The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, brain surgery.
- Robert Cormier
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Hoping and praying all my writer friends get some writing time in over the next few days!
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Who Reads Those Footnotes?
Last night in my Creative Non-fiction class at the University of Memphis, there was a big discussion about footnotes in CNF narratives. The piece we were reading was about a student's conversation/interview with his grandfather. There were about 6 or 8 footnotes included, which mostly were the writer's notes to clarify something in the narrative, something that his grandfather said or did. The instructor asked if the class members read footnotes when they were reading other works, whether CNF or whatever. Most students said they skipped over them; footnotes were annoying. When footnotes appear in anything they may be necessary, but they are not welcome.
As I re-read this writer's footnotes about his grandfather's life, I realized that that's probably where the real story was - in those afterthoughts, in those minute explanations to make or clarify a certain event. Most suggested that the writer get rid of the footnotes and put them in the narrative flow, to include them as part of the building of the characters - both the writer and the grandfather.
What are your thoughts? Do footnotes interrupt the flow of the story? Should there be endnotes instead? Do you have creative methods to include research information within a narrative?
As I re-read this writer's footnotes about his grandfather's life, I realized that that's probably where the real story was - in those afterthoughts, in those minute explanations to make or clarify a certain event. Most suggested that the writer get rid of the footnotes and put them in the narrative flow, to include them as part of the building of the characters - both the writer and the grandfather.
What are your thoughts? Do footnotes interrupt the flow of the story? Should there be endnotes instead? Do you have creative methods to include research information within a narrative?
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Perspectives
This semester, I am taking a creative non-fiction workshop
class at the University of Memphis. The instructor is Sonja Livingston, a
talented and passionate writer (Ghostbread, and others). I submitted an essay
on the Jung-oriented dreamwork that I do (see past posts on this blog) to my
workshop this week. A couple of my classmates said they think Jung is outdated,
and another said there is more modern neuroscience that I completely left out.
That if I wanted to publish a book on dreams I should do more research for the
book proposal.
Truth
is, I have no intention of publishing a book on dreams. There are thousands out
there from professionals in the fields of psychology, anthropology, analysis,
biochemistry, and, yes, neuroscience. And even chemical engineers. This essay
was about how the type of dreamwork I do has changed the way I see life –
changed the way I see others, changed my relationships. The essay was intended as an invitation to others to listen to dreams, the visitors in the night, and to
share my own experience.
To
say that I needed to include modern neuroscience and brain research was, well,
like I’m watching a waterfall, being enchanted by the rainbows in the spray,
watching the way the water spills and splashes over the rocks, whispers past
the ferns at water’s edge, eddys and pools as it enters the creek, then someone
says there’s no way I could appreciate the scene unless I had a better
understanding of current studies in hydrology, and a scientific appreciation of
H20 and geology.
Seems
this way of looking at life is somewhat like viewing the world through a tube,
and the viewer can only see what the tube is aimed at. There is a loss of the
milieu, the broader sense of place that comes with appreciation of the small
things that make up a scene. Can
one take in the colors, the fragrance, the sounds, if the eye is only zeroing
in on one element of the scene?
Depending
on one’s personality type, there will always be differences in people and their
views of life. That’s what makes us interesting – our personalities and quirks.
To grow our soul, do we just accept that “that’s how I am”, or do we try to
learn about another way of seeing? Just as the ones who say I needed more
modern science in my essay, then perhaps I need to look at the world through
their eyes for a few minutes. Perhaps I should ask myself, How can you clarify words so that you don’t sound
like you're clinging to an old fashioned, out-of-date concept (even though there
has been a resurgence of Jung’s concepts in modern psychology circles, and I've studied dreams for years and years, and completed a two-year dream leadership course of study a couple of years ago).
What does it take to see, really
see, something? Does it take a complete understanding of everything that goes
into the ‘thing’? Or can one merely appreciate on a simple level the beauty of a
thing’s existence? My stance is to try to understand another's perspective. Others may take a more dismissive stance. How do we better appreciate each other's perspective?
Sunday, October 28, 2012
House Just Gone
I drive by Georgia’s family’s house today. And it’s not there. Nothing. It has been bulldozed down, and the lot cleaned up, as if the house never existed, as if Georgia and her family never existed. I eased my window down and asked a neighbor, who was out picking up trash in her yard: What happened?
I don’t know, one day they’s there and the next day they’s gone. Then the house just gone. Don’t know where they gone to. Thank you very much. I drive on, thinking about the bizarreness of the entire sight.
About a year ago, Georgia, at the cajoling of her friends, joined a neighborhood writing group that I facilitated. She was fourteen years old. Too young, I thought. The other girls were fifteen and sixteen. When I found that Georgia was pregnant, I changed my mind. Does having sex make you mature enough to process your thoughts into words of fiction, or even truth? I asked. Of course, said the girls. I invited Georgia to stay.
Have you been to the doctor? I ask Georgia. No. Ain’t got no way. So I take her to the clinic at The Med. Georgia goes to the counter to check in. I stand quietly behind her overhearing the conversation. Georgia turns to make a phone call, then hangs up and looks at me with tears in her eyes. I need $40. They say they won’t take me without me paying $40.
Here. I’ll pay the $40. Do you take credit cards? So this is all she will have to pay, then she’s covered by Medicaid?
Yes. All is covered. Except the $40. So I wait, and wonder how many young pregnant women decide not to seek medical help because they don't have $40. No wonder that Memphis has the highest infant mortality rate in the nation.
Georgia emerges from the hallway, and she has seen the doctor who confirms the pregnancy and gives her the necessary prenatal exam and vitamins and tells her it’s a girl.
We’re happy it’s a girl, because Georgia knows what to do with a girl. She is the oldest of the four sisters in her family and has cared for the other three since she was ten or so, when the youngest, now five years old, was in diapers. I think that Georgia’s baby will have an Aunt who is only five years older than she is.
Over the months of her pregnancy Georgia continues coming to the group. We write poetry and she focuses continually on her baby and her dreams for her baby having a better life than she has. We write essays on our families and Georgia writes about her family and how angry her mother is, how bad her home life is, and how discouraged she is about ever having a better life.
But somehow underneath the sadness, there is a hope in Georgia, a Pollyannish attitude that tomorrow will be better than today. If only I marry my baby daddy I can live a life on Easy Street.
Georgia calls me every time for the doctor appointment. We go to the Health Center. Everything is going fine, baby is healthy, Georgia is healthy.
My phone rings at 10pm one night in January. Come quick, I’m in labor. Mama’s at work. Contractions are five minutes apart. I truck Georgia to The Med. Georgia seems to have no problem. No, the labor does not really hurt, she says. I wait, holding her hand, until her mother arrives. Georgia gives birth just after midnight. A Casearean Section, because the baby is big, around eight pounds, and because of Georgia’s young age. A healthy baby girl. Cute, with lots of black curly hair. At last I go home to sleep.
Two days later Georgia calls. Can you come get me and my baby Sara? Of course. I have a car seat. They give me one here at The Med. I be ready to go about 2pm this afternoon.
I carry baby Sara, as Georgia shuffles, somewhat in pain, to my car. She slides in the passenger seat with the help of a hospital assistant while I figure out how to buckle the car seat with tiny little Sara in the back. Done.
Four days later I get a call. Can you come get us? I have to take Sara to The Med to be certified for WIC and they said to come back today. Yes. I’ll be there in two hours.
We truck up to The Med. I let Georgia out (she’s still sore she says) and carry little Sara in the car seat inside and settle them both on a bench while I go and park a block away. They wait.
Georgia knows exactly where to go. I carry little six-day-old Sara in the car seat. Georgia has all her paperwork and answers the caseworker’s questions. She has a folder with everything inside. I am amazed that at fourteen she is very mature to have planned this through, and to have every document that the caseworker asks for. I retreat to the waiting room carrying the carseat with sleeping Sara.
I look into the infant’s face. Her forehead is wrinkled as if to ask what in the world are you doing here? She can’t focus yet, I tell myself. She does not know I’m some strange white woman. It’s the bright lights. I look around and I’m the only white person in the room, until a young tattooed couple come in, looking lost. But they’re in the right place. Her belly bulge gives her pregnancy away. They look maybe fifteen.
Unbuckling little Sara, I lift her out, her lightness surprising me. I cuddle her next to my neck and notice the smell of baby powder and sour milk and I smile, remembering. She squenches up her little body and yawns. I enjoy holding her.
Georgia comes out, papers in hand, holding a sack of sample formulas and such. Down we go to the first floor, where I settle them again on a bench while I retrieve my car.
I ask Georgia questions about the visit, if she needs anything. Any formula? Naw, I breastfeed. She don’t need no formula. My Auntee says give her sugar water some, so I do that. Does she sleep good? She sleeps about two hours at a time. Got to get her to sleep through the night though. Where does she sleep? In bed with me and my sister. Georgia, we’ve got to get you a crib. Sara needs to sleep in a crib. It’s dangerous for her to sleep in bed with you two girls. One of you could roll over on her, I say.
I got a crib. My grandma give me one. But I like for her to sleep with me.
Georgia, I’m telling you it’s too dangerous. Rollover deaths of infants is very common. Listen to me now. I hear you. I’ll put her in the crib starting tonight. My sister been complaining that she can’t sleep no ways, so I’ll put her in the crib tonight. Good, I say, relieved.
Next day, Can you come and take me to the health center? My baby needs a checkup. She’s six days old.
We repeat the scene of going to The Med, but this time we go to the Orange Mound Health Center. I go inside, take a book with me, and wait and read. Young girls and babies come and go. Many fathers are with their wives and babies. I smile. At last Georgia comes out, we’re done, and we go home to her house. I unbuckle the carseat and lift it out of my car while Georgia grabs the medicines and papers. She unlocks the high chainlink gate and we enter the tiny front yard.
At once, 2 pit bulls bound from under the house, growling and barking and heading right for me and little Sara. I lift the carseat as high as I can and scream for Georgia to call off the dogs. The dogs grab my pants leg, while Georgia picks up an old boiling pot and creams the dog over the head. Both dogs run crying back to their shelter under the house. I step up the rickety steps and Georgia unlocks the door. We go inside.
The living room is sparsely furnished. A green naugahyde couch and loveseat are shoved against one wall. Boxes are stacked against another wall. There is no lamp, the overhead light is on and seems bright and too intrusive in such an economy of dwelling. A coffee table with a broken leg sits in the middle of the room. I sit the carseat on the table and it begins to slide off, and I catch it.
Thank you. You’re welcome Georgia. Any time. Remember the crib. Okay. I will.
What about those dogs? There’s the pot, just pick it up and they’ll leave you alone. I ease down the steps and take giant steps toward the gate, whoosh it open and close it fast. The dogs are sleeping under the steps. That’s the way it was.
The next week Georgia calls. She wants to come to the writing group and asks if I can come get her, and I do. Georgia writes that day about what her dream is for her baby. To have a better life than I have. That my mother will start doing right and that my sisters will have a better life and that I will finish school and get a good job for me and my baby. That my baby daddy love his daughter.
The next week I stop to pick her up, but on that day, she was gone. On that day, house just gone.
I don’t know, one day they’s there and the next day they’s gone. Then the house just gone. Don’t know where they gone to. Thank you very much. I drive on, thinking about the bizarreness of the entire sight.
About a year ago, Georgia, at the cajoling of her friends, joined a neighborhood writing group that I facilitated. She was fourteen years old. Too young, I thought. The other girls were fifteen and sixteen. When I found that Georgia was pregnant, I changed my mind. Does having sex make you mature enough to process your thoughts into words of fiction, or even truth? I asked. Of course, said the girls. I invited Georgia to stay.
Have you been to the doctor? I ask Georgia. No. Ain’t got no way. So I take her to the clinic at The Med. Georgia goes to the counter to check in. I stand quietly behind her overhearing the conversation. Georgia turns to make a phone call, then hangs up and looks at me with tears in her eyes. I need $40. They say they won’t take me without me paying $40.
Here. I’ll pay the $40. Do you take credit cards? So this is all she will have to pay, then she’s covered by Medicaid?
Yes. All is covered. Except the $40. So I wait, and wonder how many young pregnant women decide not to seek medical help because they don't have $40. No wonder that Memphis has the highest infant mortality rate in the nation.
Georgia emerges from the hallway, and she has seen the doctor who confirms the pregnancy and gives her the necessary prenatal exam and vitamins and tells her it’s a girl.
We’re happy it’s a girl, because Georgia knows what to do with a girl. She is the oldest of the four sisters in her family and has cared for the other three since she was ten or so, when the youngest, now five years old, was in diapers. I think that Georgia’s baby will have an Aunt who is only five years older than she is.
Over the months of her pregnancy Georgia continues coming to the group. We write poetry and she focuses continually on her baby and her dreams for her baby having a better life than she has. We write essays on our families and Georgia writes about her family and how angry her mother is, how bad her home life is, and how discouraged she is about ever having a better life.
But somehow underneath the sadness, there is a hope in Georgia, a Pollyannish attitude that tomorrow will be better than today. If only I marry my baby daddy I can live a life on Easy Street.
Georgia calls me every time for the doctor appointment. We go to the Health Center. Everything is going fine, baby is healthy, Georgia is healthy.
My phone rings at 10pm one night in January. Come quick, I’m in labor. Mama’s at work. Contractions are five minutes apart. I truck Georgia to The Med. Georgia seems to have no problem. No, the labor does not really hurt, she says. I wait, holding her hand, until her mother arrives. Georgia gives birth just after midnight. A Casearean Section, because the baby is big, around eight pounds, and because of Georgia’s young age. A healthy baby girl. Cute, with lots of black curly hair. At last I go home to sleep.
Two days later Georgia calls. Can you come get me and my baby Sara? Of course. I have a car seat. They give me one here at The Med. I be ready to go about 2pm this afternoon.
I carry baby Sara, as Georgia shuffles, somewhat in pain, to my car. She slides in the passenger seat with the help of a hospital assistant while I figure out how to buckle the car seat with tiny little Sara in the back. Done.
Four days later I get a call. Can you come get us? I have to take Sara to The Med to be certified for WIC and they said to come back today. Yes. I’ll be there in two hours.
We truck up to The Med. I let Georgia out (she’s still sore she says) and carry little Sara in the car seat inside and settle them both on a bench while I go and park a block away. They wait.
Georgia knows exactly where to go. I carry little six-day-old Sara in the car seat. Georgia has all her paperwork and answers the caseworker’s questions. She has a folder with everything inside. I am amazed that at fourteen she is very mature to have planned this through, and to have every document that the caseworker asks for. I retreat to the waiting room carrying the carseat with sleeping Sara.
I look into the infant’s face. Her forehead is wrinkled as if to ask what in the world are you doing here? She can’t focus yet, I tell myself. She does not know I’m some strange white woman. It’s the bright lights. I look around and I’m the only white person in the room, until a young tattooed couple come in, looking lost. But they’re in the right place. Her belly bulge gives her pregnancy away. They look maybe fifteen.
Unbuckling little Sara, I lift her out, her lightness surprising me. I cuddle her next to my neck and notice the smell of baby powder and sour milk and I smile, remembering. She squenches up her little body and yawns. I enjoy holding her.
Georgia comes out, papers in hand, holding a sack of sample formulas and such. Down we go to the first floor, where I settle them again on a bench while I retrieve my car.
I ask Georgia questions about the visit, if she needs anything. Any formula? Naw, I breastfeed. She don’t need no formula. My Auntee says give her sugar water some, so I do that. Does she sleep good? She sleeps about two hours at a time. Got to get her to sleep through the night though. Where does she sleep? In bed with me and my sister. Georgia, we’ve got to get you a crib. Sara needs to sleep in a crib. It’s dangerous for her to sleep in bed with you two girls. One of you could roll over on her, I say.
I got a crib. My grandma give me one. But I like for her to sleep with me.
Georgia, I’m telling you it’s too dangerous. Rollover deaths of infants is very common. Listen to me now. I hear you. I’ll put her in the crib starting tonight. My sister been complaining that she can’t sleep no ways, so I’ll put her in the crib tonight. Good, I say, relieved.
Next day, Can you come and take me to the health center? My baby needs a checkup. She’s six days old.
We repeat the scene of going to The Med, but this time we go to the Orange Mound Health Center. I go inside, take a book with me, and wait and read. Young girls and babies come and go. Many fathers are with their wives and babies. I smile. At last Georgia comes out, we’re done, and we go home to her house. I unbuckle the carseat and lift it out of my car while Georgia grabs the medicines and papers. She unlocks the high chainlink gate and we enter the tiny front yard.
At once, 2 pit bulls bound from under the house, growling and barking and heading right for me and little Sara. I lift the carseat as high as I can and scream for Georgia to call off the dogs. The dogs grab my pants leg, while Georgia picks up an old boiling pot and creams the dog over the head. Both dogs run crying back to their shelter under the house. I step up the rickety steps and Georgia unlocks the door. We go inside.
The living room is sparsely furnished. A green naugahyde couch and loveseat are shoved against one wall. Boxes are stacked against another wall. There is no lamp, the overhead light is on and seems bright and too intrusive in such an economy of dwelling. A coffee table with a broken leg sits in the middle of the room. I sit the carseat on the table and it begins to slide off, and I catch it.
Thank you. You’re welcome Georgia. Any time. Remember the crib. Okay. I will.
What about those dogs? There’s the pot, just pick it up and they’ll leave you alone. I ease down the steps and take giant steps toward the gate, whoosh it open and close it fast. The dogs are sleeping under the steps. That’s the way it was.
The next week Georgia calls. She wants to come to the writing group and asks if I can come get her, and I do. Georgia writes that day about what her dream is for her baby. To have a better life than I have. That my mother will start doing right and that my sisters will have a better life and that I will finish school and get a good job for me and my baby. That my baby daddy love his daughter.
The next week I stop to pick her up, but on that day, she was gone. On that day, house just gone.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Resource List for DreamWork
As promised in Friday's post, here is my list of resources for DreamWork:
Resources for DreamWork and InnerWork
Books:
Workshops:
Websites:
Podcasts:
Audio:
Seedwork site has downloadable talks by noted dreamwork scholars from The Haden Institute's past Summer Dream Conferences.
* Watch next week for Lesson # 2.
Do you have any resources on dream work to share?
Resources for DreamWork and InnerWork
The books and tapes listed below are all resources in my personal library that I currently use, have used in the past, and recommend. This is by no means a complete or definitive list, and newer and better resources are out there or come on the market every day. Since I am a Jungian, most of these resources lean in that direction. I believe in the concept that only the dreamer can interpret his/her dreams, but I also believe in group projective dreamwork to help a dreamer gain insight. Resources are listed in no particular order. The workshops I recommend because I have attended them. The websites are intended as additional resources and may lead you to other links and resources.
Books:
Jungian Psychology Unplugged, by Daryl Sharp
The Man Who Wrestled with God, by John Sanford
Invisible Partners, by John Sanford
The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning, by James Hollis
On This Journey We Call Our Life, by James Hollis
Under Saturn’s Shadow, by James Hollis
Swamplands of the Soul: New Life in Dismal Places,, by James Hollis
Boundaries of the Soul, by June Singer
The Christian Archetype: A Jungian Commentary, by Edward F. Edinger
Man and His Symbols, by Carl Jung
Memories, Dreams, Reflections, by Carl Jung
The Portable Jung, translated texts of Carl Jung
Analytical Psychology: It’s Theory and Practice, by Carl G. Jung
Our Dreaming Mind, by Robert Van De Castle
Dream Work, by Jeremy Taylor
Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill, by Jeremy Taylor
Natural Spirituality: Recovering the Wisdom Tradition in Christianity, by Joyce Rockwood Hudson
Owning Your Own Shadow, by Robert A. Johnson
He, She, and We, three separate titles by Robert A. Johnson
Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth, by Robert A. Johnson
Femininity Lost and Regained, by Robert A. Johnson
Dream Theatres of the Soul, by Jean Raffa
A Dictionary of Dream Symbols, by Eric Ackroyd
Dream Language: Self-understanding Through Imagery and Color, by Robert Hoss
Dreams and Spiritual Growth: A Judeo-Christian Guide to Dreamwork, by Louis Savary, Patricia Berne, and Strephon Williams
Workshops:
Dream Leader Training Intensives (2-year program) The Haden Institute, Flat Rock NC
Summer Dream Conference, Kanuga NC
Websites:
The Haden Institute (Summer Dream Conference; Dream Leader Training; Spiritual Director Training)
Seedwork: Information on The Sacred Feminine, Dreamwork, workshops & to subscribe to The Rose.
Podcasts:
There are too many to post! Search for Dream Work or Dreams or Jungian Dream Work and you will get hundreds.
Audio:
Seedwork site has downloadable talks by noted dreamwork scholars from The Haden Institute's past Summer Dream Conferences.
Archetypal stories: Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ “Theatre of the Imagination” Vol. I & II and “In the House of the Riddle Mother: Common archetypal motifs in women’s dreams.” Any of Estes CDs.
* Watch next week for Lesson # 2.
Do you have any resources on dream work to share?
Friday, September 14, 2012
LESSONS IN DREAMING: A FIELD GUIDE
Examples of dreams as sources of fiction, poetry, and image amplification.
(This is the first post of a project I've been working on for several years. For the next few weeks and months I will be posting a series of these "Lessons". )
As I visit certain parishioners, we embark on the adventure as we carry the dream setting and characters forward into fictionalized accounts of what life might be like – or how a character might be transformed and brought to life through the written word as we look at them through the “soft-eyed” gaze of the soul. This work brings forth laughter, tears, and, I believe, may help prepare their soul to leave one quadrant of their life and move into the next. Or, in the case of the terminally ill, to help them prepare to leave this world for the next.
The use of clinical language would not be as pastoral as the language of the person, the dreamer. That is the language I use. Within this work many people are able to find hope, meaning, comfort and sometimes healing of past hurts or worries about the future. Always, it is the language of the past that pushes the characters and images forward, and that is where the insights occur as we work together to draw pictures, in words and colors, of the symbols and people that appear in our dreams. In order to protect the privacy and integrity of my work with my parishioners, I have used my own dreams here as examples of the work that I do.
These posts are condensed versions of the information booklet I developed and I share with others and is also an explanation of the work I do with them. My booklet includes graphics to help make the work fun, including a Model of the Psyche for the sake of demonstration.
In one-on-one dreamwork, and in dream groups as well, I occasionally read passages from works of fiction that were inspired by dreams, or review a list of stories, movies, and novels that include or were inspired by dreams. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland and the HBO series Carnivale include wonderful examples of archetypes. Also works by Robert Louis Stevenson. I introduce works of poetry or fiction, inspired by dreams, such as Dreams, by Olive Schreiner, or one of the following:
(This is the first post of a project I've been working on for several years. For the next few weeks and months I will be posting a series of these "Lessons". )
Journeys to the inner world of dreams and the unconscious
have changed my life. I believe that my dreams come for the purpose of healing me along this journey
to wholeness we call our life. What I have found is that I no longer see the people, places and
events of my life existing only in black and white. I am aware of a vast gray
area that harbors a depth of color that I never imagined. People appear with
dimensions that I heretofore did not know existed within them. This work has
given me a deeper awareness of the presence of God within my own soul. I am compelled
to pass this on.
I am using my knowledge of Jungian concepts, depth
psychology and dreamwork in a monthly dream group class. I apply my experience of these concepts in my pastoral care and counseling work in a church setting as well. In my work
with parishioners who are newly divorced, widowed, terminally ill, or in other ways going through a
crisis or personal trauma, I help them work with their dreams as they “carry the dream forward”. We
explore together the messages brought to them in their dreams. We journey together on an
exciting adventure, and they are usually ready for the journey. Thus I began work on Lessons in
Dreaming: A Field Guide as a reference for those in the dream group as well as those who ask for help in working a dream one-on-one.
My Field Guide to dreamwork began with working with
my own dreams and taking certain elements, colors, or characters and developing them into
short stories, poetry, artwork, and two novels. I believe that creative writing begins the journey of the
terrains of one’s soul when we carry our dreams forward into the wonderful world of descriptive language and
colorful character development, whether put down in written form or painted on a canvas.
Writing is one of the closest ways to get a detailed look at
our dreams. Anyone can write creatively, and as Flannery O’Conner said, anyone who had a
childhood can write fiction. Stories, poetry and songs come from the subconscious at a most divine
level; they show the author’s inner thoughts and let the reader into the divine arena of a
person’s dreams, a true expression of the soul. Writing is a continual dialogue between the right-brain irrational,
creative, dream-logic part of the mind and the left-brain rational, critical, linear part – the masculine and
feminine energies. How do we balance the two? The solutions and answers lie deep within each one of
us, often to be revealed through our dreams.
As I visit certain parishioners, we embark on the adventure as we carry the dream setting and characters forward into fictionalized accounts of what life might be like – or how a character might be transformed and brought to life through the written word as we look at them through the “soft-eyed” gaze of the soul. This work brings forth laughter, tears, and, I believe, may help prepare their soul to leave one quadrant of their life and move into the next. Or, in the case of the terminally ill, to help them prepare to leave this world for the next.
The use of clinical language would not be as pastoral as the language of the person, the dreamer. That is the language I use. Within this work many people are able to find hope, meaning, comfort and sometimes healing of past hurts or worries about the future. Always, it is the language of the past that pushes the characters and images forward, and that is where the insights occur as we work together to draw pictures, in words and colors, of the symbols and people that appear in our dreams. In order to protect the privacy and integrity of my work with my parishioners, I have used my own dreams here as examples of the work that I do.
These posts are condensed versions of the information booklet I developed and I share with others and is also an explanation of the work I do with them. My booklet includes graphics to help make the work fun, including a Model of the Psyche for the sake of demonstration.
In one-on-one dreamwork, and in dream groups as well, I occasionally read passages from works of fiction that were inspired by dreams, or review a list of stories, movies, and novels that include or were inspired by dreams. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland and the HBO series Carnivale include wonderful examples of archetypes. Also works by Robert Louis Stevenson. I introduce works of poetry or fiction, inspired by dreams, such as Dreams, by Olive Schreiner, or one of the following:
Sophie’s Choice, by William Styron
House of Spirits, by Isabel Allende
House of Spirits, by Isabel Allende
Peachtree Road, and King’s Oak, by Anne
Rivers Siddons
Salem’s Lot, by Stephen King
Salem’s Lot, by Stephen King
Queen of the Damned, & others by Anne Rice
B is for Burglar, by Sue Grafton
B is for Burglar, by Sue Grafton
I encourage dreamers to consider alternative
realities: An elephant can fit through the eye of a needle, animals can talk, people can have two heads and circles can fit into boxes. This surrealism is a reflection of the early state of creation, and I coach them to consider that anything is possible as they work in the same manner as they “carry their
dream forward” through creative writing.
Lesson # 1: Necessary
Equipment for the Journey
Necessary items for this
journey to the center of the soul are:
1. Field Notebook. A spiral
notebook, journal, or loose-leaf paper will work. Lacking any of that, use the
back of an envelope, or anything in
sight. Record your dreams immediately upon waking, even it what you remember is merely a snippet or single image.
2. Pencil or Pen (preferably
a pen with a light so you won’t wake your partner in the middle of the night).
3. Sketchbook. Any blank page
book will work.
4. Colored Pencils.
5. Reference Books. Continuing education is necessary for any journey. ( I will include a reading list next time.)
How do you work YOUR dreams?
5. Reference Books. Continuing education is necessary for any journey. ( I will include a reading list next time.)
How do you work YOUR dreams?
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