The hard shell of winter is cracking and the luscious gooey center called Spring is oozing out. My nighttime noggin is doing the same with dreams so rich, colorful and vivid that I feel like I've entered a children's book where all the characters are past acquaintances, human and critter, who have come to tell me a story full of metaphors only I can interpret and appreciate.
This happens to me every Spring. It's crazy. My dreams become so wild that anyone reviewing them would insist these events just don't happen in the day-to-day world. And yet, the vividness, the colors and the intricacy of every moment of the dream only serves to prove the dream must be every bit as real as the world I walk in wakefulness.
I wonder how Spring brings this on. I suppose it has something to do with the beginning of new life. Perhaps it's the slow tilt of the Earth's axis back to the Southern Hemisphere and a more luxurious weather pattern that allows for free time and play and less emphasis on survival.
Maybe vivid and extravagant dreaming requires a sense of the stirring of life, seen and unseen, that is all around me.
Perhaps dreams as extravagant as my Spring dreams are prompted by the constant flow of the season.
Whatever the source, I love my Springtime dreams. As bizarre and outrageous as they are, there's a sense of being more connected with everything, including you.
"I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night." ~Bill Watterson
Often our heads are way too far away from the earth, spending much of our time in thoughts, dreams, visions and plans, intoxicating and diverting us from more present and earthly endeavors. We think too much about other's opinions and seek approval. We think too much about what might be right or wrong for us. From this rootless perspective of our heads, we exaggerate our problems, imagining more and worse than is really there. We become dramatic and obsessive. Our ungrounded minds wander off and create chaos, causing our bodies to feel restless and edgy. We run around in a haphazard way, locking our keys in the car, dialing wrong numbers and leaving our wallets at the last establishment we visited. Our "ungroundedness" disturbs everyone in our path.
The moments of the present, of the earth, the ground, can seem mundane compared to the apparently limitless mind. But being grounded, literally, is what enables us to cast aside our heady visions and embrace our truth at the moment, giving us the freedom we need to be present and more alive.
The earth is there to support us. During these great summer months, find it, touch it and use it.
Spread out in a freshly mowed lawn
Nap on the pine needle bedding of a pine forest
Wiggle your body through the warm sand of a summer beach
Lay back against a sun-warmed rock
Smear on some cooling creek or river clay
Plop in a mud puddle
Lounge on a bed of moss
“God owns heaven, but He craves the earth.” ~Anne Sexton
“My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth's loveliness.” ~Michelangelo Buonarroti
