Musings.6: Barbara

Ahh. I welcome this sweet respite in blogland, a pleasant distraction from the chaos of setting up a new household, the approaching holiday, and the sudden, unsettling need for my husband to undergo surgery for a detached retina. Yeah. See what I mean?

'Melissa' and her dreams are ever in my thoughts and I've finally cleared a space in time so I could return to writing about this character and my response to her dream stories as they have evolved.

As I wrote months ago when I launched this blog I discover things about the character 'Melissa' or the creative process as I write these posts. The process begins with a rough sketch of events in my mind. The sketch fleshes out and takes on life as I write. Something about every post surprises me, and this last time it was the surprise of seeing the creative process merge dreams, art, and life.

I was startled when the reference to the Five Rivers Winery surfaced in the last post because, well, that was my experience coming through in 'Melissa's' life. While my dream was not as colorful and detailed as 'Melissa's' I, too, dreamed of standing in a river holding a single oar. Who can forget a dream like that, so enigmatic, so intriguing? Months or perhaps even a year or more after the dream I bought a bottle of the winery's merlot to share with a friend (also named Barb) because I liked the bit on the label encouraging me to "Discover the goddess" at their web site.

My jaw dropped when I saw a graphic depicting a woman standing in a river holding a single oar. I had no idea such a story existed, but there she was and I had dreamed of her. It is thrilling to see something come through from the ephemeral, mental realm into the physical although we are trained from childhood that if there is no hard evidence, nothing in hand, what's in our head and in our heart is fleeting, insubstantial.

Some people like 'Melissa', like myself, like Robert Moss practice attending to dreams. We draw pictures, write poems, take photos, write books. We dream, and we practice and very often we experience physical manifestations of our dreams.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche wrote in September, 2005 (www.shambhalasun.com) that 'Practice means "bringing it into experience."' We have been taught that to practice means 'do it over and over and over again until you get it right.' Now we see another meaning. What this practice of acknowledging, noting and contemplating her dreams has done for 'Melissa' is to bring something she has encountered in her mind through to manifest in her day to day life.

For her, and for me, that bottle of chardonnay is 'no more yielding than a dream.' Will Shakespeare composed that line very cleverly. When Puck speaks those lines at the close of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" we nod and agree that the whole thing seemed insubstantial. It has no basis in reality for us.

'Melissa' is showing us that we need to think again. Crops yield harvests. Investments (usually) yield returns, but "no more yielding than a dream." Nothing eclipses the yield of a dream put into practice.

So far 'Melissa' has a bottle of wine, her drawings, and her journal. What more will her dreams yield?