Lynn’s Dream
I woke up Wednesday morning July 7th, 2019 knowing I had just had an important dream. I was savoring it as I took a few extra minutes to begin to unpack what it might have meant. I knew my eyes felt dry and a bit itchy, even hard to open and realized that, too, was left over from the dream.
As I slowly got out of bed, I remember asking myself was this one dream or was this three dreams…. and immediately became aware that it was a trilogy of dreams, a trinity of dreams, something important that I must remember.
I did not have time to record the dream right then, as I needed to be at my Wednesday morning Contemplative Prayer group at 9. So off I went. But as luck, coincidence, providence would have it, the reading for our group that morning was from Hafiz, the 14th century mystic, poet. The poem entitled Tremendously More True follows.
Tremendously More True… by Helal Hafiz
She had a dream that told her she was going to pass from this world.
And on the day before, she still felt well, but believed these were her last hours, and come morning friends would be looking at her as she lay still, no longer breathing.
She went into her garden as she always had before dark and spoke to the plants as she would.
Never more beautiful did the world look, never more a part of everything she now knew she was.
An assurance, some absolute certainty opened up in her and she knew any mortal identifications one could have were such a small part of something tremendously more true…that awaited our knowing.
Her whole life she saw was like a slipper, often too tight, she had worn for a long day, and did not now mind at all taking it off.
She lay down that night, then merged into a brilliant Sky…one that she discovered her soul had always, had always been holding it in its hand.
Our Wednesday morning gathering uses the ancient practice of Lectio Divina to move into the holy spaces God will meet us in prayer. The four movements of Lectio paraphrased here by St. John of the Cross include “Seek in Reading, and you will find in Meditation; knock in Prayer and it will be opened to you in Contemplation.”
As soon as I heard Hafiz’s words read, I knew I would be using the first four words of his poem for my 30 minutes of silent contemplation. I was also filled with a sense of deep gratitude that these words had been given me on this very morning. So, now in silence, I begin to re-imagine my dream…
-Lynn Taylor
GOD*Mother explorer
August 2019
Lynn’s Trilogy of Dreams
The GOD*Mother Path?
Part I.
In the first part of the dream I am in a room with a group of what appear to be school administrators. We are seated around a table discussing the fate of a little girl who has not learned her alphabet. “She doesn’t even know her ABC’s,” says one strict voice… “she can’t write and if she can’t write, how will she read,” says another. “She must learn how to do it our way.”
And I know I am there to defend her. Although she may not be able to write or recite her alphabet, she has far more to offer … she has the amazing ability to capture words in pictures. She does not need written words as she can draw what she sees, what she hears, what she experiences, as quickly as anyone can write. The world to her is a world of beautiful images, not black and white words.
She sees the world in pictures and her world comes to life as she effortlessly illustrates the richness and depth of the world in which she lives. Her world is not a linear sentence, but instead a multi-dimensional canvas.
Part II.
But before a decision can be reached on the fate of this little girl’s academic future, I am no longer in this room, but instead in a narrow hallway with my sister and so begins the second part of the dream. I sense the narrowness of this hall and it seems it may be a hallway between staircases.
It is very dimly lit and then it is pitch black…. but not because the lighting has changed, but because I can’t see. I know I am not blind, just temporarily unable to see. In the hallway there is man’s voice telling me he has the compound I need to put on my eyes to heal them and I take it in my hands.
The compound is thick and clay-like, and I put it on my eyes. It adheres to my right eye, but it keeps falling off my left eye. It is not at all soothing and causes my eyes to sting and burn. Ultimately, I am unable to open my eyes and I continue down the darkened narrow hall using my hands on the side walls for direction.
Part III.
And then I am in a brightly sunlit room with large windows all around; the third installment begins. I am at a slumber party and the room is filled with my girlfriends. We have overslept and I am trying to wake everyone up.
Some I jostle a bit; others I simply say wake up, get up… it’s late and we don’t have much more time. We have an appointment or somewhere to be between 12 and 2 and we have slept so long I am afraid we won’t get to where we need to be in time.
No one is in a great hurry, however. As we talk and laugh and get ready, we all take a moment to look at the bright noon sun reflecting its beams brilliantly off the large windows; we feel its warmth and are filled with its glow.
And I wake up… literally with the feeling of sand in my eyes.
