Treat dreams a little bit more like waking life, and waking life a little bit more like a dream. That’s some of the best advice I’ve ever received—maybe in general, but certainly in trying to recall my dreams more frequently.
Treating waking life like dreaming-- that is, looking for signs, symbols, layers of meaning in things-- also stimulates my writing. And its easy to do in the carnival of New York City.
I love picking up random pieces of paper I find on the street and imagining that someone wants me to read them like clues. Sometimes I find grocery lists, an occasional overwrought love-note, or most magically a single yellowed page from an old book sitting on the middle of an empty sidewalk.
This latest falls into the last category, a lone page from The Second Penguin Krishnamurti Reader. This is in part what it says:
What a gorgeous little reminder for me to open my heart on a cloudless summer night. Thanks Krishnamurti!“Meditation is a never-ending movement. You can never say that you are meditating or set aside a period for meditation. It isn’t at your command. Its benediction doesn’t come to you because you lead a systemized life or follow a particular routine or morality. It comes only when your heart is really open. Not opened by the key of thought, not made safe by the intellect, but when it is as open as the skies without a cloud; then it comes without your knowing, without your invitation."
What treasures have you found in the street or in the woods/desert/jungle? Stories, wisdom, inspiration?
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4 comments:
I love this. Today I saw a yellow leaf curled almost into an ice cream cone shape. It looked a little like a three dimensional Valentine. Then I saw a creature had made the curl and put it on a fence post......but I am going to start looking more closely for clues.....Karleen
love that. 3-d Valentine...
ah treasures... I find that guides come to me in human form often and they flit quickly into my life with a message and are gone. Years ago in New York City I met a guy, we went on a date and he introduced me to an online group that was incredibly useful for that time in my life. At the end of our date we kissed in a cab on the way uptown and went our seperate ways. He was a magical messenger. In the desert an old man came rumbling down the road on a Friday night. I was doing a walking meditation, slow barefoot movement on the desert floor. The vision I presented I am sure was as unexpected to him as he was to me. As he drove down the road I vowed not to speak to him since he wasn't part of my meditation. He revealed otherwise, "are you okay?" "Yes, just meditating." He looked up at the canyon wall I faced and responded, "it's something else isn't it?" We shared a moment and he told me he had been wandering the Swell for 40 years. He had recently moved nearer from up north. His lips told me that he couldn't stand to be away from the land as his eyes told me he was lost without her. I understand. She, the desert and particularly the Swell, now also live vibrantly in my soul drawing me home. On a map he showed me some cool areas to explore which were everything I could have hoped for... and true to guide nature he was on his way.
Sandi... your stories are so gorgeous. Thank you for sharing them. The second one reminds me of the song Bloodlines by Terry Allen. I first heard it through the air-shaft of my tenement apartment here in NYC and it made me cry. I had to have it. I dance and sing to it pretty much every day now. So that was a human messenger who I never even saw... someone with good, though extremely different musical taste from me.
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