Endless Road...
To The Remembered
Land
Have you ever awoken from a dream
to find that you had only awoken
from a dream again?
The phenomenon is called Illucid
Dreaming.
It is the combining of the conscious
and unconscious minds in a dream state.
The conscious mind, with its rational
and relentless desire to make sense
and organization out of everything that it thinks, allows the
unconscious mind,
with its unruly behavior and ad-hoc senses
to coexist for a few precious moments
in time.
Command of the illucid dream state
can be a powerful tool.
Relax, open your mind, read on,
and enjoy.
My heart echoes in my eyes as I read the words
of N. Scott Momaday, "My Remembering of My Land."
A warm mist encircles me and I feel my head grow
heavy and comfort become me as the embrace of mother once did so many years ago. Trusting.
My feet tingle, deep slumber is not so far away, and the mist tightens its circle.
My conscious mind
surrenders.
As sleep inhales my body, I inhale
the mist and it fills my head like the wind fills a curtain on an open
window. And then it exists. Quiet falls heavy and thoughts lay
strewn like autumn leaves upon the ground. My senses tell me the
mist is near.
A time of harmonics. Where symphonies begin
with the morning dawn and end with the bedding sun. Where each
has a part to play and my part is to listen, to look, to learn.
Reality has gone. Alas, my lost days receive me.
Entering slowly, caution abides me. Curiosity
and wonder take the lead and I see this day, this time, and remember
it well. It is for play. It once fulfilled the simple desires
of my child heart, questions of my unmade mind, and needs of my
inventions It once was alive. And here, it lives again.
Tears ran from my eyes, but I drove on. On
and on--I was going home. Oh, this endless road of thirty miles,
it knows no curves, no hills. There is scarce a sight to break
the wall of brush that abates the road, that stands like soldiers
guarding the swamp, slowing only now and again an aimless deer
to pass unchecked. The mind can wander when not provoked to thought.
Mine mind kept going home.
And home was where I was headed. Sixteen long
years had gone, slipped away like smoke somehow, drifting into
life, and I had not been home. I went in quest of my inner strength.
Sent on my journey with two children, and one on the way. It was
the final journey. In search of my Self and seeking my heart.
I searched the mountain tops, the flats of
the dusty prairie. Through the west, I longed for me; through the south, I sought me.
I looked to the monarchy of the saints, the kingdoms of the parties, and to other families. But as a snail taken from his home leaving only an empty shell, so too was my search.
The trees began to blend and my eyes could
not discern where the road ended and the swamp began. The clouds
flew by as lights in a hospital corridor. And I gasp as my car
skid round the corner of the drive and stopped in the way of the
place I had known so long as home. There, before me, in all its
glory lay my land.
As though I could consume it, I drew a breath
to the tips of my toes. Home. Home, alas. Warmth wrapped my body
and my eyes were wide alert. My lips smiled and it was
wonderful. It is all that I remember it would be. It is all
the same. The trail holds its darkness. Its secrets. Guarded well
by the resting alligator drawn in form by the tops of the trees.
Trees who hang their leaves like hands, waiting to help me in.
Sweet aromas of grass and narcissus linger through the yard. And
lilacs. The clay and sand upon my hill look of moisture from last
night's rain. Fresh for the day. I can hear fluttering wings,
birds making nests, grasshoppers stroking their violin legs in
the weeds nearby. And my heart.
To my north lay the superior lake, beautiful
rippled hues of blues cut only by small white tails and the island. It welcomes me. And to the west the water speaks in gentle swirls, meandering through the yard to the bend.
I can see it all. Again, I inhale its beauty,
lingering the outward breath, keeping the beauty within. With
the full exit of air, in the instant of a thought, I recoil it
all ablaze with coppers. Oranges. Red. Yellows fill the trees.
The air is autumn. Brisk. Musk. and I know, I know with this that
this is all fantasy.
My body, it rides in a car on the endless road to nowhere. Here my soul has taken leave, if only for
a few moments, seconds, and before it lay my land.
Reality tugs. I resist. Stand firm your feet, my girl. Don't let go.
Never let go.
At my wish, the trees toss their leaves away
and snowflakes fill the sky. Fluffy. Cold. They melt upon my nose.
Sunshine, yes me, I know this is my hand at work and I see winters'
glitters across the spans of snow and the twinkles of the heavens
sparkle beneath my feet. And there, hitting upon the bank, is
my daddy's little yellow plow. It coils snow beneath its force
and builds banks around the yard. But time is of the essence and
reality is not patient.
Sunshine change the season.
Sunshine let it be spring.
Flowers emerge from the mildewed ground and
trees push buds to catch the golden rays. Birds sing. Frogs reply.
And once again, life's reborn. The wind blows its might force
and clouds move in as rapid as the train. And as loud as its
roar, thunder commands to the earth sheets of raindrops here and
there. Then Sunshine sleeps again.
In the falling darkness, my soul has seen
it all. The seasons of my land, the times I yearned and the times
I know so very well.
As lightning stirs the deadened night, as
my mother's words echo in distant thought, my body snatches me
back. And there I am, driving the endless road.
Faster and faster, only a mile to go. Anticipation
thrusts me forward and finally it is here. I pull the car to a
halt before the land I used to know, before the land my soul has
visited, before all. Looking to the skyline, the alligator has
gone. The darkness of the trail has given way to total blackness
and trees that once stood with covered trunk now stand with barren
bark. I escape the distortion from the confines of my car and
stand on the sands of the drive. Eyes flash upon the hill and
it is gone. Consumed by trees-gone. It is all gone. Nothing stayed
the same. No longer will sunlight fall upon the ground beneath
my feet as I watch my Lee uncovered history beneath the broken
bottles of blue. No longer can I stand atop my rock and see the
world, above the saplings, above the baby spruce. No longer.
Grass once cured, once pruned, once sweet
with clover. It lay now dead beneath my knees. I weep into my
hands. For this is where I knew my strength would be, my heart's
longing, my soul's desperate desire. How could my land have deceived
me How could it have left and never bid me a farewell. How could
it have changed its face. How could it all have died.
In the sorrow of my tears, I hear my illucid
self. I see the woman, her name is "reality." She stands bold upon my
rock, her hand stretch for me to reach. A glow upon her head.
I hear her call my name.
Before I had repulsed her tone. Resisted her
pull. Denied her existence. Now was different. Now I wanted to
leave this terrible place.
I awoke to find myself in bed, drapes amid
the air. And a dissident silence. This all had been but a set
of dreams, one atop another. Here I was, within my bed. Moments
passed and conscious minds melted together once again. In thought,
I recollected the journey of my dreams. The way I smelled the
ruins of trees, saw the sun and felt its warmth. I had been to
the mountain tops, trampled grass in the valley below. I had seen
the road's endless miles and heard the bids come alive. I had
frolicked at the pond's edge and touched flowers within my yard.
I had drifted upon snow covered banks and saw glitters beneath
my feet.
And I had not.
While mind and body had lain at rest, my soul
had journeyed far. Soaring through the years of time, it sought
for me my courage, it sought my heart. It found it in my memories,
my past, my mist. It found for me the strength I needed. It found
it in the land and it brought it back to me.
Oh primitive quandary facing child,
who sought with the foolish will,
All that you had loved so much
that which ownership's not still.
For all the dreams you came to know
brought but tears into your hands,
And you found them here within your heart
amidst memories of these lands.
Sun
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