Weaving The Dream

In my dream, I help two of my adult sons sort and clean out the accumulated toys, papers, and mementos of their childhood in a room that looks and feels like my childhood bedroom, when the third son walks in and asks if his stuffed animal is in here.

In waking life, that stuffed animal was a constant companion to my son from infancy through most of elementary school.  His fuzzy companion traveled next to him in the car to the grocery store and on long trips to my parents.  He was carried from room to room in our house and then tucked next to him in bed at night. 

In the dream, I point out the animal, high on a shelf behind some other childhood treasures.  My son pushes aside the stuffed sock clown, and lunchbox-sized vinyl case to pull down his old friend. The vinyl case falls on his head but doesn’t hurt him.  With the animal in his arms, my son is no longer the tall adult but once again a child, his head the height of my waist.

“Mommy,” he says, “he is so clean!”

“I washed him for you,” I say.  Then suddenly my son has the animal crushed against his chest and is crying.  I know, in the dream, that he cries tears of happiness at recovering this beloved part of his childhood.  I hug him to me, comforting him.

I wake up.

Practicing what I teach others, I name the dream “Reclaiming a Childhood Toy.”

Of course, that stuffed animal was more than a toy to my quiet, introverted son—it was companion, pretend playmate, holder of secrets and fears.  Amulet, touchstone, and lodestone all in one huggable being of fake fur and stuffing.

Though the dream seems to be about my son, and on one level it may be, I also know that the dream is very much and more about me.

For one thing, the dream occurs, not in my sons’ bedrooms, but in my childhood bedroom.  The lunchbox-sized vinyl case that falls on my son looks very much like the case in which I kept my favorite doll, Besty McCall, and her clothes.  That case sits in my adult bedroom as I write…

Too, my son and I share the same astrological sign—we are both Leos.

So how is the dream about me?  Well, as we say in dream circle, if this dream were my dream (and it is), I would think that, in fact, I am clearing out things from the past that no longer serve me – that I have grown beyond.  BUT—and this is an important but—while I may put away the things from childhood that no longer serve me, it is also a necessary and healthy thing, especially for the life and well-being of my creativity, to hold onto the amulets, touchstones, and lodestones of childhood imagination, and thereby hold on to that precious inner child.

My son’s tears of joy in the dream were for a rediscovered part of his childhood—the part that held his imagination and inner peace and contentment, all things that we struggle to attain and maintain, especially as creative adults.

Could this be one of the cures for creative block?  To find a toy or some other beloved object from our childhood that can invoke the joy of being a child again while reminding us of the creative power of our imagination?

So, what am I going to do to honor the dream?  Well, I am going upstairs to get out that doll case…

“So where have you taught dreamwork?” a metaphysical shop owner in Indiana asked me when I broached the subject of presenting dream workshops to his customers.

“Uh, well,” I said, stepping back, “I’ve, uh, taught regionally in New York and the surrounding area, but, uh, I want to teach elsewhere now…”

Great answer, huh?  Makes you want to hire me to teach on the spot, doesn’t it?  NOT!

Two nights before that conversation, I had a dream, and, if I had paid more attention to that dream as I teach others to do, I might have been prepared with a better answer for the shop owner.  In the dream, I am promoting dreamwork as a great tool for executives to help create company vision, team bonding, and stress management.  I remember speaking passionately to this person, using my hands, and leaning forward as I talked.  I felt strong and confident about what I, and the dreamwork, had to offer.  I woke in the middle of pointing out other benefits.

This is how I should have talked to the owner of that Indiana shop—leaning forward, speaking with passion and clarity.

My husband called me on it (lovingly, of course) and said my body language was sabotaging me and that there was a disconnect between how I talked about myself to potential employers and how I handled a class of dreamers.

Why is it that many creative and entrepreneurial types (especially we women) are so lousy at self-promotion?

Even after years of experience promoting my weaving while standing in my booth at craft shows, talking to retailers and private customers alike about the unique quality, color, and finish of my work, I still manage to become shy, tongue-tied, and apologetic about my book and my speaking and teaching.  Why is that?

Maybe it goes back to those days in elementary school when I discovered that my classmates did not like someone who always had the answers.  Or maybe it is our societal mindset that says expertise belongs only to those possessing framed degrees and credentials.  Or maybe we just don’t believe we are good—good enough—until someone else (with degrees and credentials, or even more impressive, fame!) tells us we are.  Better yet is to have more than one someone tell us…and tell us…and tell us!

Am I a good teacher of dreamwork?  I am a GREAT teacher of dreamwork because I have been practicing and teaching dreamwork for almost 15 years, and because I love sharing the magic and power and wisdom of dreams with others.  I love seeing people light up when an insight into their dreams gives them insight into their lives.

Wow!  See, I can promote myself!  I am just going to have to practice saying those last two sentences over…and over…and over.  Toot, toot!

My husband, Bob, and I just returned from attending the wedding of the oldest son of our good friends, Bill and Patty.  Like us, they have three boys and this is the first son to marry.  We were excited for them and for us since our oldest son will be married later this fall.

For a number of reasons, Patty had much of the responsibility for organizing and preparing for the wedding and reception.  Her loving care and efforts were evident in everything from the organist to the wedding program, and to the reception in the church hall afterwards.  There, Patty had recruited friends and neighbors to help decorate the tables as well as prepare and serve the food and beverages for the buffet.

During the ceremony, as Bill and Patty watched their son repeat the age-old vow promising to love, honor, and cherish his new bride with his “I do!” I couldn’t help but think about how Patty and Bill first had to say, “I do”, to Mike and his brothers.  For in giving birth, the most powerful creative act for many women, we must say, “I do,” promising to love, honor, and cherish our children, without reserve and often without reward.

As I mentioned in a previous post, commitment is a scary thing whether to the children of our wombs or the children of our inspiration. Like our flesh and bones children, our creative children also need us to say, “I do.” If our songs, our paintings, our novels, our weavings are to have life, find a home, and grow into the fullness of their potential, we must commit to giving them our love and our respect without reserve – and often without reward.

The challenge, of course, is to keep saying, “I do” when we are tired, short-tempered, and frustrated, to continue to love and honor our efforts to create what has meaning, beauty, and significance even in the face of criticism or failure.  Our creativity is sacred whether it manifests in our children or in our creative work, and we are called to give it everything we have.

As we sat next to Patty’s sister waiting for the wedding to begin, she shared with me that Mike told her, “Mom has always been there for me for 28 years.”  Mike truly understood and appreciated the selfless, unstinting love his mother had given him, still hearing the echoes of her “I do,” even 28 years later.

So I wonder…Can I promise to love, honor, and cherish my creative work in frustration and disappointment?  Can I be as selfless in my creativity as Patty was in preparing that wedding for her son?  Can I say, “I do,” to my creativity?

After the ceremony, as the bride and groom made their way down the aisle greeting their guests, Mike hugged his mom fiercely to him, tears of relief and love and joy on both their faces.

And I would guess that, for Patty, that was reward enough!
 

OK - so my studio goes through periods of looking like it just burped after a heavy meal…

Like right now. I asked my fairy godmother if she would just wave her magic wand and clean it for me but she thinks it is better if I clean and organize it myself.

“Then you are less likely to make such a mess again,” she tells me, pointing her wand at me. (Really, after all this time, you’d think she would know better!)

But if I am just going to mess it all up again (me and those reproducing cones of yarn), then why bother? Why not just leave it the way it is after a swipe with the dust cloth and push of the vacuum cleaner along the path through the jumble of books, cones, pillow forms, and projects?

Well, because just as much as creativity loves the freedom of chaos, it also loves the space and clarity of order. After a while, the jumble of papers, books, yarns, and other things that sneak in, makes me feel chaotic inside, and a little claustrophic. Clutter weighs me down–mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

I usually try to give the studio a thorough cleaning–reorganizing, vacuuming, dusting, and washing windows-at this time of year. I throw out old files and magazines, and give books I have read and don’t need anymore away to friends or my local library. And when I am done, I feel lighter, happier, and eager to get back to weaving and writing.

Apparently, I am not imagining this as experts in Feng Shui say that clearing out clutter eliminates negative Chi (energy) and makes room for new ideas and developments.

So I need to create order in order to create. After all, how can I choose the colors to weave a new luscious shawl if I can’t see all the yarns I have available? I might miss that ocean blue or that deep forest green. How can I let my mind adventure off into the next scene of my fantasy novel, if bills and writing assignments are scattered around the computer competing for my attention? I may manage to write a few pages somehow but it often takes longer and uses more energy. Eventually, I start to procrastinate writing or weaving, or even going out to the studio at all, a sure sign I need a little order.

Sigh! So I need to get to work because I have seven feet of workspace and you can’t see the surface of any of it anymore. And something important may be buried there…like my creativity.

Now where did my fairy godmother go?

I am a weaver and writer fortunate enough to have a great space for the constant leaping off into the creative abyss.

I love my space, my studio, because it is over our garage so it is on a level with the trees that surround us. And it has windows on three sides-north, east, and south-that let in lots of light. The only wall with no windows is covered with light of another kind, my cones of yarn. And I mean covered-cones line up from top to bottom, from left to right, from white to yellow to orange on through the color wheel to black.

It is my palette from which I choose my colors for “painting” my rayon chenille throws and shawls and scarves and loose jackets.

This montage of color is wonderful except for one thing. I have too many cones for the wall. Cones are piled on the floor in a tumble, one on top of the other - some buried so I can’t even see what colors I have. I try to keep them organized, picked up and cleaned up but, honestly, when my back is turned, those cones are like rabbits, reproducing and tumbling about until once again the area looks like Dorothy’s tornado just whirled through throwing them left and right.

Creative ideas and projects can be like those cones. Just when we think we have them organized and going in the direction we want, we turn our backs momentarily only to turn around again and discover they have multiplied, scrambled, and otherwise escaped our control.

Life is like this, too. As much as we may desire order, control, and direction, Chaos, with her friends, Change and Unexpected, are frequent visitors. Our only choice is how to treat them once they arrive because although we may want to slam the door in their faces, not only is it rude but somehow they always manage to get a foot in first!

Over the years, I have learned to accept that chaos is part of my process, so I let it visit for a time, while I step over cones (occasionally tripping!), dig under them, search for a missing color. I live and work within the chaos until I have moved through one or several projects. Then, suddenly like a switch turned on, I know I need to create order again before I can create or design anything else. Soon, once again, I am restacking, remounting, re-arranging cones of Persimmon, Lipstick Red, Regency Purple, and Seabreeze, knowing that the minute I turn my back Chaos will return.

Perhaps my time would be better spent teaching those cones to click their heels and say, “There is no place like home…there is no place like home…”

Why are beginnings so scary?

Some beginnings, of course, are scarier than others. Beginning a New Year is not so scary most of the time. Usually we are grateful to be alive and able to see in a New Year. Beginning a good meal, a new book, or a movie is seldom scary unless intentionally so.

But two beginnings are always scary - new relationships and new creative projects.

New relationships are scary because if they don’t work out someone might get hurt and that someone might be me!

New creative projects are scary because if they don’t work out - if no one likes them, buys them, understands them, etc, then someone might get hurt and that someone is always going to be the creator, i.e. ME!

And here I am beginning a blog - something that is about both a new relationship (with you) and a new creative project. Now how much scarier can you get than that?

Maybe that is the reason I kept finding more research to do, changing my mind about the focus, listening to one more teleseminar before birthing this baby (OK – having a baby is the ultimate really scary combination of new relationship and new creative project and I should know – I have had three!)

Beginning relationships and creative projects require at least two things: commitment and the willingness to risk being a fool. And this is why they are scary.

In today’s world, we can do, change, access most things quickly and easily. Here today, gone tomorrow. Making a commitment to stay with a relationship or a creative project (which is really just a relationship of another kind) requires being willing to give time to something to grow and change and succeed and fail and succeed again. Most of us either are unwilling to be patient at all since everything else seems to arrive at the push of a computer key, or we are only willing to be patient through one or two failings. Then it gets too painful or too costly in time, energy, or money, and we give up.

And, of course, most of us are unwilling to be seen as the fool. The Expert? Absolutely, see my hand in the air waving at you? But the Fool? Oh no, experience that kid-in-class-with-the-wrong-answer-so-the-other-kids-laugh-at-you feeling again? Unh-unh. Been there, done that.

And yet, if I don’t risk being the fool by being wrong or inept, if I’m not willing to make the commitment to allow growth and evolution, how will I ever enter a marriage, start a new business, write a book, make a new friend, post a blog?

So, here I am - the committed Fool, stepping off into the Blog Abyss.

Paula