Dreams

You know those dreams that make you ridiculously happy?

No, I don't mean the one I had when I was 8, where an enormous ice cream sundae loomed in front of me, and just as I was about to take the first bite of that creamy, gooey, nutty mountain, I woke up and realized it wasn't real.

Instead, I mean the dreams that nestle inside your heart like a purring kitten, the vibrations of which have you humming long after you have woken up and well into the day. The dreams where you meet a person or an animal that seems normal but that glows with an inner light. Where you accomplish something extraordinary and feel power surging through your veins. The dreams where you fly.

The other night I dreamt I climbed a tree and then ran around a park with the greatest ease (I get joint pain easily and am not normally a runner). Climbing the tree, I felt I could fly, that I could reach any heights, escape enemies, help new friends.

Upon waking, this excitement stayed with me. I felt that my being had been validated, the personal power that gets submerged under daily annoyances reasserting itself. A gentle reminder.

I forget that these dreams exist until one returns. And I vow to hold the feeling in my heart until it fades. I cling to reality but it slinks out and I am left clutching an empty shell.

I thank God for these angelic nudges but humbly ask if I might live among the stars more often and not only in sleep. But how?

I feel more aligned with this power when I am regular about praying and meditating, when I get enough exercise and listen to the voice that tells me to write, to be forgiving, to look up and greet the pigeon couple flying by. But the simplicity of this makes it seem irrelevant, and I stray.

Until one night, when I walk on snakes in the moonlight, banish a demon shaped like a cuddly cat by declaring God's power, meet a stranger who sings a song of love, fall from a cliff and soar back up...