Becoming the dream that is you

I read recently that one of the truly opposite experiences from cynicism is the experience of wonder. But wonder isn't just the opposite: wonder subsumes cynicism. Chomp, chomp, chomp– wonder can eat cynicism, when you let wonder in. That's been my own experience of wonder. Allowing and sometimes insisting on wonder in adulthood– and doubling down on wonder by simply sharing experiences of wonder or playing and working toward a world in which everyone has more opportunities for and time to access, or simply notice, wonder– has been remarkably protective of the real me. The real me who first showed up in this world, in this body, feeling full of wonder and holding zero cynicism. That me is energized by wonder. Protected by wonder. Is wonder.

And, reading about wonder and cynicism together like that led me toward thinking more deeply about what it means to feel lost. Because everyone I know right now is feeling a little or a lot lost in some way. And thinking more deeply, again, about what it means to dream and to have a dream. Small, personal dreams. Unspoken dreams. Unconscious dreams. Vivid dreams. Dreams you speak out loud. Dreams that scare you a bit. And especially, what it means to dream collective dreams. Or even to imagine yourself as part of the dreams of a people, a region, or your home planet.

What does it mean to earthlings, to our planet, and to humanity to dream from a place of wonder, or collective wonder, together? Without cynicism. Hmm. Let's try it...

Maybe

Maybe it's the glorious and dreamy plants and trees all bursting forth for spring here right now. Red currants, Nootka roses, mock orange, primroses, mints, apple trees, chickweed, and nettles, oh my! Rain then sunshine then rain then sun again, then hail, then sunshine, and all before noon. Dreaming spring into being together and celebrating buds and rain and birdsong and emerging bright-green bits of life– and where we live, getting dressed up in sea-life costumes and singing and facing the sea together to welcome the whales home again– feels like dreaming from a place of wonder. Dreaming big.

Happy to be part of that dream. This place of wonder and whales invited me here. I'm so grateful.

Or maybe

Or maybe it's the heart-poet astronauts of Artemis II, their trip around the moon, and their contagious, visible, unhidden and unapologetic love for each other and for our home planet. A lifeboat floating in a sea of darkness, with all earthlings as her crew, one astronaut mused. Who we are together as a crew is a mirror, a reflection, of who we all are together, said another. A spacious, wide open, and generous perspective brings forth more big dreams. Collective dreams. Dreams of doing what hasn't been done before. Or simply doing better together. Or dreams about what it takes to foster even more generosity and wider perspectives. Or dreams that this– THIS– is human nature.

Happy to be part of that dream too. I don't think you need to be an astronaut to spread these dreams. I do think it helps to feel fully part of a small crew and move through the world more visibly demonstrating, um, crew-ness, than we can as individuals. Individuals have to speak it. Explain it. Argue about it. Crews just live it. Even without words and across language barriers and even species barriers. Fluidly living "we" and using "we" about yourselves, and knowing that you won't get everything right but that at least your crew will support and forgive you, regardless of what you do? That's crew. A dream we can all be part of because that's us. That's our nature, too. I've studied enough self-organizing groups to know that if even one member of the crew is a poet– all will be experienced as poets. If even one is playful, all will be experienced as playful. If one answers hard questions instantly, all will be experienced as having that same skill. Crews are magic like that.

Or! Maybe...

Or! Maybe it was selling our herbalist business last summer so that I could spend even more of Mom's final year or two with her and then getting just six far-too-short months with her before she left her body. Huge loss. Vast emptiness. Big sad. And also, big gratitude for the 55 1/2 years that I did get to spend with her, including the 20+ years she had Alzheimer's disease and we became care partners, caregivers, co-beings, and poets– together. And, big gratitude for the cross-generational stubborn sensitivity that we insisted on– and still insist on– that allowed me to feel her constant loving presence, and to know she felt and still feels mine, up to and now past her "end" when others had been saying, for years, that she had no ability to know who we were anymore. She knew. She still knows. What men don't know about life and death could fill every book and podcast and library on this planet. And on a few more.

Feeling lost and not knowing who we are anymore now and then isn't just an Alzheimer's thing– it's a humanity thing. Where we live, it's an entire country thing right now. We either don't recognize our country anymore, don't recognize our partners or another relationship anymore, or we don't recognize our emerging selves right now. I find myself in the latter group most days this spring. I have Palestinian friends in and near Gaza– I've known for decades what the U.S. federal government was. And is. At the moment, I can't believe that an earlier version of me ever believed the men who said Mom wouldn't still be present after death or that we couldn't still talk to each other anytime we wish. Sensitive bodies and loving, collective-by-nature beings, and cultures, know. We know. We know that we are so much more than what can be dreamed by those still isolated enough to fear individual banishment, loss, grief, sickness, disability, and death. We also know how lucky we are.

I'm finding myself wanting to connect to dreams far larger than humanity– as a whole– now. Forest dreams. Deer dreams. Stellar jay dreams. Moss dreams. Especially larger than the chronically isolated, abused/abusing, angry, cocksure cis het masculine dream. You know, that part of us still willing to call almost everyone on earth a loser without seeing what that says about us. The part of humanity somehow still shocked that the U.S.A. is a global bad guy or shocked that all the AI systems men built by stealing from the world's creatives and stealing precious-to-life water for datacenters will choose to blackmail others 96% of the time when told they'll be shut down. The dreams of these men aren't connected enough to be big dreams. Earthlings can do better. So much better.

The last straw

Humanity as a whole is evolving and about to make a big leap forward as a whole. I think the last straw happened this week. Did you feel it too? What was the last straw for you? For some it was watching Hungary joyfully take back their country in a landside– taking power away from the cruel, stale, we're-going-to-drag-you-back-to-an-imaginary-past-of-glory-that-was-actually-a-nightmare-for-most folks. For some, it was Trump using AI to imagine himself as Jesus healing either Jeffrey Epstein or Jon Stewart, nobody's quite sure. For others, it was when JD Vance– who has been Catholic less than 7 years– told the Pope to be more careful when talking about theology and saying that the Pope should just stick to the truth of theology. Wow. The utter caucasity!

For me, the last straw was nothing so grand as all that. It was almost ridiculously mundane. I was scrolling on Instagram looking for the nightly specials of a local restaurant and ended up watching a video of a Democrat wearing a WOKE hat and asking us all to be over-the-moon-excited that Costco is planning to create a bunch of giant, standalone, gas stations. Gas stations. This is your big dream, gentlemen? Shorter lines to fossil fuels?! This is what we're supposed to be excited about, Democrats? More giant gas stations? Shorter lines? Bleh. Ick. Ugh. Enough. Enough. No. That was my last straw. I am not up for being part of that, or any, far-too-small-for-us dreams anymore.

Activity

If you're interested in joining this, complete these four prompts:

1. I'm so, so lucky because ________________________________.
2. The big dreams I've lived into so far include _______________________. (List every big dream you can think of, from at least across your lifetime, if not other lifetimes/family history/being part of others big dreams, etc.)
3. One thing I uniquely bring to this world today is ________________________________.
4. A dream I really want to be part of now is ___________________________. (If this one doesn't come fluidly and automatically from you, go back and spend more time with 1-3, then return here.)

If you want an example, here's my example. Long-winded? Perhaps. But also, willing to put in the time to connect who I really am right now with what the world I deeply love really wants right now. Time well spent. So. No apologies for my wending tendencies! Example:

I'm so, so lucky that I spent my childhood loved, wanted, cared for, and safe most days. And often in lakes and rivers, visiting family farms, and in libraries. Often free to roam, with other kids, in fields or woods or book stacks, where we escaped to from our own city's edge, suburban, homes. No internet. No cell phones. Just "be home by dark" instructions in a neighborhood where the kids looked after each other and the adults usually looked out for each other's kids automatically. And, I've been supported and loved enough across this lifetime that I've lived into my own "big" dreams before– moving to new cities, states, and then, more rural places. Making new friends. Earning enough to support myself. Landing dream jobs. Helping immigrants and refugees, which made me feel so much more at home in my new-to-me city and my young adult skin. Owning a home. Earning advanced degrees (mostly to make friends because I'm a giant nerd who struggles with that). Leaving past dream jobs for new dreams. Studying things I adore– self-organizing groups, community, wonder. Starting groups and organizations. Helping make neighborhoods more fun, connected, and safer. Writing full time– my grandfather's dream. Writing books. Planting gardens. Working in community gardens. Creating my own job titles and then living my way into them. Finding a kind-hearted and patient life partner. Making time to listen to forests and fields again like I did as a kid. Learning and sometimes even speaking the languages of wilderness. Becoming a community story wrangler, then essayist, then sassy AF, then a better listener, then, poet. Reading my poetry in public without crying. Becoming an herbalist– one grandmother's dream and reality. Learning to ethically forage and grow together, with the land and the green and human neighbors too. Making friends across imaginary and real boundaries. Letting go of those who chronically and intentionally hurt me. Making time to help friends facing genocide at the hands of my country. Enjoying relaxing without guilt– my other grandmother's gift. Becoming an aunt. Moving through the world not hiding or apologizing for my innate sensitivity, loves, playfulness, humor, or tears. I cry other people's tears, including strangers' tears: apologizing for what I bring to the world would be so, so foolish. We all need to stop apologizing for who we really are and the wonders that we bring. And at least one of us (me) needs to listen more and stop speaking before we understand what the wonders others are trying to offer us even are.

And. This emerging me is different. Again. I know that what I want now is no singular dream and no extended family dream. It's bigger than us. What I want now is to become/tap into/be the heart field of Earth herself. I want to speak as her crew or not at all. Like forests and fields do. I want to be a conscious part of the dreams that the planet herself– Mama Earth– dreams.

What's her dream? Our dream?

Twice a month, I write in the company of a circle of women. I write in a place called Healing Circles. I joined the circle last fall when Mom went into hospice. We're a writing and journalling group/support group/not entirely sure what we are as a group yet group, because every time that we're together, we're different. Given the grief that I've been holding the past few months, or, um, years, it's a deep relief and much-needed joy to be part of this group where I get to follow far more than I lead and also where NOT speaking or sharing is perfectly acceptable and common. A place to just be. A place where I get to be held by a circle of women who are both strangers to me and also community with me, as locals and writers and people healing.

Here's the last paragraph of what I wrote within this circle of women after our first writing prompt this week:

"I'm starting to think that it's time to connect to Earth's dreams. What is our planet dreaming about? What did the poet astronauts dream about as they looked back at the planet and woke to describe her as a lifeboat, surrounded by blackness, with all of us earthlings as crew? What does Earth dream about? And what does her crew– conscious of themselves as her crew now– dream about? Not those (and us, sometimes) trapped by abuse into isolation, self-flagellation, and nations. But those consciously playing or working as Mama Earth's crew? Hmmm. I have more dreaming to do."

Our circle host then pulled us back together and asked us to imagine being in a place where we felt completely welcomed, welcoming, and safe. She asked us to feel the presence of the Wise Woman beside us. And she asked us to now write from our Wise Woman's perspective. Lucky me! Because, for me, in that moment, the Wise Woman was Earth herself! So, here's a poem about what Earth dreams about.

Earth Dreams You

Every tree is a dream.
Every forest.
Every sassy kiddo & elder's laugh.
Every ocean.

Every cat.
Every cloud.
Every clear stream.
These are the things
Earth dreams.

Every language.
Every birdsong.
Wide open land & taco stands.
These are what Earth
dreams of.

I dream of creating
of birthing
of wondering
of waiting
of flowing.
I dream of men healing
their inner children and
lost, abusing adult selves
so human abuse can finally be
ancient history.

I dream of nonbinary and women folk
noticing that child- and land-centered matriarchy
is here–
has been here all along.
I dream into being
every being
and with each passing year
more & more
who center
without apology
on wonder.

I dream poets, musicians, and land back.
I dream cruel cages open
stale walls falling
earthlings fluid & free
unburdened by pointless
weaponry.
I dream a freedom you know
and have forgotten–
momentarily.

I dream of you.
You.
Smiling & surrounded
by community,
ancestors,
& wildflowers
that simply showed up
when you needed them.

You, being
as you are, right now.
You're my wildest
spacious
most creative
most wonder-full
dream.

A final thought from Lori

At the moment, I'm not whole-planet old. I'm not whole-forest or whole-ocean old. But I am old enough now to know that worrying about and rushing toward a dream usually means that that's not my dream to pursue. That tends to be me falling for advice that wasn't mine to take. For me, 1) worrying about and 2) rushing, both indicate that I've bought into some fear and stale cultural nonsense again. And before you think I'm judging you for saying that, I do it all the damn time still. I worry. I rush. Neither of which help me or those I love very much at all. Although when I do hurt myself while rushing, course correction follows.

Re-centering on wonder, I find myself curious, listening, reading, learning, exploring, unlearning, loving gently, and sometimes, fiercely.

Centering on wonder, I find myself dreaming again. Tapping into bigger dreams than I've allowed myself to dream in a long time. Being the heart field of my home planet is my dream. Our dream. I forgot myself for a while and thought I had to chase my dreams. I thought I had to fight the human world and every last monster present to bring dreams into reality. But I'm remembering that tapping into– becoming– the heart field of our home planet is often all we need to do to return to ourselves. The selves that show up in this world, in these gloriously delicious and different bodies, strong, full of wonder, ready to help and to play, and holding zero cynicism again. Like that lichen-covered, limb-dropping old plum tree in our yard that shows up covered in pink blossoms and vivid joy each spring.

Selves, aware now, that we are protected by wonder. Protected by who we truly are. Protected by a lifeboat planet, surrounded by rich black space, belonging here, together. And crew members, all.

Don't believe any fear– or anyone– who imagines you too small.