I dreamed a dream....

Sometimes my dreams whisper to me.

This time I am struggling to remember parts of the dream, but it was significant, so I have to share as much as I can.

I went to bed thinking to myself - or rather, asking - what messages do I need about the future? Things feel very bleak to me. I used to do this all the time, ask and dream, until my sleep cycle became erratic.

In my dream, my partner, my teen daughter and I were standing in the living room. It was our living room, but in the way of dreams it was open to the world on all four sides via large picture windows. It was dark, and we were being given narration, and all the scenes unfolded around us like a 3D movie. Parts of the narration were fuzzy, so I will encapsulate as best I can. But |I could see rows and rows of tents and people being marched out in front - prisoners, you might call them.

The narrator was speaking of dissent. He (interpreted as male) said that already, dissent was becoming suppressed, that people who spoke out against conventional power structures were being ridiculed and shamed. (This is true). Some have been arrested. He told me that if this trend continues, it may happen that those people who openly disagree with the government could also be jailed, or sent to camps.

(Full disclosure - I am|Canadian and although we are under no immediate threat, things could change at any time. My province is under a Conservative government with no plan beyond lowering the price of gas and beer, and tearing apart the social supports that took years to build, including health care and education, although they won't say that. I have a measure of safety compared to my friends in the US. I will fight like hell to keep it).

My narrator said that even though it was already beginning, it was vital for people in the resistance to organize. And by organize, he meant both politically and socially. We need to become a unified force of peaceful resistance, a body of loving humans who walk the talk. We need to form alliances and groups in neighbourhoods, not for political gain, but to provide community-building, support and help for those in need, because those needs will increase. And we need to resist, with loving and open hearts.

Here's the thing that was happening at the same time: my partner and I were both carrying our phones, but they had somehow become loudspeakers. While we were watching and listening to this important information, there were constant and random interruptions - like Facebook and Twitter feeds on audio, and the stream of consciousness was being broadcast continually.

It interfered with our ability to understand and retain important information. For example (the one I remember) a female voice keep squawking "I need to park" over and over again, and I couldn't shut it off.

After the "scene" was over, we all went to bed - I was still dreaming - and I couldn't sleep. The phones were still noisy. I felt the need to check the house, so I got out of bed and moved from room to room - everything was clear of negative energy inside and peaceful outside.

end of dream

My take away: everyone knows this but I am hammering it home: our phones, our easy access to information and misinformation, are a huge distraction. They are distorting truth (the users and the corporate power structures, which I like to call the overculture, not the phones) and causing disruptions in our thought patterns. I couldn't see all the images I was meant to see, or hear the narration at points because I was being interrupted by advertising, and individuals musing on their need to park.

Phones are useful tools, but they have taken over - we need to put technology back into perspective and spend more time with real people, in our neighbourhoods, and in nature, forming the physical and emotional connections that an inanimate device can't offer us.

I started this blog ten years ago.

I stopped writing online for a long time. I didn't stop writing, of course. I will always choose pen and paper over laptop, and I needed time, time to sink into myself, figure out who I was: out, partnered, parent, educator.

Ten years later, I own a home with that same partner. My kid is in high school with her own struggles and triumphs. I am a grandparent. I have been working on a music theory and vocal qualification that will allow me to teach private music lessons.

I still yearn, as well I should, because I am not done yet. But I am also frightened.

Frightened of a world turned upside down. I'm not hiding in fear, but I am prickling with awareness. Is this the world I want to leave for my descendants? In spite of the progress I believed we were making, we have reversed course in the most terrible of ways. White supremacists have taken over the highest offices of the US government, which cares more for corporations than people. Children are being separated from their parents at the border and have suffered unknown trauma as a result. Kindness is difficult to find. I am less positive about everything.

This morning I watched a Starhawk video that helped me shift my thinking. For those of you who don't know, Starhawk is a witch, writer and activist who wrote "The Spiral Dance," the book that set me on the pathway to pagan spiritual practice.

She offered specific advice, and a spell to change the political energy of the US - I would say all of North America because some politicians, here in Ontario for example, are bringing the rhetoric of division and selling a false narrative: that tax cuts and lower wages benefit the most vulnerable as much as they benefit the corporations that the government now serves.

But my take home: my thoughts create the energy around me. While I am reading all of these horror stories, I am wrapped in anger and despair. I need to take a moment and visualize the world I want to see, direct my thought energy into positive places.

I won't hide from the truth. Part of why I am on this planet at all is to bear witness. I will still advocate, retweet, share, call in, call out, call my representative, put  my boots on the ground and march. But I will also imagine the world - the possible world, and all the wonder that it holds. If it changes nothing else, it will change me, and that is significant.

Please watch and listen as Starhawk shares her wisdom.