Your vision will become clear when you look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.
– Carl Jung
© Leslie Owen Wilson
The swirls of my dreamlife
destabilize the politics of the schoolyard,
the power of the gang.
They interrupt the endless
boredom of my compulsory
education.
They ease
the pain
of the split tongues,
iced shoulders,
the pinches from disdaining eyes.
In those dreamscapes
the bullies were never born,
nor are they borne.
The swirls provide
a viewing tube,
a one way mirror of safety
an electrical shock
helping to carry the weight of my reality.
The swirls of my dreamlife
are portals to pleasures
conduits of knowing
escapes from pained puzzling
into
fluid awareness,
flowing continuums,
whole pictures
and beyond.
They keep trying
to pull me back
into the screaming glare
of their mindless banter.
God but they’re loud!
Blah, ba blah, blah they say.
Just vacant noise
filling the warm silences
and corners of my mind
with their feral screeching,
and meaningless words.
“Daydreaming again are we?
Pay attention.
I am talking to you!”
They don’t seem to realize
the swirls of my dreamlife
help me answer questions,
offer visions,
show me the way
to fantastic worlds of wonder
and
into possibilities, probabilities, preferabilities.
For daydreams are portals
to my self-worth,
music to my eyes.
The swirls are threaded directly
into my soul
with sacred beauty
and promises of good things to come.
Blessed be the swirls . . .
Comments: In schools we negate daydreaming as a useless pastime and a sign of ill-attention. But what if what is going on in students’ daydreams are much more productive, imaginative, and wonderful than what we are offering up as knowledge or education? Thomas Edison knew the the power of a good nap and a good dream. As well he valued the relaxed state between consciousness and sleep as the special place where great ideas could be found. Perhaps teachers have something yet to learn about the educational power of the dreamtime.
© Leslie Owen Wilson all rights reserved