ANIMAL MAGNETISM – A Dream to Remember

How often do you dream? If it’s frequently, you’re lucky. Me, I very seldom dream—or should I say, remember my dreams. So when I do remember one it’s likely to be a beaut…like the one I had last week:

I was taking a nap in the living room. As I awoke, I noticed Charlie, an old friend who’d been visiting me from Boston, standing next to me. He was about to leave and head back home. Without as much as sitting up, I gave him a sort of awkward handshake, and he walked toward the door with his small carry-on bag.

A few steps behind Charlie tottered a very young horse, a winsome, long-legged, still-slightly-gangly  chestnut foal. Charlie opened the door, turned and beckoned his young friend to leave with him. Instead the animal stopped beside my day bed, glanced down at me, and lay down…right on top of me.

Not the slightest bit alarmed, I put my arms around the beautiful animal, marveling at its smell. It wasn’t that I’d expected it to smell bad, but I thought it would at least smell like a horse. It didn’t; it smelled even better, a sweet, warm-nutty scent something like the way your skin smells after you lie in sun for while.

You’d think having a horse of any size lying on top of you would, if not crush
you, at least squeeze the wind out of you. But this foal was nearly weightless.
I felt nothing but its smooth, still-soft coat, its warmth, the slow ebb and flow
of its breath.

It nuzzled with me.

       The big cat licked my face and then 
       nestled its head in the crook of my neck.

WITHOUT A WORD
Charlie had left without a word, and I lay there overcome with wonder at this sweet animal’s affection for me; with what seemed like the opening of a clear channel of silent communication between us. It was as if our spirits flowed together into one. I closed my eyes and, basking in this magical moment, drifted off to sleep.

Later, when I opened my eyes, the foal had somehow morphed into a stunningly beautiful cat. Again, it was not the kind of cat you'd expect to be sleeping with—it was a cougar. It was looking right into my eyes, deeply, as if this was as extraordinary an experience for it as for me.
 

I studied every hair on the cougar’s face, the meld from fawn to white around its eyes and mouth, the little black spot at the root of each whisker. I could feel that
the animal shared my admiration and wonder.

The big cat licked my face and then nestled its head in the crook of my neck.
I did not lick it back.

When I awoke from my dream, I lay in bed for the longest time basking in the rapture of that transcendent experience. I felt a guest in a paradise of possibility, though, try as I might, I could not go back again and conjure up my enchanting new friends.

      Whatever life may throw at us, the only thing 
      we have to fear is failing to understand its
      place in that sacred reality.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
I've shared my dream with my wife and several friends. Inevitably, we traded hypotheses about its meaning. I guessed it might have been inspired by my recent visit with my grandchildren, and our snuggling at bedtime.

My wife thinks that’s too literal, and that the animals and their calming, positive energy were more likely a manifestation of my father, come back to reassure me during a time of extraordinary stress and anxiety in my life.

One friend has an even more literal take on it than I do: that my close encounter with such improbable creatures was merely a playing out of the mystical connection I already feel with all living things. It arises from my deep conviction that every single organism, every rock, every cloud, every drop of water, even the vast emptiness of deep space, is part of a single, universal whole.

And that, when we come face to face with whatever life may throw at us, the only thing we have to fear is failing to understand its place in that sacred reality.

FACE IN THE ROCK – Hard Truths

The Old Man of the Dalles

In the Dalles, the scenic gorge of Minnesota's St. Croix River at Taylor's Falls, the inscrutable Old Man of the Dalles contemplates that stretch of the river as he has for 10,000 years. I wonder who first recognized him peering out of the gray basalt. Was it the Ojibwe or Dakota, for whom the distinction between man and Nature was a fine one? Was it European settlers, who may have craved any sign of humanity in such unfamiliar, unforgiving surroundings? Or might it have been just an enterprising tour boat operator, at the turn of the 20th century, looking for one more highlight to capture tourists' imaginations?

We have searched for our own reflections in Nature since we were little more than just another wild animal (one much lower on the food chain). Perhaps it was among the first indications of our impatience with that position that we could imagine seeing ourselves in rocks, trees and clouds. As human cultures advanced, so did the reach of our imagination—we were then seeing ourselves and our fates traced in the stars, those most unconvincing of connect-the-dots renderings.

Does imagining ourselves or our God reflected in Nature 
somehow bestow immortality on us as the notion of heaven does?

Native Americans and other animist peoples may have gotten it closer to right, believing not just their likenesses, but their spirits, are entwined with Nature (in both living and inanimate things). I find much to be desired in this theology. What could be more reassuring—not to mention convenient—than finding your God reflected in everything you see, all the time? I don't know about you, but to me that beats waiting till Sunday and praying to a book, a statue or a string of beads. I find both comfort and hope in my belief that we, our fellow organisms and everything else—rocks, clouds, fire and water—are all connected, all part of the same magnificent plan.

While this view of what's holy feels right for me, it still raises many questions. Have we always understood how tenuous our hold is on life? Does imagining ourselves or our God reflected in Nature somehow bestow immortality on us as the notion of heaven does? Does how we picture God influence the way we treat our fellow seekers and our natural environment?

Only by God's being unimaginable can I begin 
to understand His power.

All I know is that seeing faces or forms in the clouds is not a profound experience for me. While I respect the importance of these images to my ancient ancestors, I think my spiritual reach is actually limited by such amusements. I guess I find holiness in things that don't look like me. It's precisely because they don't look like me that they so fill me with wonder. And only by God's being unimaginable can I begin to understand His power.