Tuesday, January 10, 2006

The Wisdom of Dreams

Usually I record my dreams in a separate journal or weblog, but I decided to duplicate my dream here because of its relevance to actual events in my life. My dream last night went like this:

I dreamed I visited an art studio and received an invitation from the curator to make a painting. I organized my workspace on a large table, with a variety of paints, brushes, and other supplies. When I received the canvas, however, I noticed at least half the white space was already filled with someone else's artwork. I chose another canvas and found the same situation. At length, I examined all the canvases and found they were all partially completed by someone else, or damaged beyond reasonable use. "I can't work like this," I said.

The curator looked at the original canvas on my table. He made a gentle, sweeping gesture with his hand toward the partially completed painting and said, "I want you to paint. Use the images already present as you complete your own work. These images will enhance your creativity, not take away from it."

I remembered this dream after a somewhat lengthy email correspondence with a dear friend in another state. He and I belong to an informal group of friends working together to create a retreat or conference this spring. As it turns out, each of us had extremely different views on how things should proceed. I feel somewhat unsettled by our disagreement and seriously considered dropping out of the process altogether. And yet, in the exact moment I was about to announce my withdrawal to the entire group, I remembered this dream.

So this is how see this dream: the Curator represents God or the Higher Power. The canvas represents our project and the partially completed painting represents my friend's contribution to the planning thus far. The Curator validates the work of both artists depicted in the dream and encourages me to work collaboratively with my friend to complete this project. He essentially accounts for my discouragement in advance and urges me to not abandon the process.

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