Dreams & Luck

Last night, I struggled against my writers' block for a while by starting a poem. The act of writing, I realized, was not going to feel natural anymore but it could again if I engaged the process with less expectation than exploration. This was after a meditation in the same vein. Then I slept; I slept until my alarm then I declared a Saturday and slept more. Somewhere in the ninth hour of sleep I dreamed some insight. I often have dream fragments that I quickly forget, sadly. I think I held onto the scant remains of these segments because of one moment.

Some point in the middle of the unremembered, I was walking to a checkpoint I had never seen before, a tunnel through the jebel that must have passed underneath al-Waleje --a tunnel that does not exist in reality. At its mouth, the guards were traitorously apathetic (I liked them instantly) as throngs of us poured into the tunnel. There were no metal-detectors. Half-way through I came to the turn-stile and waited for the guard to return so I could get a green-light. Someone tapped me vigorously on the shoulder and gestured forward: the lock was broken.

I pushed through, into the underground campus of some unknown West Jerusalem University. It resembled a large shopping mall. I knew where I was going and who I wanted to meet. She was a friend's roommate while I was in college. Back then, I asked her on a date to the planetarium and she offered to go as friends. I regret losing the courage to go as friends. In my dream, I found her in class and tried to be discrete. She was, to my surprise, happy to see me! I cannot remember how I greeted her or where I suggested we would go. I knelt next to her while she put things into her bag and I started to tip over. When I grasped her hand to regain my balance she gave it a squeeze and looked at me.

She looked into my eyes. Between us there was a mingling of affection and respect that told me we were actually together. Of course, this was the archetypical dream woman, dressed in the visage of my friend from years ago. The feeling was remarkable for what was absent: fatuous longing for attention, passionate sexual desire, tentativeness, rejection -- it was respect and affection only. There was a hug for confirmation but that was all ~ that was all I needed to know.
How refreshing.

After that, it became more like a random dream: we wandered around the mall/campus with a friend of hers -- at one point, they tried to ditch me with the shopping bags, just for fun, and Adam Shaw helped me find them again. Everyone laughed.

In my waking life I have mostly forgotten my desire for a relationship like that. I was not heart-broken to awake because I felt like a spell lifted long enough for me to dream that feeling. The poem I was writing before I slept is about a necklace given to me by another woman from the same period in my life who reappeared late this past December. She stayed in my life long enough to send me a box of items with wonderful, thoughtful notes attached. At last, I felt more cherished than curious. My Palestinian co-workers were excited to speculate with me about a marriage and I had to admit to them that it was possible. In that box was a necklace with a viking-rune pendant -- rumored to drive away bad luck. I put it on and never, even once, took it off.

I understand that some Chinese philosophers do not believe luck becomes good or bad, only that it changes. I mismanaged my stress this February but recovered myself in Ireland. The lady mostly left my life and she is happy and, reluctantly, I am happy to see her be happy. Israel forced me from Palestine but I had safe passage into Jordan. I am Skyping with a friend on Sunday. The list goes on. I am living in the tension between reflecting in my 'cell' and walking around the biggest city I have ever dwelt in: Amman. Some of my luck is perfectly neutral and perhaps that is the healthiest luck because I can be curious without the need to be evaluative. *tilts head* I can't wrap my mind all the way around it, yet. My thoughts run on... longer than I had planned...

My meditation last night was well short of levitation but I did have a beautiful moment where, instead of offering God my endless and dark thoughts, I felt sunshine and sent it back. The thrust of the poem, if it can ever be finished, was that I had put the necklace on intending it to redirect my circumstances and instead it was redirecting my self. Its hard to describe, which is why struggling with this poem is probably necessary, whether it can be finished or not.

Finally, I found a new reason to not take-off the necklace. First, I wanted magic. Then I wanted commitment. I had hope, then possibility. This rune is not an 'M', a 'C', an 'H' or 'P': it looks like an 'N'. N like the giver's name; N like Nirvana: to be worried about nothing? Here, my thoughts really run on longer than I planned...

The Second Prayer

The First Prayer for the Second Chapter:

Oh my Nurturer, I am crying out to you without reservation. I am not a super-hero and never have been. Even Jesus retreated to draw strength from you but I have dwelt close to the fire for too long. I am parched and there are so many miles and checkpoints between Bethlehem and the well in Nablus, where He offered your living water to the Samaritan woman. I miss the waters of my homeland, the contemplation of the Grand River and the comfort of Thumb Lake—even the cold invigoration of Lake Michigan.

I know that I have so many lessons to learn but I pray that you would give me the wisdom to submit and let go, even though I have forgotten the meaning of submission. I have grown as hard as the plains of اريحا [Jericho] because I live an existence of only resistance. At any moment, I will read about how your loved-ones are abused, disenfranchised, and defamed abroad. Whenever I move from one place to another, I am reminded that my relationship with Palestine can come to an end. Every time a jet flies over-head, I remember that I could be obliterated by Israel or its enemies.

Send a final wave of شباط rain, and teach me to appreciate my softening. Send شباط one time more and this time I will not blame you or the blessed month of شباط again since your waters have come to the land. Like the sting of disinfectant, you sent these times to prepare me for the healing to come. Bring the sweet scent back to اريحا . Give me الاريه الصيف to sustain me (I’m praying from my heart and that’s what came out) through this stormy weather that must occur to bring the harvest this Autumn.

But I confess that I do not know how; I am trying too hard under my own power. I need your gifts. I need time to recover. I need your very presence. I need to find a devotion that comes from affection, not piousness. I need to find a way to remember you in true worship, not with an end in mind. Draw my attention away from even the imperfections of my prayer. Bring me out of my over-thinking and help me to accept that I am beautiful even when I am imperfect and that I am responsible for my part, not for the outcomes. Most of all, comfort me during those count-intuitive moments where I feel like I have no reason to feel tired because I have not done enough.

I am so foolish Lord: I am tired from watching this conflict and NOT having something to do. I have the tiredness not of someone running but of someone on crutches, wondering when he will be able to do enough again. Please, take me away... please call me to the Sea. If there is any power in homelands, help me to find it this March in Ireland – and fill my heart with even more energy for this mission.