Dream Time

With the summer months comes  the need for open windows. And with open windows comes the sounds of the cityscape floating through my drapes. Lately the space I live in has been thrown into a bit of high amplification due to one of our neighbors. For nights in a row, I’ve been woken up between 3-4am. And then when I do get back to sleep, I’m treated to some pretty dynamic dreamscapes.

I’ve dreamed about being at schook in two dreams – one dream involved me being in law school, sitting in a classs, and the other, where I was sitting outside of university with a group of people. One of the guys in the group I was with flipped a cigarette to a girl who was facing us. She looked like Kim Kardashian with a light moustache and had a giant black snake tattooed from the back of her leg, extending up her butt and onwards to her back.

Another dream was of my dead mother. She was wearing a purple sweatshirt and her hair was longer than I had ever seen it. She was smiling and happy and just waved.

I also dreampt of a new house we were going to visit in real life. After the walkthrough, the person turned to me and said, “Does owning a home make you feel secure? Does it make you feel like you have achieved something in your life?”

So I’m left to unpack some of these messages. They’re simply dreams. No different than the thoughts that float through my head while sitting on the cushion. While eating dinner. While taking a poop.

But the analyst in me loves to examine and question. Of course my mind turns to what the Buddhists say about this topic. Urban Dharma has an interesting recap on A Buddhist Approach to Dreams – Jung and Junti – Dreams West and East. 

Do you have an active dream life? Do you keep a dream journal? Or do you let ’em go and practice non-attachment? Any books or articles on the topic that you recommend I check out? I’d love to hear from you. 

Readage: The Beatin’ Path – A Lyrical Guide to Lucid Evolution

This book – The Beatin’ Path – A Lyrical Guide to Lucid Evolution  by John B. Lane crossed my path via my dear friend Anile aka Girlfriday. She worked on the design and thought that this series of writing was right up my alley.

She was right.

To begin, the majority of books that I’ve been reading these days have been in the death, grief and Buddhist space – so the opportunity to read something creative was quite appealing. I must preface, highlight, skywrite, bold, all caps the word “creative” when using it to describe The Beatin’ Path. The book explodes with… with… stories of existence, questions around morality, questions around mortality, mentions of dog fucking, deep thoughts, silly musings that lead to deep thoughts – and that’s just the first chapter. It’s like someone took Tom Robbins and threw him in a blender with Huxley, Orwell, Kant and Darwin, and then added a dash of the Buddha with a drop of the essence of a holy-rolling tent-revival preacher on acid.

The tongue-twisting wordplay that is present in this book demonstrates Lane’s whimsical storytelling abilities. Kicking off with a piece titled “Mantra for a Panther in a Room Full of Metronomes,” it’s clear that the reader is in for a ride. The mundane, profane, abstract, religious, political, financial, artistic – it’s all knit together in a flowing series of written stories that provoke inquiry and present a new way of viewing them via the author’s kaleidoscopic-colored glasses. Yeah. It’s a trip!

Sitting with this book was like visiting a strange new friend who could spout off a myriad of facts on the most random of topics. It’s like reading a random and poetic version of the encyclopedia. In this time of Trump, The Beatin’ Path is a fascinating book to encourage readers to evaluate facts, reality, alt-reality and what we accept as fact, truth and what we wish to believe.

The artwork helps to accent this wordplay and employs old-world style illustrations to lead the reader further down the rabbit hole. Or maybe they’re used to help ground us in some sense of reality?

 

It’s a book of opposites. Dark and light. Sacred and profane. Serious and silly. Then there’s everything that lies between these extremes. Our relationships with the world, each other and ourselves are all topics for examination and fair game. The book is really about finding your truth based on what the author presents. It’s all about where we find ourselves on The Beatin’ Path.

To find out more about this book check out https://www.thebeatinpath.com/ You’ll find an awesome playlist here, a study guide and all sorts of treats.