The thing with feathers

 A few weeks back, there were plenty of things I wanted to post about. The (now successful) UAW strike. A major win on child nutrition.  But after the terrible events of the last month, they seemed out of place and tone deaf and I couldn't think of any appropriate thing to say. 

A saying of the Buddha's kept running through my mind: "Better than a thousand empty words is one word that brings peace." Since the market seemed pretty saturated with empty words I paused.

Then I had a dream. 

Although the latest scientific research seems to suggest that dreams are the brain's way of processing memory and recent events, and some are clearly just plain static, I still think they can often bring deep insights from the unconscious. There's a reason that meaningful dreams occur throughout the Bible and many other sources, myths, and legends.

I don't go all the way with Freud or Jung...but I do go a good bit with both. This dream seemed to have something to say about the state of the world and I've shared it with several people.

It went like this:

I was in a city at war with a real life friend and comrade. No other context given. In the waking world, several years previously we were part of a delegation to the West Bank and Gaza that left a huge impression on us both. In the dream, we were part of the underground resistance to an unnamed invader.

In the beginning, we were running through battered streets, trying to avoid being killed or captured, we passed a beautiful bird that appeared to have been damaged by a vehicle crash or explosion. It seemed to be dead or dying. Since we were being pursued, we didn't have time to stop. Besides, we didn't know what else to do aside from making sure it was out of its misery.

After a number of encounters, we ran back the way we had come. To our surprise, the bird was on its feet and starting to flap it's wings. We looked at each other and said something like, "Holy ****, the bird might actually recover!"

I woke up and immediately this well knwon poem by Emily Dickinson came to mind: 

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

My takeaway: the thing with feathers really might recover.