The Belonging Dream
The Belonging Dream:
By Nick Grimshawe
In my dream, some one rushes up to me, takes my hand, and says there is an old friend who wants to see me again. As he drags me along, he tells me who that person is. (Nobody I know in my waking life) I get excited and overwhelmed with joy at getting to see this person again. I have tears in my eyes, but I collect myself before we arrive.
This “friend” is in some kind of special apparatus because he is crippled with arthritis or something similar. He is very happy to see me. We spend some time talking and he wants to show me a project he is working on at his home. So, we get into a boat and ride the river until we come to his home. Along the way I meet another friend who is some how on the boat, and we chat idly as we travel along, feet dangling over the end of the boat into the water.
Eventually we round a corner in the river. My “friends” home comes into view. There is a feeling of familiarity, as if I have spent a lot of time here. As we come closer to the bank of the river, my “friend” is smiling and I clap my hands in delight and start laughing because on the embankment is his project, which is a narrow, twisting assortment of wood rising up into the air, looking like a jumbled collection to tree houses stacked one upon the other. My crippled friend has been working this despite all his disabilities. We both laugh together and share in the fun of his crazy project.
With the boat docked, we stay on board. There are other people there, but my friend needs to rest after all the excitement, so I go back to the back of the boat to this woman I had been talking to earlier. She is now in the water lounging as if she is on an air mattress, but she’s not.
She encourages me to come in. The water has a curious quality about it, like a very strong surface tension, so you are actually held up in the water, like you are lying on a cushion. The only trouble is the surface tension is broken when ever someone jumps into to the water. Some one is doing just that and we are both yelling and laughing at the same time because we know we are going to sink into the water. Nevertheless, the surface tension reforms rapidly each time. It’s an amazing experience.
Then it is evening on the boat, after supper. We are in a huge family room below deck. The are fifty or sixty people or more there. It’s a warm sultry evening; the lights from the boat are mirrored on the water. There is a powerful sense of peace and belonging. Then, as I am sitting, talking to someone, a young boy runs up with a toothy grin, he has two front teeth missing. His dad has had five boys, one after the other. He is the youngest. He says, ‘my dad says you are a really good friend of his, is that true.” I am washed with a powerful emotion, which is impossible to describe, but again that
overwhelming sense of belonging. I smile at the boy, and say, “That is very true.” His smile jumps on his face with pure delight and turns and runs away to join some of the other children in their games.
Just them I look up and his father is standing in front of me grinning. I stand up and we embrace, for it has been a very long time since we last saw each other. The feeling is one of complete well-being, warmth, love, and belonging.
I woke at that point with full recollection of the dream! For me at least that is rare.
What does it mean?
Well as I was going to bed, I was reading a passage in a book that said we are all
joined around the circle of nothing. I was thinking how huge that circle must be if we are all joined around it. Then thinking if it is nothing in couldn’t be that big at all could it?
We are all from the same source and we are all part of the same thing. In my dream I
got to experience a very tiny piece of how that would feel.
So, what is the question the dream is an answer to? See the Quote of the Day directly
below.
What does it feel like to truly experience that kind of belonging?
Nick
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