We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage / And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, / We Poets of the proud old lineage / Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why ... (James Elroy Flecker)

10.9.19

Dreaming True



Dreaming True

In order to enter the dream and stay
living there, you need to believe the dream.
You must not for a moment allow yourself
to know that the other, different world 
(which you think you remember)
has any reality. Let it be just a vague idea
easily forgotten, of no substance.
Until you can master this understanding,
you will always come back from the land
of the dream, the enchanted universe.

You can’t stay there if the grey quagmire 
of doubt drains the light from your eyes,
the dance from your step; if you let it
suck you back into an outside world
of pain and fear, and little joy. Instead,
embrace the magical, embrace the light!
Enter fully the most perfect love,
the deepest beauty: inside the permanent 
world of the dream, shaping it so
the dream becomes, at last, reality.

22 comments:

  1. Odd to be reading this after such a vivid dream at four a.m. of two wolves, asking for human help..............I was so IN that dream, it was so real.

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    1. You are so connected to Wolf, why would they not choose you to ask? I think you must write of that dream and their message!

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  2. Wow, I like this idea, Rosemary....if one dreams pleasant dreams, that is. The dreams I generally wake up from are most often unpleasant ones, however, and I would not want to continue to live in them. Perhaps the pleasant ones I sleep through blissfully and do NOT remember at all.

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    1. Ha, good point! I guess my poem does presuppose pleasant dreams and ignore the fact of that other kind.

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  3. How wonderful to know how to stay in the dream state - providing those dreams are good ones..i love the wisdom in your words

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  4. Dreams are pot luck with me and because I am so restless these nights few are completed. However if I go to bed early tonight I'll see if I can have better luck...might even embrace someone myelf!

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  5. You're right: The only way to dream aright is to embrace the light.

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  6. Rosemary, I can totally relate to this piece. I am a dreamer and study dream works. You speak words of wisdom. Dreams sometimes come in grand visions and some in snippets. I believe
    they all mean something. Even the dark vision can bring moments of enlightenment.

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  7. I need this posted where I can see it as I drift off...just in case I find someplace worth staying a little longer. :)

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  8. i think dreams are trying to tell us something, but how we interpret it is another matter.
    many thought-provoking poems today. :)
    there are those that said dreams are a means of how the mind clears off the day's clutter, something like how a computer clears off all unwanted files.

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  9. I think way too many of my dreams are such that I'm happy to leave for the grey normal mundane.

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  10. Makes me think of the Siberan shaman who marched all the way to Moscow demanding that Putin "the Liar" resign immediately. He was arrested before he got close. Dreams are insubstantial stuff, and our souls are too, half earth, half starlight. Without faith in that winging water, who are we?

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  11. This is my new favorite from you, Rosemary!❤️ There is so much beauty in the way you describe the dream state, yes in order to remain there one needs to forego the sorrows of the world lest they pulls us out. Especially love the closing image. Woww!❤️

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  12. Living between two worlds...which one is the dream and which reality? It was interesting to read your poem each way. I tend to think of the visible world as the dream, but I had to flip that as I soaked in your wisdom. Of course, there is the possibility that both are dream and both are reality! :-) This really resonated for me and I will be thinking about it for days to come.

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  13. This puts me in mind of the Aboriginal dream time. I have always been fascinated by it.

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    1. Indeed, the idea of dreaming something into being is what the Dreamtime of the Australian Aboriginals was about – though in a different way. However, that Dreamtime is long, long past. It was in the very early days of our planet, when the world was being made and seeded. One thing I (a non-indigenous Australian) know about it is that in this country there were gigantic versions of our indigenous animals. It was long dismissed by the invaders as mere myth – but fossils of just such gigantic animals have now been discovered.

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  14. How many times have I longed to stay in a dream and felt bereft when I couldn’t remember the details? From now on I’ll be embracing the magical in every dream so that it becomes reality!

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  15. Sometimes I feel as though I am skating along on the edges of the world, making it up as I go along. Somehow, your poem made me think about how easy that feels to me--and joyous. Really a provocative piece!

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  16. I dream a lot … more and more all the time and found this to be fascinating and thought provoking. An eloquent articulation.

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  17. I do believe some dreams are real and some are like busy work, just like life

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    1. Colleen, I believe that too. This poem was one of those that come unbidden, from some other level of consciousness – perhaps some deeper level of truth? – but doesn't represent my conscious beliefs/opinions.

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  18. Rosemary- You have captured the dream state perfectly. This is utterly beautiful.

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