Fertile Lucidity

There's an old, fruitful, bumper-sticker saying: "Question Reality."

Being a frequent lucid dreamer (dating back to the era of said bumper-sticker, or young childhood), I really get this, man! :)

Seriously.

There are times when I am so "awake" in a dream that my physical awakening is experienced as another part of the dream. When this sort of boundary-blurring happens often enough, one really can't pin the "self" exclusively to a name, address or occupation in Anytown, USA, planet Earth. There is just so much more going on, here! Dream-worlds (as in the previous post) become as relevant as "consensus" reality to learning, growth and understanding. Consciousness is naturally examined--what is this "me" that seems to be the only consistent space in this multiverse? Why, upon thorough examination, even during "unconscious" periods, does a clear, endless potential for Everything still exist?

After a while, even though there remains an obvious, sane, logical distinction between things like imagination, dreams, and normal waking life, there is also an admission (sometimes grudging) that a deep and undivided unity exists here, now, everywhere, everytime. In the primal language I use when talking to myself, I simplify and do away with terms like "dream world" as opposed to "real world" experience. There is no difference between the two, actually. (Yes, I realize this heresy can still get me institutionalized, or at least shunned. It used to be such a deep fear, that I had myself professionally evaluated and declared "rational", several times!)

Paradox gets more and more comfortable, and the idea of oneself more and more flexible. Far as I can tell, this is a never-ending process to the curious. Simultaneously, a bottomless, open kind of gravity is revealed as the only real thing...a thingless thing, a boundless situation. I say "gravity", because it resembles a great pull, a call, a falling-in-love, a waking through the thick sludge of confusion into the realization that, hey, I am here to participate in this dream! That's what my hands, feet and vital organs are for, as well as the much-practiced daily mind, and all the thought, memory, judgment, observation, vision, feeling, embroidering and deconstructing going on within, without and beside the Super Condensed Endlessness that I am. Hiding in a miserable corner is like trying to stifle God/ess's heartbeat.

(Did I ever think that I could love this One Life and its infinite facets from a place of "safety"? Really? Did I ever imagine that this education would be easy--that I would get to always respect myself, my actions and the good intentions of my parents, cultivate an unquestionably wholesome image, and be the 24/7 dispensary of aid to the needy? Huh. How silly.)  :)

These days, I seem to be running on a new frequency that appeared, meteor-like, in my summer sky. A kind of meditation lights up out of nowhere to find me, regardless of my schedule for the morning or evening. It's a no-nonsense consciousness-altering that demands I sit down right now, shut up, and give myself over to the falling-up kind of gravity that clears the way to the Real. It is almost never convenient, and I can't plan it. Nor can I argue with it anymore. Resistance isn't just futile--it's egoistic pettiness, because these extremely lucid sessions answer longtime, pressing questions about why I compulsively act or feel in certain ways, what these feelings and events mean in the context of my storied life, and how I should handle them practically when they arise.

Not only that--I am thrown into a swirl of symbolic images and memories to consider, both painful and benign--as well as being fed (literally) a stream of bliss that seems to pour down through the center of my body until I am absolutely alight with gratitude. Interestingly, as beautiful as the rapture is, it's no more significant than the memory of my forehead meeting the corner of a coffee-table when I was nine, or the anticipation of my own physical death. They are all highly lovable features of this landscape, to which I am both incredibly attached and, somehow, immune. Paradox, again.

The "point" of all this seems to be (still, and even more) the increasingly visceral sensation of utter clarity that both outlines and inlines any feature of any dream. I am astonished at its depth--rather, I become a kind of awe that breathes. I am not capable, in that "place", of calling this seemingly dumb and self-destructive mortal coil inferior to a "meditative state", or spiritual bliss, or even an actualized human. There is no hierarchy--just equal differentiation, an endless spectrum of points in the great web to emphasize in the service of creation.

Emphasize, I must; create friction, I do...because the other end of myself is absolute peace, silence, absence of presence--perfect shadow to anticipation, music, the growing of structure. Admitting the union of these two is a sublime occupation, consistently fulfilling. Certainly not boring.

A friend told me, yesterday, that I should devote my time to being a "Traveling Muse" (in exchange for chickens, butter, art supplies or whatever else I need). What a lovely, poetic thing! What fun! I could point out different kinds of meaning for someone to mutate into their own perfection--and I could do it through much more than the written word--you know, essential, experiential things like walking, eye contact, tasting the wild, experimental dancing, drawing pictures in windblown sand dunes...active creativity.

Does that seem impractical? Like some weird dream?

Feel again! :)