On Listening to the Dream in the Dark.
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The sky is a dome of light, tinged peach, tinged purple. Dawn is always forthcoming if we can ride the night out long enough. I wake up early and light a candle. It is the quite hour, before the world has turned and sleep still settles on the hills like an innocent child, dreaming still of a better world.
We all need a place to dream, and to rest. We need a place to make sense, gather resources, build the life, harvest the life. But that is coming. First the space for sleeping, then dreaming. First the dark.
November finds its rhythms in the dark hours. Light hatched only in sketches. It is in the dark where dreams are born, twisting around a body seeking its internal bear. To hibernate in today’s world of always on, always bright, where even the dark has been overshadowed by the commercial bling of Black Friday. How about:
Less Friday
Sleep Friday
A Friday to use up the last throws of the autumnal harvest before the need for more.
Dream Friday
Soon it will be the season of giving, of festivities, but for now still, this is the season for turning inwards, turning to the dream buried in the places only the dark can touch.
I feel asleep in the afternoon yesterday. A scene I had been working on in the book I am writing got caught and it wasn’t flowing. Nor was I. So I took to my bed with a hot water bottle. As my body dropped into the unconscious territory I slept the ending of that scene. I had my directions. When I woke, there was my character knocking on my page, calling me. It came out in a swoop. The dream is an incubator. The dark is the engine that makes it turn.
I am not sure how dark has got such a bad press. The Dark Arts. The Dark Lord. Black as negated, of skin and mind and humour. The black dog. The black death.
I read an article once by Kasia St Clair about the development of black pigment. I learned that there is a material called Vantablack which is the most light absorbent substance on the planet. So non-reflective it looks like you might never come out. Look it up, but I warn you, you may fall down the rabbit hole.
Black holes. The long dark. But it is the cave that holds the treasure as the mythologist Joseph Campbell speaks of. Dark as incubator. Dark as womb.
I think many of us feel we are looking into a vantablack hole, neither able to see our own reflection or find out way out. Wondering if we ever will. But the strange thing about standing on the edge, looking in, is that we won’t know if we will make it through unless we cross the threshold. We must step across. Take the risk. It is classic hero journey arc. Only. when we get to the other side we must be willing to sit in the unknown until the treasures are caught in the glowing dark, and glisten.
What might the treasures of threshold crossing be? What dreams might have a chance to uncurl themselves, to show up on the page, the podium or the policy. The dark, I am learning, over and over again, isn’t about trying to solve the dark, it’s about embracing the space of the unknown, sitting with, learning into, being open to the dream, being open to the treasure, no matter how dark it gets. Even vantablack levels of dark.
My candle flickers, the purple has given way to sky’s winter expanse. The dark has a dent in it. The dream, it has been knocking. I am listening. I am listening. I am listening.
Hello. I'm Clare
I'm a writer, educator and facilitator, living in beautiful West Cork, Ireland. I love to share resources and learning to help harness the regenerative power of words, place and story. I hope my work offers nourishment for mind and soul. Thank you for being here. Clare x
