Dreamers
Dreaming… I envision cotton-candy clouds floating lazily across a smiling blue sky. Softness and warmth and comfort scenes all rush to my mind’s eye. I want to sleep; to join the underworld of slumberers in their quest for hidden answers; to escape the chaos of everyday existence into the lost tunnels of encrypted messages and protective layers of disorganized communications. I need to dream to discover who I am, to decipher my purpose and unleash my passions. Dreaming is productive and necessary.
Dreamer… I think of a wayward wanderer. One who’s soul circuit is short a main wire or has been disconnected from the root of her being. One who flaps like a flag in a windstorm, first one way, then the next; unable to control her direction or pace, trying desperately to follow the path of her nature and not realizing that her attempts are futile if not impossible. The notorious “lost soul.” Or is she?
What makes a dream real? Is it not true that without dreamers we would most likely have no visionaries? Is it not true that perhaps those are the people who have built our society from the ground up, escalating us through the centuries at mach speed, as if we were in a time warp? The connotations accompanying the ‘dreamer’ are not kind. They imply a laziness, a disjointedness that leads to emptiness and waste. I see a kinship between the dreamer and the dream.
In my experience, ‘dreams’ cannot come true without support, encouragement and guidance. Many of us have friends, relatives, children, who spew out the most ludicrous desires from time to time that we wonder what will ever become of them. It appears they have lost all senses and are plummeting into the dark abyss of the dreamer. But are they? Or are they onto something that remains elusive to us even in our most effortful attempts to see what they are seeing? Perhaps their purpose in this world is to bring this lopsided, half-crafted idea of theirs into existence for the benefit of us all. To discredit their invention may extinguish an unknown but helpful asset to our existence.
What if Thomas Edison or Albert Einstein hadn’t dreamed? With their brilliant minds unleashed they must have appeared to some as unreasonable halfwits who were a menace to all who crossed their tangled paths. But if it weren’t for Edison, you’d be reading this by the dim, but reliable, candlelight of the long-ago past.
What of the dreams of our children? When my nephew was a small innocent he only knew of cars. He drew cars, talked cars, built cars and dreamed cars. He was to his family what the Shrimper was to Forrest Gump – a constant, uninterruptible babble of his passions. Today, my nephew drives a one-of-a-kind truck. He built it from scratch and it is the envy of every young Albertan trucker he meets. He is a mechanic and still eats, breathes and yes, dreams, cars. His innovativeness may be leading him to a possible future in entrepreneurial selling of his own model truck, perhaps a wave of the still to come future. He is making a difference and molding our world in his own unique way. While doing so, he is supporting a young wife and a small child, already a successful hero in the eyes of his beholders.
I am sure many parents are accustomed to the gurgling stream of ideas gushing wildly from the mouths of their babes in a continuous failed damming of their passions, their dreams. “Mommy, when I grow up, I’ll be a fireman and save you and Daddy and Aunt Edna”, “Daddy, I’ll be the best ballerina you ever saw!”. What of these embellished, far-fetched, ever-changing promises? What of the sparkle in their eyes and the glee in their step as they play out their futures as ‘Greats’ and ‘Can’t Live Withouts?’
Of the cliché “Our children are our future, our most valuable resource”, I say: Let dreamers dream upon that cloud in the smiling sky. Encourage them to rest for they will need their strength to build our empire.
Eileen Bona is a Clinical Therapist and Behavior Management Specialist. She is the Founder of Dreamcatcher Nature-Assisted Therapy Association, a non-profit society that uses animals and nature to help children, youth and adults who have disabilities or mental health diagnoses.
Eileen Bona is a Clinical Therapist and Behavior Management Specialist. She is the Founder of Dreamcatcher Nature-Assisted Therapy Association, a non-profit society that uses animals and nature to help children, youth and adults who have disabilities or mental health diagnoses.