25 Jan The Nature of My Photography and the Dreams That Inspire It
Each Year the International Association for the Study of Dreams hosts an online Psi Conference. As part of that conference dreamers are invited to submit presentations about how dreams have moved or inspired them. These papers are read online by the participants and comments are shared in a lively format. In addition artists and photographers are invited to submit art or photos to a Dream Art Gallery that in some way is a reflection of a dream. In 2016, I submitted a dream about the hawk and one of my hawk photos to the gallery.
The theme for 16th Annual Online Psiber Dreaming Conference in 2017 was “Illuminating the Path: Psi Dreaming for a Brighter World.” Inspired by a dream about hummingbirds and their rainbow colors in my late summer photographs, I submitted the following explanation and poetic expression from a dream with a photo of a ruby throated hummingbird to the conference Dream Art Gallery that took place September 14 – October 8, 2017.
Looking for Luminous Dreams in Likely Places…The Twilight Zone
I love to wake up slowly in the morning. Relaxing in meditation, I drift between sleep and wakefulness while I roam the state of consciousness known as the “hypnopompic” zone, a slice of time when images flash beneath the lids of my closed eyes. This habit of mine is more than a gentle way to ease into the day. It’s a transcendent place to experience visions that illuminate a path for soulful inspiration. It’s a solitary space tucked within the maze of an inner garden where the wild goddess is the gate keeper, and where magic and enchantment bubble up like fluttering hummingbirds. It’s another world where the veil parts to non-ordinary reality and the gifts of creativity are laid bare before me. As Kahlil Gibran writes in “The Prophet” about the nature of beauty, it can be imagined as “a garden forever in bloom and a flock of angels forever in flight.” The energy of this dream zone spills over into the things I notice in everyday life and the photographs I capture during my walks through Nature’s dream. The twilight zone is a playground for dreaming consciously the solutions we all seek for a brighter world. Sharing our ideas, images, and inspirations with others is a step we all can take. During a recent morning, a string of images spontaneously drifted through my imagination without a story line. When I awoke fully, I quickly created a poem and later that day I took a photograph that looked like one of the images, the hummingbird seeking the sweet nectar of life.
The Nature of a Waking Up Dream
Hummingbird perches on a trumpet bloom,
Damselfly lingers on the dewy leaf,
Bees dart among August flowers,
Dabbled light splatters velvet lawns.
Spider spirals up
The mask of Agamemnon’s face,
Gold among the stones.
Hound sits at
The feet of the bowed goddess,
Guardian at the gate.
Sweet scent, dew drops,
And precious seeds shrink-wrapped,
Layer upon Layer.
A garden is a splendid playground.
And classroom.
It’s time to release the seeds.
Special Note: This conference is a first-class opportunity to meet other dreamers, authors, teachers, researchers and artists who are interested in dreams and how they affect and inspire our lives. The 35th Annual ISAD Dream Conference is scheduled to be held at the Double Tree Resort Paradise Valley, Scottsdale, Arizona, June 16-20, 2018. For more information about joining this organization and learning about its conferences and programs go to their FB page or to http://www.asdreams.org/
Return to the Meredith’s Mindful Moments archive page.