I am homeless, only $10 000 in bank, thinking I should buy a bike first and foremost so I can get around, no job, knowing nobody, no resources, wandering about with no plan, no ideas of what to do, nowhere to go, simply moving forward…somewhere…
Over the decades I have had many variations of this very repetitive dream, Some emphasise various permutations of “no way out” or “dead end”, or just an ongoingness with nowhere to go:
In an old car winding my way along a coastal highway near the ocean. The sun is setting and increasingly shining directly in my eyes. Yellows, reds, and ochres fill the air. I start to slow down as I can’t see the road well anymore. I come to end of the road where an old dilapidated petrol station, garage remains. A broken down truck is parked ahead and I slow to a crawl to inch by but the sun blinds me and I scrape my car alongside it. An old weather-beaten man gets out and I get out to look at the damage but it is hard to tell, so beaten up is his truck. Then his wife gets out, she is a large-boned woman carrying authority who also looks but the issue simply dies away. Not important. It simply does not matter. There I am at the end of the road surrounded by the rich colours of the western dying sun in the middle of nowhere. What matters now? What will show up as mattering, here at the end of the road?….
I have written several essays springing from this repetitive dream and it keeps gifting me with fresh permutations over the years. This year 2025, I dreamed two further permutations.
Utter destitution. My V8 Dodge is a rust bucket. At a service station. A young man pokes the inner ceiling of my car and rust pours onto the seat. It’s done. I have no money to even take it to a car yard to get rid of it. I am in the city waiting for Anita, at a restaurant. I decide to eat—greasy chicken. I can’t eat it. I have no way to get to my job. I have to make some move but no idea what. Walk into the forest? The dream presses upon me the utter and complete lack of resources and yet I have to make a move. High anxiety.
And
I am driving alone on a long ribbon of road stretching ahead of me to the horizon, rising up and down over the hills. No other sign of habitation, or life. I am dressed in a comfortable day suit, with a colourful tie, as if I am going somewhere even though I am in my familiar mood of nowhere to go; no money; no resources, wandering, where will I stay etc. As the car goes up a hill, I am astonished to see on my left a huge solitary tree by the side of the road, rising up majestically into the sky, out of sight. It stood there, alone. I drive on and now see a newly constructed church on my right. It is made of beautiful amber jarrah-like, golden brown wood, standing there alone, just as the enormous tree stood alone. I stop, get out and walk into the church which is open and receptive. I don’t think there are any doors to this church. I freely wander around in it. No one else is there. I go out again and resume my journey to nowhere, on the long ribbon of road. Yet I am dressed to go somewhere…
There is something in the implicit thinking of these dreams that remains unconscious. I notice how I so often “sneak” images or thoughts in that do not belong to the actual dreams. I then go back into the dreams once again, or they keep coming towards me, in order to attract the actual thinking that constitutes the dream.
For example, take the church dream. How easy it is to believe that my finally being “dressed to go somewhere” in my wandering—the first time I have dreamed this—has something to do with ending up at the newly constructed wooden church. But then I remember that I have had other dreams where I “end up” at a disused service station, or at a dead end. And anyway, after circulating through the church, taking in its beauty and open receptivity I move on, driving along the endless ribbon of a road. The dream did not seem to have anything to do with staying at the church, or anywhere for that matter.
As I write the words “church, openness, receptivity”, and earlier, “standing alone just like the enormous tree”, I feel a stirring in my heart. Perhaps now I am getting closer to the dream’s speaking. Let me tell you what happened last night before I woke up to write these words down. I went to bed after Anita and I imbibed some more horror dressed up as news. And then I briefly watched a YouTube video of a Congressional Hearing. There is no pretence at civility now. The sheer ugliness of human relations that are rooted in excesses of power is plainly visible for all to see. I went to bed with this toxic mixture swirling in images assailing me. I lay there quietly as it all intensified. Ugliness everywhere. No escape from it. At one point I thought I would die and that would be okay.
I could feel that the ugliness wanted to flow into my heart. My heart was its target. A moment of decision: “let it all flow into my heart. If I die so be it!” And it did! My heart began to swell. I lay there quietly. No more thinking occurred. It is all feeling now, or maybe the thinking of the heart. The ugly imagery, scaling up from my personal history to the world stage, rushes in. I lie there quietly as the pain increases. One thought remains before fleeing, “well, I am used to extreme pain and I don’t mind dying now.” I breathe calmly as ugly image after ugly image pours in.
My heart is now an open receiver of ugliness, just like my dream church. My heart now begins to perceive the suffering, lying beneath the ugliness. So much suffering pouring into my heart which is receiving it. It seems endless, just like the ribbon of road upon which I drive without end, without purpose, without a home. I do not resist now. The distance between me and suffering disappears. There is no need to ask “what do you want” to the ugliness. I now know what it wants. It wants to flow into the open and receptive heart, un-reservedly into the unresisting heart, the new church.
I once dreamed how this church of the heart is formed:
I grab and hold a deadly black death adder. It squirms to get away and manages to bite me twice. I keep holding it and take it to where I may release it. I show others. I am bitten right where Jesus was speared on the cross. The bite is healing and there seems to be a scab there. When I look closer it is a little heart, half-filled with red blood and a transparent half, maybe liquid or air.
A voluntary act of receiving the poison!
Solitary Wanderer
dilapidated old car
on a solitary road
stretching to the horizon
winding across hills
black ribbon thrown carelessly
on the ground
dressed to go somewhere
although going nowhere
solitary tree rising majestically
at the side of the road
disappearing into the empty sky
solitary church
newly built
open
receptive
airily welcoming
whatever whomever breezes in
church of living wood,
tree of living wood
going nowhere
yet dressed to go somewhere
worn-out car
end of the road
endless solitary wandering
solitary tree
solitary church
nowhere to go
nothing to do
no need
for going or doing
simply being
receiving what comes
come what may
