042208 Dream, and context.
The last couple days, I have really been kicking around the idea of putting my fantasy trilogy online. Granted, I am nowhere near completed. I do have the sense that part one of book one is virtually complete. Line by line editing is all that is left, and then I think it’s ready to be put out into the world, and yet I still find myself hesitant, for two reasons: 1. I lack faith, and 2. Yeah, it’s just the lack of faith. I have to abolish the worry from my mind before I do what I feel I should, and that is to put my stories up online.
This is not a good business decision, but that’s part of the reason why I want to do it. All my life I thought I was writing this book for me, to escape into a dream world, to put my mind in a place where I felt free. Now, I’m not so sure. The main character relives lifetime after lifetime because he just can’t drop his fear and his sense of separation. In mystical states, he feels unified with everything in the Universe, but when he is out of it, he’s always afraid of losing his loved one, chasing after her, seeking revenge on the one that always takes her away, even though everyone and everything around him has the message “fear not. We are one.”
And so, I decided to ask my higher self to tell me in a dream what I should do about the books. I can picture the website in my head because I made one already for it in an electronic imaging class. I made a website about my characters, about the books, everything. It’s like ding! You had practice, now it’s time for the real thing, and yet I still haven’t made a solid decision.
So here’s the dream I had last night.
I was in the local co-op and a talk was going on. One of the people, an older man, was reading aloud from a book, and then a group of people about my age came in, and a girl with a microphone (she was kind of tall, a bit heavy, and of African descent) started talking over the older man, who slowly closed the book and turned his attention to her. I thought she was being a little rude and watched people’s reactions but no one showed anger. The guy with the book began listening intently after his faint irritation left his face. The girl with the microphone began giving a rallying speech about the people of tomorrow and handed the microphone to a young man also of African descent who was sitting in a chair. Instead of being in the co-op, most people were sitting in rows of chairs in a field, and I realized I was standing next to a podium that the girl with the microphone started out behind. People turned in their seats to see what was going on.
The young man with the microphone said “I’m just a brotha who had a tough upbringing. I didn’t live in a good area…” As he went on, I recognized him as a kid I went to school with, and I thought it was ridiculous because he lived on the same road as I did, which is a quiet peaceful area. Granted, most places except those far out roads in our town were pretty bad to live in, but I didn’t believe for a moment that he had any kind of tough upbringing. It sounded like an excuse.
Next to him was a skinny sort of white girl, and she gave some answer that seemed totally fluffy to me, a kind of glossing over general issues in an idealistic sort of way without offering any solutions, and I knew she was going to fall through with what she said because she had no anchoring starting point.
Then I noticed my mom on the opposite sidelines from where I was. “Talk about what you want to do when you grow up,” she said.
“Grow up?” I asked. “What’s the point in that?”
She didn’t hear me, just cupped her ear towards me, and I repeated myself until I was almost shouting over everyone else who was talking, which I suddenly knew was my mom’s plan after all, because my throat opened up and my voice cleared and I was standing there in front of all these people yelling “what’s the point?” over and over.
“No, seriously, what’s the point of being a grown up?” I asked, and then the ball was rolling. “I don’t want to live in this world,” I said. The girl with the microphone in her face stared at me, and she was smiling but she said something about what a negative perspective I had, and it seemed like an attempt to silence me or discredit me.
“What’s the point of this? People just run around trying to make money, not stopping to think or love or anything—that’s what ‘grown-ups’ do. It’s not for me. I want to change the world, I want to change that, and I want to show people that’s not the only way they have to live. There’s so much more, things that have points, and that’s what I’m going to go for.”
Somewhere in my little speech, the girl with the microphone ran up to me, and I was actually speaking up for myself, and realizing that I was finding my voice is making me teary as I type this.
Courage is doing what you feel is right, even when—especially when you feel fear about it. I told my mom about my website idea last night and she asked “but how would you make money from it?” and I told her about downloads and paperbacks, somehow too shy to mention donations, if people felt like sharing with me.
But now, after this dream full of people who are all me, motivating me, that’s what I’m going to go for. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. If I make a mistake, then it’s a mistake that is done with and I can learn from—but it doesn’t feel like a mistake. My misgivings are in the realm of my mom saying what she already said. I didn’t write these books for money, and after the dream, I feel pretty confident that I won’t need to worry about it. I can be a waitress. I can be anything to "make a living." It'll work out one way or another.
Thank you, Higher Self, I'll be asking you for dreams more and more often.
