Dreams

I usually remember my dreams, at least for a day. When I wake up in the morning, if asked I could sketch out what wafted through my mind while sleeping the night before. If asked the next day, unless especially vivid or frightening, the ideas would have faded away like mist before the sun. Except for two. These two dreams still remain in my mind in exquisite detail years, and for one, decades later.

I have every kind of dream, just like every other human on this Earth. I'll list a few.
- I'm somewhere in public missing certain key articles of clothing.
- rushing to accomplish something but keep bumbling the simplest of tasks.
- sexy dreams (we all have them)
- dreams about dead loved ones still being alive.
etc, etc, etc.

I can rough out the generalities because I have dreams along the same themes over and over.

The special two don't fall in these categories. The fact that I retain the amount of detail from these two is remarkable at least to me. And for the record, I don't claim to know what they "mean" if anything, just that they stand out in my mind years later.

The first I had when roughly the age of 12.
In the dream I possess 2 swords. One of pure silver and one of pure gold. I know that they are pure because the metal is soft, bendable, but somehow these swords are razor sharp and retain their shape. They are similar to a European long sword. The blades are a long triangle from tip to hilts. Each has a "T" shaped crossguard and a single-hand grip. Somehow in my dream I wield them one in each hand, silver on the right, gold on the left. An impossible feat for a sword of this length in reality. When not in use, they are carried in sheaths which crisscross my back.
I stand in a circular chamber. There is another person, a "guide", who tells me to prepare myself for battle. I somehow know that the cost of losing is worse than death. A door opens and I am surrounded, encircled buy hooded shadows. My adversaries are not men, they are truly "shadow" beings. Alone, I draw the swords and fight all nine. Each must be struck once by each blade for them to fade into nonexistence. In the end I am triumphant and my "guide" returns to say that I have passed the first test, but that others will follow and that I must remain vigilant and skilled in preparation. Every ten years I must expect to face the shadows or fall to evil. I leave the circular chamber with the "guide" saying, "Remember, every ten years a test, be prepared, be skilled, be vigilant!" The dream ends.

I awoke with a strange feeling, actually wondering where my swords were and that I needed to always remember that dream. So far, 25 years later, I have.

The second dream I had in 2002. My first TKD instructors, Bart & Chris Edge are with me in a evergreen forest. We are trying to reach a golden grassy meadow high up on a mountain plateau. For some reason I turn to them and say, "It's easy if you fly!" and change into a Dragon. I launch myself into flight and circle the forest clearing above them somehow communicating to them how to make the transformation also.
We soar up the mountain. I distinctly remember the feeling of using muscular, leathery wings to propel myself through the air. When we reach the golden grassy meadow, I want to continue to fly, to retain dragon form, but instead return to human. I try to remember how I became a dragon before, but cannot achieve the change. I mourn the sensation of being a dragon and express my sorrow to the Edges. Bart assures me, "You'll remember how when you truly need to be a dragon again." We walk across the meadow and the dream ends.

When I awoke from this dream, I was sad. I loved being a dragon. The freedom of flight. The power and the majesty of being that creature. I felt sorrow that I was only human and tried to hold onto the memory of "dragoness".

Like I said, I don't know what these dreams mean. I'm not claiming they are prophetic or symbolic. Only that I remember them in more vivid detail than any other dream and over some experiences in waking life.

I write them here because there is a part of me that is afraid that someday I will forget them, and I don't think I want that to happen.

So much Blood

I want to talk about Jerusalem and the Middle East.

I've been watching the news lately, following the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. Note that I said Hezbollah not Lebanon.

What is it all about? Real estate and religion.

If there are 2 things on this earth that bring out the worst in human nature, it's those 2 things.

I have also recently watched 3 movies. Yeah, I know they're works of fiction but sometimes fiction can induce thought upon reality. Said movies are Syriana, Munich, & Kingdom of Heaven.

If you've seen any or all of the movies I'm sure you can see the connection.

Jerusalem!
Also known as "The Holy Land"
Why is it holy?
Is there any other piece of real estate on earth that has been the site and focus for so much blood shed in recorded history? Enlighten me if there is!
Why all the blood? Because the human race, (speaking in generalities here) does not share and does not tolerate "otherness".
I say "otherness" in this context. I'm part of group A and we believe in God, my neighbor is part of group B and they believe in Allah, therefore they are "other" than the members of my group.

Let me elaborate upon my senario.

I'm okay with group B (I think they are all crazy and going to hell but its not my problem) until they decide that they need access to a certain piece of property. Problem is that piece of property is considered "holy" in my belief system and they might "defile" it by their very presence. I don't really care that group B thinks it's "holy" also (for different reasons from mine of coarse and that's just wrong!) and they think group A is "defiling" it. Solution : let's all kill each other! Maybe if we are successful we can wipe group B from the face of the Earth! That would prove (at least in our small minds) that our beliefs are the right ones!

Religion and Real Estate.

Can you sense my sarcasm? Holy? How can Jerusalem be holy? I don't care who you think might have been born there, or who preached there once upon a time. Centuries of blood, death and violence have defiled it for me. It holds no mystique, no aura for me. If I were to visit all I would see was the blood. I visited what's left of the Berlin Wall once, and the "kill zone" behind it. I walked away shaken, thinking of those who died there. I imagine Jerusalem would be the same but magnified expodentially.

Humans don't share and we always have to be right especially when it comes to religion. Which is the biggest cosmic irony of all because who will ever truly know which religion is correct? There's nothing to quantify, there's no value to plug into a formula that proves truth. Here's a scary thought! What if there is no correct religion! What if intent and attitude are what matters in the end. Then all that blood was shed in vain. It was shed to make one small minded person feel superior to another.

Jerusalem is tainted, by blood, by violence, by war. By all the horrible dark aspects of human nature. We as humans shouldn't fight over it anymore. We should cordon it off and mourn for every life lost there in the name of religion. It's a giant grave yard, thousands of years in the making by Christians, by Jews, and by Moslems.

Holy? No. Tragic? Yes.