I don’t do stillness and quiet very well. As much as my body craves the lure of pillow top and down comfort come the end of a full day, my mind generally pulls a few rounds of “Five Little Monkeys” before it’s ready to drift off to sleep. Letting go is not my forte.
For some, falling asleep is as simple as closing their eyes. They “crash” into sleep. My husband is like that, bless him. He has no mind-journeys to take before slumber sets in, no walk-abouts in the outbacks of his consciousness. He just lays down, closes his eyes and the man is out cold.
It’s a thing of beauty, really.
That’s not at all how it works for me.
There is scarcely a night where I don’t actively engage in some version of a “letting go of being awake” process; lists, journal entries, deep, conscious breaths. I am not plagued by anxiety or concern, thank G-d. I’m not afraid to fall asleep, nor do I fear dreaming; on the contrary, I adore it. Maybe it’s a control thing, or an over-active imagination, or maybe I’m just a “lifer,” but the ride from wake to sleep is a usually a least a little bumpy.
As I begin the slow process of detoxing from the day, my mind still gestating ideas to share on this very page… I reach for my note pad and try to give shape to some of the parsha inspired thoughts dancing around my head:
Jacob rested and a ladder grew from his mind,
Across his soul and over Forever.
Touching all the places that would ever been known,
Every cell and century between There and Here.
Rocks fought to cradle his head.
Oh to be the corner stone that allows man to breathe inside of Dreams’ pocket!
Jacob lived in a world where rocks knew they mattered.
He gave his body to gravity and carved himself space for a pregnant dream to rise.
A dream born of the love made by Heaven and Earth.
A High Definition dream, with one-legged and fiery angels both running and returning all at once;
Blowing kisses from the Highest of High,
Whispering hard secrets on a free and open mind.
The lines of Jabob’s dream blurred as dreams often do
And his dream became a prayer,
Honey flavored,
And so right that every lip after would speak it, in its own voice, in its own time.
A Prayer wide enough to welcome the Future, Past and Present.
And with enough potency to burst forth, in living color, from every corner of this globe.
I wonder, as I my head rests heavy on cotton and down;
Thick with body and earth;
Waiting for sleep to claim me as one of her own,
I will always wonder…
What angels wait for me in the space between sleep and awake?
What blueprints will my soul draw tonight?
Upon what Holy Ground will I wake?
I’d like to tell you that I wrote this poem, felt right with all worlds and drifted effortlessly into a holy, dreamy sleep, and woke with a new, inspired vision.
I did not.
I tossed and turned for a while and woke up blurry eyed and under caffeinated to a hissing clock alarm. As I shuffled like an inmate to make peanut butter sandwiches and cut oranges into slices I thought, so “this is what chasing prophesy looks like in my house at 6:30 a.m.”
I may not be great at transitioning from movement to stillness, or the reverse, but I know how to dream, and I know how to be awake.
That’s something. Maybe just enough to push me towards some of my sweeter dreams today.
Here’s to it friends.
Enjoy this playlist I put together inspired by the dream theme in this week’s Torah portion Vayeitzei. I hope it encourages you to carve out the space you need to let your dreams rise and flow.
May we wake with the all the stuff we need to build them in this world.
