Til
Dreamed c.1986 by Patricia Garfield
Dreams may help conceptualize the solution to a problem, as one did for me. I had just sold the idea for this book on the basis of a brief proposal; details of thc contract were being discussed.
Knowing that the book was going to be produced, I had to do some hard thinking about how to organize it, how to flesh out the proposal. I had started work on the first chapter without being sure of how to proceed when, toward the end of an unusual dream,
I am a good spirit flying through the air. I am in a churchyard hovering in the air under stone arches that open to the sky above me and on all sides; below me is a burial ground. There are no markers on the graves, only a general sign for each section. The portion I am suspended above is marked TIL. I somehow know this means "girl" in some language [does it?]. It is as if a mass of people were buried here--perhaps a grave from a concentration camp....The book I was writing at the time of this dream was not yet "brought to life"; it was "buried," concentrated, within primal soil. To "till" the earth is, for me, to prepare it for planting, to make it receptive to bringing forth life. To "bless" the earth, to pour energy into it with my hands, was conferring a kind of resurrection. The different sections of ground in the dream, one marked by the strange word indicating girl, another portion labeled "woman," and others, drew my attention, when awake, to the possibility of organizing the material around age, developmentally, rather than by issue.I am blessing the dead. I fly upright in a white ankle-length gown, barefoot, tilting slightly forward, my arms extended down with the palms parallel to the earth. From my palms stream energy. As I fly, I recite, "Til, Til, Til," as though blcssing each individual buried child. Nearby lie buried women.
When I have completed blessing the ground, I withdraw my hands inward to my own body. It feels very good to have made energy flow through them. I wake exhilarated.
The dream provided an inspiration to tackle the work of creating a book, as well as a framework for the material.
--Patricia Garfield
EDITOR'S NOTE
I admire that the dream suggested how to structure her book, and she had the sense to listen. Yet the developmental approach assumes "universal" life-stages and issues that I certainly didn't experience in that order--if I had them at all. Still, that's me--I rejected Jean Piaget too, for I didn't develop as his theory said. But I was/am a freak. The life-stage thing does work for most.
--Chris Wayan
SOURCE: Women's Bodies, Women's Dreams by Patricia Garfield, 1988, pp. 228-9
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