Blue Tiger, Purple Moon

By Pam Hadder

Do you remember your dreams?  I find that if I consciously commit details to memory when I first awaken, they stay with me.  But most times I jump out of bed and rush into the various tasks necessary to tackle the working day – and the vivid images and experiences of my sleeping mind quickly vaporize like mist burning off in the sun.

I have heard a theory that when we sleep our soul is free to travel – that might explain why some mornings I feel like I have run three back-to-back marathons!  (I call those my “busy” dreams!) But aside from epic action and adventure scenarios, the most compelling dreams are those where I am given a gift – typically a creative idea or alternate viewpoint.  

Lately I have been taking these more seriously – I actually dreamed about a children’s book idea and title, for example – it was so realistic and specific that I could not brush it off.  When I awoke I recalled how Sir Paul McCartney once woke with a melody in his head.  He played it on the piano and eventually set lyrics to it.  But he wasn’t sure if the melody was unique, or if he was just playing some other composer’s work from memory.  He played the song for years, but just for those close to him – not in performance.  Finally he was satisfied that the melody was indeed his own!  This song became the mega hit, “Yesterday.”

Back to my dream book title - I researched it later in the same day.  There was another book similarly titled, but only ever so slightly.  Interestingly, the names of the book's characters also came to me in my dream, and these have been similarly noted for later use - I even saw the cover illustration; a finished book.  On a roll, I also researched a term that had come to me in an earlier dream – it had seemed like nonsense, but I began to wonder if it was from another language, and like Goldilocks I couldn't resist exploring.  I found a similar word that is the name of a Japanese manga character.  I’m not into heavy Japanese pop culture, so it’s unlikely that I would have encountered that name – so my mystery word has also been entered into my notes for future reference; unsolved but an item of interest. 

These are just two small examples of how our dreams can affect and inspire our waking lives.  Of course, most of us will not establish the global fame of Sir Paul, and we may not even aspire to attempt it. But we all have inborn potential and creativity – our dreams stimulate and inspire – in our dreams things can be both/and; we can work outside of the laws of physics, we can have  blue tigers, purple moons, and super-human abilities.  Thus, we expand beyond the common place, we defy the naysayers who have told us from childhood all of the things we cannot do or become. Dreams are a place to play, to discover, to test, to learn – we are truly “beautifully and fearfully made.” (The Holy Bible, Psalm 139:14)

I am also reminded of the 2006 documentary film “10 Questions for the Dalai Lama” where an American journalist travels for two years in India, patiently hoping to meet the Dalai Lama for a brief interview. Good fortune prevails, and the journalist is able to interview His Holiness. The Dalai Lama responds to one of the questions in a particularly unexpected manner – it is when he is asked what is the most important thing people can do to promote peace.  Without hesitation, His Holiness responds “critical thinking.”  This response showed great wisdom. Consider that with critical thinking, as with dreaming, we remove biases and boundaries; we examine, explore and compare with dispassionate objectivity. Critical thinking allows us to sift through filler and fodder to the crux of things – and what we typically find is commonality and also new discoveries; new ways of thinking, seeing and being. Perhaps our dream state is an inborn tool to nudge us toward a sublime state of enrichment and creative harmony?

Goodbye False Icons!

By Pam Hadder

Today is an auspicious day. Rising from bed, swinging sleepy limbs out of cotton swathing to face another day, I am delighted to see the sun’s blush just meeting the horizon; we are in sync at last, without need of a jarring alarm – it’s a perfect beginning to the rest of my life.  Into the shower I trundle, happily soaping all those wonderful body parts:  silently thanking my feet, legs, arms, back, breasts, toes, fingers, ears – I am blessed to have a healthy body; thank you, thank you, thank you. 

No more judgment – not from me; never again - the world will judge my female form harshly, but I have chosen to be her one stalwart supporter.  When I emerge from my domestic cocoon and I must face the many false icons of Photoshopped “perfection” online, outdoors, in print – everywhere – and should I feel myself feeling diminished; fading, I will tap along the pathways my counselor has shown me – face, collar bone, ribs, hand; repeat.   Affirmations will flow from my lips like a bird song: “I am wise, I am healthy, I am enough, I am beautiful for who I am; I love and accept myself…”  

I will feel my heart maintain a slow confident beat, faithfully keeping time while I maneuver through the day’s obstacles and successes; I will draw air into lungs that infuse my whole being with vital oxygen, and when I eat I will refuel; energize – I will relish each bite: savoury, sweet, sour, salty. I will not count calories, or steps; nor will I ever use a scale.  I will not judge my worthiness by size, shape, how much or how little I eat – I will not see food as my enemy.  Food is there to nourish us, after all – so I will delight in having the good fortune to select from many fresh food options, and I will luxuriate in its beauty, sensuality and diversity, and in those special times I can share earth’s nutritional bounty with others.

It has taken decades for the child, then a young woman, then a mother to reach this place of feminine certitude – I am, I feel, I appreciate, I blossom, and I am eternal.  When the work day is done, I will stretch and smile, and seek recreation in the things that bring my body and mind healthy stimulation and inspiration: my art, my music, and leisurely time spent outdoors, or in silent reflection, writing, listening or resting. I do not need to justify my choices; I do not need to explain, but I must fully engage as only I can so that I can enjoy my personal potential.  If not today, then when?  We are only certain of this one breath, this one moment after all.

Back to my body – my good, beautiful, healthy body – I solemnly vow that I will honour her.  I will not wear tight polyester, I will not pound my bones against the hard road, I will not pant so hard I taste blood.  I will stand tall and gracefully walk at a pace that feels right in clothes that feel right, I will feel my heart beating strongly, I will enjoy the scents and sights around me; and I will connect with the people around me  with positive energy – when they smile, I will smile back.
  

Some very good women to heal you and inspire your journey:

Limon – http://limonfresh.ca/

Virgie Tovar – https://www.facebook.com/virgie.tovar.1/about

Queer Divine Satisfaction

By Pam Hadder

There is vitality, a life force, energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open…No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.” 

– Martha Graham

The more I experience in life and the more I learn and open myself to expression, the more I recognize how truly remarkable the moments of true connection are.  Through music, academic study, visual art and the written word, I am working to understand my place, my identity, my gifts – and I recognize that this all is part of a profound yearning to connect with my personal purpose. I have always been independent – I made the choices I made based on my internal cues, and resisted external pressures, peer pressures.  As a result of non-conformity, I have been an outsider; including within my own life – a voiceless and formless observer, lonely in crowded places, and ever-searching.I have also been malleable, naïve; constrained and framed by pre-existing external and environmental structures which (constantly, consistently, persistently) told me who I was, who I could be, what was good and bad, what was right and wrong – although I resisted internally, and also externally at times, I cannot deny that I was shaped and guided by these forces. The result was a construct, a false “self” which housed/contained/imprisoned the authentic person.

At this moment I am working on a paintings and sculpture series for a course in colonizing/decolonizing art and visual culture. Through this work, combined with other coursework I have been able to emerge from the false self – reborn into understanding, awareness, while breaking free of colonized controls.  And so, I am a very young child with new, inquiring eyes and hands; finding my way, playing, trying new things.  I find myself looking at spaces and places that seem unfamiliar.  Everything is new, curious, re-framed – the good and the bad, what it means to love, what it means to be “woman.”  And my art waits patiently, endures and forgives, while I work intuitively to express with layers of paint, with melted bits of recycled water bottles, with words strung together –haphazard ebullience.

What surprises me the most is not the level and complexity of emotions elicited by this journey, but how it has enhanced my feelings of “being without space or place” and “being out of sync with time.”  I followed this path seeking affirmation, knowledge, yes, but a comforting kind of “yes, Darling.”  I never banked on this upheaval, this brilliance, this revelation, this beauty, this sorrow, this exhaustion, this exhilaration. My spirit blazes, blinding white, tireless and spontaneous, but my mature adult physiology is at odds with that inner reality.  I now understand why I am driven toward learning new languages: music, academic/feminist, artistic/visual, cultural – my spirit has reached this critical mass of tolerance.  It is weary of being suppressed, its incarceration has been served – it pleads, it shouts “let me speak!”  Most often I am half-terrified, thrust out of my cell, my virtual and actual life prison, and sometimes I want to scream - “Hello, hello, can anybody hear me in here; out there?” But I tell myself – “keep going; fight the good fight; it’s all related somewhere, there is an ending place, a place of intersection, a crossroads where all will be realized.”  And on the other hand, I rationalize, that learning has no end, it only expands one’s field of vision, one’s reference and reveals  more bread crumbs of unknowing.

So at this moment, I struggle, I am thankful, I doubt myself, I weep, I laugh, I question, I am silent – it’s all about trying to communicate with my authentic self.  There is an awful lot of failing, failing, failing – there is no room for an over-stuffed ego.  And sleep holds no escape; I have nightmares about Tinkerbell and other free-flowing odd themes – the spirited child bucks and rollicks in a woman’s body and mind, a wild maestro of sorts assembling and commanding the unforeseen, the unimagined – I mean, good God; what am I?   When my mind is numb from thinking and stimulation, and when my body is absolutely fatigued, I tire of disappointment, I tire of trying to connect, I tire of trying to make the best out of whatever scraps the wheel of life throws my way.  I am my comfort and my playmate – a woman, being led along an uncertain path by a precocious, dancing child – slightly out of step, and definitely in the wrong space and time.  Such as it is, this is my authentic space and time; this is my authentic self.