Author: Jnana Hodson
In downsizing to a remote fishing village in Downeast Maine, this eclectic writer feels everything's coming together.
Carefully unroll this scroll of dreams, please
I HAVE NO IDEA OF HOW you dream or what fills your nocturnal flights, but I’m curious. Are there commonalities or do our subconscious thoughts run in much different directions?
My assumption is that there’s nothing more personal than the encounters that flit through our heads in our sleep. They visit us, unbidden and unencumbered and then entrance us before typically vanishing with little more than a trace, if that. Maybe they’ve elevated our heart rate in the process or left us in a cold sweat.
No doubt inspired by Jack Kerouac’s Book of Dreams but also some references to spiritual practices that urged paying close attention to the overnight phenomenon, I began recording what I could back in the early ‘70s and have continued the practice, however sporadically, through the decades since.
Through the coming year, I’ll be revisiting that ledger and posting bits in installments here at the Barn. Maybe that will even prompt you to share some of your memories and related insights.
I make no pretense of knowing precisely what meaning, if any, many of these have, by the way, but I’ve long felt that make for some great yet private movies. As for their frequently surreal nature? Sometimes it’s even entertaining.
~*~
A FEW YEARS AGO, I wondered whether in a Judeo-Christian tradition this would seem occult. The Biblical perspectives did open my eyes – to my surprise, in a mostly positive awareness:
- Genesis 20: God speaks to Abilelech the king about Sara. Interestingly, this is the first dream in Scripture, and it’s a revelation to a Gentile!
- Genesis 28: Jacob dreams of the ladder. Yes, up into the ether and back to earth, which can also be seen as the essence of a dream.
- Genesis 31: Jacob tells of his dream of the goats and of how an angel of God speaks to him in the dream. So he hears voices in his dreams. Do you?
- Genesis 37: Joseph proclaims his dreams, and his brothers react negatively.
- Genesis 40-42: Joseph interprets dreams in Egypt.
- Numbers 12: God rebukes Aaron and Miriam, telling them that when it comes to a prophet, “I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams.”
- Deuteronomy 13: A testing about false prophets claiming dreams and to put the false dreamer to death. Watch what you say, then.
- Judges 7: During the night (i.e., a dream or trance) “the Lord said to Gideon” and then Gideon hears someone else tell of a dream that yet another interprets as victory ahead and Gideon praises God.
- 1 Samuel 28: The Lord does not answer Saul, even by dreams.
- 1 Kings 3: The Lord appears to Solomon at night in a dream.
- Job 7: Job to God, “even you frighten me with dreams.”
- Job 20: False advice, “Like a dream he flies away, no more to be found.”
- Job 33: Elihu’s false advice arising “in a dream, in a vision of the night.”
- Psalm 73:20: Sweeping away enemies like a dream.
- Psalm 126:1: “We were like men who dreamed … our tongues were filled with songs of joy.”
- Ecclesiastes 5:3: “As a dream comes when there are many cares.”
- Isaiah 29: “When a hungry man dreams that he is eating, but he awakens, and his hunger remains … as a thirsty man dreams that he is drinking.”
- Jeremiah 23, regarding false prophets claiming dreams: “I am against prophets who steal from one another words that are supposedly from me!”
- Jeremiah 27: “So do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your interpreters of dreams, your mediums or your sorcerers who tell you, ‘You will not serve the king of Babylon.’”
- Jeremiah 29: “Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them [the false prophets] to have.”
- Daniel 1-2: “And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds,” introducing Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.
- Daniel 4: Nebuchadnezzar’s interpreted.
- Daniel 7: Daniel’s dream of four beasts.
- Joel 2:28: “Your old men will dream dreams.”
- Zechariah 10:2: About “false dreams.”
- Matthew 1: An angel of the Lord appears to Joseph in a dream.
- Matthew 2: The three wise men were “warned of God in a dream.”
- Matthew 27:19: Pilate’s wife has a disturbing dream and warns against judging Jesus.
- Acts 2:17: “And your old men shall dream dreams.”
- Jude 8: “Filthy dreamers defile the flesh.”
In these texts, the “dreams and visions” often come directly from God, even to Gentiles. Other times, they come by way of angels.
~*~
THAT SAID, I OFFER the series largely unedited, allowing its flashes and visions to speak for themselves. I have, however, changed some of the names and places to maintain a degree of separation from real-life people and locations, not that in a dreamscape the person I associate with the action actually resembled the one in the vision. I have no idea what prompted many of them, although there are times I’ll include a real-life context in my record.
Dreams are a world of their own. Agreed?
Another day approaches
Personal goals in the new year
- Be more attentive to relationships.
- Do a better job of housecleaning.
- And gardening slash yard work.
- Read more of the books I’ve amassed and plunge through the backlog of magazines.
- See to the home renovations.
- Relish in the publication of Quaking Dover.
- Exercise more. Including time for treks in the wild.
- Revisit my journals.
- Have better dreams.
- Act my age.
With another new calendar year, here we go again
Hard to believe this blog is now in its second decade.
With the Barn, a new year usually signals a slight shift in focus and content.
2023, for instance, will see a series excerpting dreams I’ve had over the years. Mine can be surreal and inexplicable and yet, I feel, illuminating. They’ll likely give you unexpected glimpses into my psyche even though I’m thinking of it as literature. Meanwhile, the prose poems that have been appearing on Saturdays have run their course. Hope you’ve enjoyed their compressed impressions of my earlier life and feelings, especially when they’ve reflected your own, too.
Dover’s 400th anniversary will continue to be a major theme, including things I’ve learned since the release of my book based on the town’s Quaker heritage. And there will be announcements of presentations based on the book as they come up through the year. The ones I’ve done so far have been a blast.
Now that you’ve been introduced to Eastport and its ways, the tone of those posts will also turn, shall we say, more casual? Or at least more of the everyday experience around here rather than a record of the connections I’ve discovered. Besides, living on an island in Maine is some people’s fantasy, at least through the summer. I’m hoping to add a streak of reality to that vision.
Kinisi will continue with their off-the-wall, quirky, flash slashes. Some fall into the realm of concrete poems, a la Aram Saroyan, and others take the trippy flashes of the sort Richard Brautigan produced. Others can be seen as prompts for others to build on. These minimalist notations do reflect the way I’ve often heard and seen the world, slightly askew, even though I have to admit I don’t “understand” many of them. They’re intended to dance to their own beat, OK?
And I have to admit my Tendrils on Tuesday are great fun to investigate and offer. I never thought of top ten lists as entertaining, forget the factual dimension. They definitely have much more to dig up as we go.
One big shift will likely be in photography, from my Olympus camera to my S-22 Ultra cell phone. We’ll see what you think. Eastport and the surrounding environment are certainly visually rich subjects. Click, click, everywhere you turn.
Overall, though, I’m intending to have fewer posts this time around, yet it still looks like that still means at least one posting each day. Or, as one renowned writing teacher taught his classes, “Write 300 good words a day.” Not that I’m keeping count, even as I keep hoping to cut back. Does keyboarding really become compulsive?
My life and outlook have certainly changed over the course after signing up for a WordPress blog, which then led to four related lines. Thanks for sharing so much of it here.
What are you looking forward to on your end in the new year?
Kinisi 138
ONE
DER
AFTER
WHAT
EV
ER
Here’s why we celebrate the arrival of each New Year twice
Every New Year’s Eve where I now live, folks gather in front of the Tides Institute – also known for the occasion as Tides Square – for the drop of a festive maple leaf emblem at 11 pm and then convene again for a giant sardine sculpture at midnight.
Forget crowded Manhattan. This is the kind of homegrown affair where you can actually run into people you know, as well as others you’ll be hoping to see more of.
With New Brunswick just a mile or two across the channel and very much a part of our community, Eastport can’t help but mark the one-hour time difference between the two shores. Your cell phone certainly reminds you, shifting from one to the other. And so, at midnight Atlantic Time, we drop the lighted red maple leaf while a small brass band plays “Oh, Canada,” with many of the observers singing along. And then there’s the first burst of pyrotechnics overhead. Yay! Wow! Grins!
Time for a break, perhaps for hot chocolate down the street or a stop at several diners open uncommonly late, or even a dash home.
An hour later, reflecting the fact that Eastport was once the sardine capital of the world, everyone’s back, awaiting a giant sardine sculpture to descend at midnight Eastern Time from the former bank building that now houses a museum. This round, we all cheer to “Old Lang Syne” and then a festive outburst of fireworks.
Here’s what we’re looking forward tonight!
Ring in the big celebration
My first New Year’s Eve in Dover was filled with wonder when all of the church bells burst out ringing. The next year, however, they were silent.
The occasion, I learned later, was the new millennium, even if technically 2000 was the last year of the old millennium while the actual arrival went unnoticed as such.
This year, Dover’s churches have been asked to ring their bells at 9 pm as a prelude to a fireworks presentation to welcome in the city’s 400th anniversary year observations.
Here’s hoping the weather obliges.
From many miles away, we’ll be thinking of folks there and hoping for a most exciting new yar.
All in a word
Kraut? How about “pickled cabbage,” any better?
The world’s most glorious sauerkraut
For most of my life, I never would have thought sauerkraut could rise any higher than maybe a gag-inducing edible in an obligatory sort of way. You know, like liver. Something in some households you might be required to eat on New Year’s Eve to assure a good 12 months ahead. Think of lutefisk (lye fish) in Nordic cultures as a parallel.
Well, my best friend’s parents, of good German Lutheran stock, made their own, but they also composted for their garden, and back in the ‘50s, that seemed pretty weird.
I am convinced that there are certain dishes that will never become acquired tastes to some or even many tongues. (Feel free to make nominations here.)
That said, imagine my surprise in recent decades in discovering the joys of fine Chinese cuisine, along with the shock of learning that the filling on those snappy eggrolls and spring rolls was essentially sauerkraut, just by another name.
Maybe that set up the moment of revelation.
Morse’s in Waldoboro.
First came some nibbles after an old Mainer made his annual pilgrimage, returning with 20 or 30 pounds or so.
The taste was sweet and tangy, even refreshing. I do like pickles, but these are in a class all their own. I mean, they’re glorious. OK, I had come to prefer coleslaw with a vinegar dressing more than the conventional creamy one, so maybe that had prepared me. (Not that I turn down either.)
That’s set up our own trips in the family, including one with me in the depths of a very snowy February. The road out of the village to the store seemed to take forever, I was sure we had taken a wrong turn somewhere, but then the small store appeared, and it offered more crocks of pickled traditions than just kraut. It also had a small but very tasty German restaurant, which appears to have fallen victim to Covid restrictions. All in all, a delight.
Upshot is, it’s a dish I’ve come to anticipate each winter from our own ten-pound or so purchase.
Morse’s is, in itself, a fascinating story of a family business that’s undergone some transformations but maintains a small niche in an increasingly monolithic food industry. I have no idea if you can find it anywhere near where you live, but then maybe that might inspire another entrepreneur to rise to the challenge. Bigger is not always better.
Jnana's Red Barn 