I dream a problem to solve: I need a small parking area for my fleet of six jets, he tells me.
I am standing in a mall lot, on the upper deck, in the middle of a city. The site includes a spiral ramp on one side, and a poorly lit corner bounded by a low concrete wall.
I am the architect of a containment area for a wealthy man’s airplanes. I wonder how I find myself in this strange place, with this odd assignment.
He adds: And I need 15 numbered spaces, and I want it all in 6 days.
In my dream I plunge in, filled with optimism. I begin calculating, though I remind myself that it is my son who is the architect and I wish he were here, as an adult, at my side. Still, I squint my eyes and size up what I have to work with. The challenge of it, and of course, its constraints.
Big Picture, Necessary Details
The owner of the project has disappeared, and for a moment, I turn away from the area he designated. I want the bigger picture.
I fix my gaze in the opposite direction. What appears to be miles of open space would offer other possibilities. It also begs numerous questions, and I quickly understand that the requirements – and tools – are insufficient. Yet I have accepted the job, and will be held accountable for its success.
I am noting realizations, and questions.
- I need more detail on function and usage.
- I need access to expert resources.
- Under any circumstances, the time is unworkable.
- What of the planes? Their weight? Their dimensions?
- What about permits to park planes next to cars?
- Space for mechanics, fueling, storing parts?
- Does he intend to convert an area into a landing strip?
- If so, where does he stand in the political and legal process?
I am the architect of safe and solid structures, I say to myself. I do not build airports.
Help is on the way?
I am vaguely aware that I need my son to confirm that this is an impossible undertaking given the constraints and lack of information. No one could accomplish this, so I needn’t berate myself. Yet in the dream, I am held responsible. In the dream, I know this project to be important.
I turn around again and look in the other direction. I wonder why I’ve been pointed to the darkest, most unlikely area in which to design and build. It is what it is, but I am frustrated.
This is a dream, I say, and force myself awake.
Checklists, Tasks, Doing Nothing
What must it be like to open your eyes to a day without a checklist? Especially on a weekend? Is there a parent out there who knows what this is like? A single parent?
I want to do nothing. Really do nothing. Occasionally, I get a tiny taste and, admittedly, it’s disorienting. Are we simply more accustomed to being busy all the time? Is it necessary busy, or our own imposed busy?
There is no option when it comes to today’s responsibility: computations, digging through papers, filling out forms, more computations, writing letters, more computations.
A stack to be faxed. Another to be emailed.
I remain the stalwart architect of my son’s future in these arduous details which frankly, make my head hurt. All this, to apply for scholarship monies and loan monies, and as it turns out, two weeks earlier than anticipated.
Futures
And what of dreaming? What of the constraints that arrive in narrative and vivid imagery, with so many lessons to impart?
My waking mind can still picture the vast expanse offering so many options – its possibilities without the walls, cramped corners, unanswered questions. I want to turn away from this sense of futility, that all the open spaces stretch behind me, rather than ahead.
I set that thought aside, and deal with the present. For now, my son’s future requires the last elements of infrastructure, however tedious to assemble. He is not yet the adult, and I remain the architect of safe and solid structures.
- Do your dreams offer insights?
- Do they point the way to solutions, or at least, clarify the challenges?
- When you get the chance to do “nothing,” can you enjoy it?
That was a very insightful analysis of your dream. And such detail remembered… we should all be that lucky. I never am able to remember, much less decipher, my dreams that well. We are all over burdened with the imposed baggage of society in modern life. We need to dance to it’s tune if we want its fringe benefits and just when you think you know the tune… it changes. And all your dance steps, however much practiced, are out of step. I think it was ever thus… at whatever pace society went. We must choose to be masters of our own dance tune if we want the chance to sit idle staring at snowfall out windows or napping away hot August afternoons without falling out of step. When you decide what is most important you name the dance tune. Is it their tune or yours?
Nice to have you here, Artdream. And you said it – “we are all over burdened” – in so many ways. As for being masters of our dance tune, I’d say YES to that one, but it only works before children or after…
My dreams rarely offer insight but often are enjoyable. They usually get interrupted which both guarantees I’ll remember them and unfortunately feel the loss as they slip from my conscientiousness.
As for complicated tasks, I finally created a checklist for backing out the band. I kept forgetting something. You’d think my military background would have meant I had the checklist long before now. You’d think…
wrens
trees in my yard tupelo, holly, and sometimes the white oak
meadow from my western childhood high in the Rockies
—
I just enjoy them, including the feeling of flying or being in a bird family of sorts.
Sounds lovely, NoName.
Thanks for reminding me that I need to go through my kids backpacks. Been busy tending to the ill in the house that I have forgotten to do that!
Hi Wolf, Couple of thoughts on your dream. Your male aspect has six jets—the Animus pertains to the realm of thought and esoteric consciousness. You are identified with the Yin/Anima/Receptive principle, but to me the dream suggests a widening of consciousness, inviting you to see that there is plenty of space, but at the same time the male aspect is a bit controlling, demanding you put things in a confined space.
The fact that it is in “the middle of the city” suggests your central position in the social situation—and your involvement in diverse ventures. Perhaps as in “It’s a Wonderful Life” you sometimes feel that parenting, money and the mundane have saddled you or impeded adventure, only to later reveal that the cosmos of what matters is right in our own little corners of experience.
Nevertheless, the Animus, YOUR male aspect, does have six jets (and at least nine other craft or vehicles of some sort, totaling fifteen). It serves to ponder fifteen and six (for example, what was going on at those ages, and how might it inform current challenges?). Six is also a key number in Chinese hexagrams as well as in the Jewish star, suggesting that the place where six diverse things gather just might take us to seven—a number signifying completion (days, chakras, etc.)… maybe even to a day when you get to rest :).
You also intuit that there is something of great value in the shadows, and this is your unconscious challenging you to not just accept your power, but embrace the seemingly humble down to earth tasks, to architect a gathering place for the parts of you that soar, the aspects that may seem to be all over the place (parenting, writing, France, romance, money, spirit) but have yet to reveal their integrated corporate strategy.
Finally, don’t overlook the spiral ramp—to me that is an apt symbol of the shape of individuation, ever upward and yet arriving again and again at a variation of where we began. This is deep in our cells, an intuitive relationship to DNA, our ultimate architecture.
Namaste
Fascinating, Bruce. Thank you. I had two more quotidian interpretations (both of which fit tasks I am embroiled in) – but – this raises very interesting points, and you have me thinking.
And if the parts of me that “soar” are in fact my sons? Isn’t this the pride and the sadness of any parent who feels they are doing what they love and what they must, responsibly, to launch their children – even if they set aside their own dreams to do so?
Ironically, as I think of six and fifteen (which I hadn’t – except, again, in a very pragmatic way relative to an actual deadline I was under) – at six I already knew I wanted to be a writer, and my first “something” was published in the newspaper at that age. At 15, I escaped the confines of my small town and left home for the first time, and went and lived in France. It was the first real freedom I ever had – and a sense of home I never had “at home” – strangely – in the language as much as anything else. I was freer in the language.
The spiral – I’ve always loved that image, especially for those who say they are “just running in circles.” I believe even when we seem to be going in circles, we are more likely moving in spirals, thus – still advancing, even if we aren’t sure quite where it’s taking us.
Thank you for this.