The Energy Fields of Dreams

Recently I encountered the New York Times monthly feature where you are invited—and challenged—to look at a piece of art for ten whole minutes.

I loved this challenge.

I loved it for lots of reasons, but mostly because I know that we are in the age of weak attention. To sit with an image for ten minutes is a gift to one’s self.

Of course, as an artist, I sit with an image for hours upon hours, and I have some theories about how that deep attention can connect us to deeper realms of consciousness.

So today I am inviting you to look at this artwork for ten minutes. Unlike the New York Times, I’m going to provide some audio to go along with it! So sit back and enjoy!

P.S. If you’d rather read, the text is also below

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You can buy a card with this image from my website, where there are also lots of other beautiful cards.

The Energy Fields of Dreams

Bats carry out our projections of a “reverse” order that forces our perspective into the nocturnal, the underworld, and the equivalent cavernous depths of psyche. The twilight emergence of bats in the thousands or millions to forage embodies for us the concealed, primordial forces of the netherworld breaking out in expansive liberation. 

 Alchemy sometimes depicted the mercurial spirit of the unconscious with bat wings. It is a way of conveying not only the psyche’s darkness, mystery and ambivalence, but also its provision and unforeseen agency, the way it can lead consciousness into spheres requiring a different kind of orientation  and in which can be found the fructifying unconventionality of nature.

— from the Dictionary of Symbols

The Dream

On the night of a penumbral eclipse (when the Earth passes through the outer shadow of the Moon, resulting in a subtle change in light), I woke with a start. The light of the Moon felt strange, stranger than I could visually account for. In my half-asleep state, I stumbled from my bedroom out onto the deck, nearly tripped over a chair and, because my deck was in the process of being redone and had no railings, became certain I was going to kill myself. So I went back to bed, confused by the experience of the moonlight feeling strange but not observably different.

And then I had this dream. 

I had journeyed to Mountain Gardens, a local herb garden and apothecary and library, every bit a small piece of paradise, created by the wizard Joe Hollis. In waking life he had passed away many months before, but in the dream he was very much alive. I sat with him on the deck that overlooked his magical gardens. 

In my dream it was also a penumbral eclipse, and the sky had turned a vivid pink. It was an enchanted summer night. The chorus of insects and frogs and other night creatures in the dark belly of the forest carried an undercurrent of ecstasy, as if Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony had been translated into the buzz and chirp and rattle of the gathered beings of the forest. We gazed up at the wonder of the pink sky, and soaked it all in.

And then an immense bat—massive, archetypal—soared over us. We were awestruck by its size, thrilled with incredulous wonder, like you might feel if out of the blue an American Mastodon strolled through your backyard. Without speaking we understood immediately that we had received a gift. The Great Bat had shown himself to us.

The moment passed. The pink faded to blue. Joe stood up and, turning to me said in his matter-of-a-fact way, “A special night.” And off he went to bed.

♦︎

Nearly a year after this dream, during a bout with covid, I watched the film Paradise, about Joe’s life and death. In his life he built Mountain Gardens and lived his philosophy of Paradise Gardening, Every year a new crop of young people would spend the growing season learning from him and helping tend the gardens. His impact upon the people who knew him, even for a short time, cannot be underestimated. He was a giant of a man, a wizard, yet humble and kind.

In one of the final scenes of the film, a close friend of his says, “…I saw what that meant, when someone spends like decades accumulating everything that there is to know about some particular subject, like bats.” 

I must say, for the sake of clarity, that I had no idea that Joe Hollis had an interest in bats. So when I heard this my eyes grew wide. Dream magic was afoot. 

♦︎

Shortly after watching this film I had another dream. I went again to Mountain Gardens, to visit Joe as he was preparing to die. He was in a rocking chair, surrounded by books and herbs and young people, as he was throughout his life

I sat next to him and said, “I have to tell you about a dream I had. But I guess I’m time looping, because I had this dream after you died.” (For the record, this was the first time, dreaming or otherwise, that I’d used the phrase time looping.) 

“Oh, time looping,” he said. “I love time looping.” 

So then, in my dream, I tell him my great bat dream, and we laugh together over his understated remark at the end: “a special night.” 

And then I got up to go, touching him lightly on the shoulder, not wanting to take up any more of his precious time. 

I wasn’t close to Joe, but certainly I’ve been inspired by him, and what he created with his life, as anyone who knew him was. But for some reason unknown to me, in the Otherworld of dreams, a door opened and Joe was there. Together we witnessed something from deep in the Otherworld––a Great Bat. And then, as if by mystery’s own insistence, I dream again of going back and telling him of this dream.

♦︎

Consider for a moment that this constellation of dreams is not mine. That no dream, in and of itself, belongs solely to the dreamer. It isn’t a thing to be possessed, recorded, and then forgotten, but an aspect of the world, as real as the ocean, as necessary to life as rain. 

Perhaps you balk at this metaphor, of dreams as rain, but consider how all living things sleep. Every living being must rest. Dreams flow from the river of consciousness that is the prima materia of the living world. It is likely that every conscious being, which is the entirety of the living world, swims in this river of consciousness with every rest period. 

We are all swimming in it. What might happen if we reached out, and touched one another in the dark waters of the night?

Put another way: everything has its own inner world, a dreaming space, and all of these inner worlds are as connected as the living world is connected in the outer world. 

It’s the thing I keep stumbling over, the wild truth that everything is endowed with consciousness. This elderberry tree growing outside my window has her own inner world, her own threshold into the mystery, and from this threshold she arises, and embodies herself in this world. I can reach out to touch her blossoms with my fingertips, but I can also reach out and touch her with my own consciousness, and I find her there, pleased and warm, with no other message than keep going. 

It is difficult some days for me to remember that my work matters when faced with the fascist descent of my country. But we need thresholds to the otherworld now more than ever. We need to feel the spiritual forces that are the weavers of this realm, we need to know they have not abandoned us. We need to drink from the deep well of livingness that is ever-available, and that is eager to find joyful and determined expression in the experience of life.

A dream is a field of energy that we can enter into, if we can sink into our capacity to imagine and feel. Like creative work, sharing dreams nourishes our collective inner world. We need images of wonder and mystery to support our psyches. We need shadow imagery to shake us loose of our illusions.

This pastel is a visual representation of an energy field. Every piece of art is. The real question is how clear was the intent of the artist in creating the work. Did they do any ceremony to strengthen its accompanying energy field? And then, how deeply can the viewer drop into it, and participate in it?

So here is a scene, a dreamscape, and within it an energy field. It points to a living realm underneath ours, that ripples with consciousness, with wonders upon wonders. And in this realm there is a Great Bat, a numinous being, rare and omniscient. He has shown himself to us. 

I invite you to cross the threshold. Step into the wild summer night, the sky pink and vibrant and strange. Hear the swell of insects in the shadows of trees that tower over you. Feel the thunder of awe in your bones when the Great Bat appears overhead, immense and ancient. To see him is to lose your breath for a moment. 

He is a guardian of the Otherworld. He senses the world in a way that  is invisible to us, he knows the song of the earth. His home is a cave, utterly secret, vast and deep in the heart of the earth. No human has ever entered it, nor will they. To even consider such a thing is a trespass upon the sovereignty of the numinous. No human consciousness could survive the repercussions of such a trespass. 

His appearance is like a vision of a god, a divine being. He is gifting you with his presence, he is allowing you to behold him, to remind you, this world is more than you realize, this world is endowed with a livingness beyond your wildest dreams. This world is indeed, a paradise garden, and you are a part of it, we are all a part of it, even in the failings of our humanity, even in our apocalyptic enforcement of the patriarchal paradigm. The garden of Earth has not forgotten or cut herself off from the ocean of spiritual forces that weave this world from the warp and weft of consciousness. Walk in that garden. Feel the ocean of spirit that holds us. All the books ever written cannot begin to impart its greatness. It is incomprehensible. But without question we can feel its presence, for the living world is woven from it, we are woven from it, and it calls us back into itself when we dream, and when we die. 

The sky fades from lustrous pink to a normal blue-tinged gray. The moon sets, as dawn approaches. A normal day will unfold, with grocery lists, and horrific headlines, with small joys and collective grief. And underneath it all, there is a river, sparkling with consciousness. Great beings rise up from its depths, and swing down from the stars, and they bless the water.

♦︎♦︎♦︎

Thanks again for engaging with my work. Let’s never stop nourishing the world in whatever ways feel the most meaningful.

warmly,

Stephanie

Recently I encountered the New York Times monthly feature where you are invited—and challenged—to look at a piece of art for ten whole minutes.

I loved this challenge.

I loved it for lots of reasons, but mostly because I know that we are in the age of weak attention. To sit with an image for ten minutes is a gift to one’s self.

Of course, as an artist, I sit with an image for hours upon hours, and I have some theories about how that deep attention can connect us to deeper realms of consciousness.

So today I am inviting you to look at this artwork for ten minutes. Unlike the New York Times, I’m going to provide some audio to go along with it! So sit back and enjoy!

P.S. If you’d rather read, the text is below.

You can buy a card with this image from my website, where there are also lots of other beautiful cards.

Bats carry out our projections of a “reverse” order that forces our perspective into the nocturnal, the underworld, and the equivalent cavernous depths of psyche. The twilight emergence of bats in the thousands or millions to forage embodies for us the concealed, primordial forces of the netherworld breaking out in expansive liberation. 

 Alchemy sometimes depicted the mercurial spirit of the unconscious with bat wings. It is a way of conveying not only the psyche’s darkness, mystery and ambivalence, but also its provision and unforeseen agency, the way it can lead consciousness into spheres requiring a different kind of orientation  and in which can be found the fructifying unconventionality of nature.

from the Dictionary of Symbols

The Dream

On the night of a penumbral eclipse (when the Earth passes through the outer shadow of the Moon, resulting in a subtle change in light), I woke with a start. The light of the Moon felt strange, stranger than I could visually account for. In my half-asleep state, I stumbled from my bedroom out onto the deck, nearly tripped over a chair and, because my deck was in the process of being redone and had no railings, became certain I was going to kill myself. So I went back to bed, confused by the experience of the moonlight feeling strange but not observably different.

And then I had this dream. 

I had journeyed to Mountain Gardens, a local herb garden and apothecary and library, every bit a small piece of paradise, created by the wizard Joe Hollis. In waking life he had passed away many months before, but in the dream he was very much alive. I sat with him on the deck that overlooked his magical gardens. 

In my dream it was also a penumbral eclipse, and the sky had turned a vivid pink. It was an enchanted summer night. The chorus of insects and frogs and other night creatures in the dark belly of the forest carried an undercurrent of ecstasy, as if Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony had been translated into the buzz and chirp and rattle of the gathered beings of the forest. We gazed up at the wonder of the pink sky, and soaked it all in.

And then an immense bat—massive, archetypal—soared over us. We were awestruck by its size, thrilled with incredulous wonder, like you might feel if out of the blue an American Mastodon strolled through your backyard. Without speaking we understood immediately that we had received a gift. The Great Bat had shown himself to us.

The moment passed. The pink faded to blue. Joe stood up and, turning to me said in his matter-of-a-fact way, “A special night.” And off he went to bed.

♦︎

Nearly a year after this dream, during a bout with covid, I watched the film Paradise, about Joe’s life and death. In his life he built Mountain Gardens and lived his philosophy of Paradise Gardening, Every year a new crop of young people would spend the growing season learning from him and helping tend the gardens. His impact upon the people who knew him, even for a short time, cannot be underestimated. He was a giant of a man, a wizard, yet humble and kind.

In one of the final scenes of the film, a close friend of his says, “…I saw what that meant, when someone spends like decades accumulating everything that there is to know about some particular subject, like bats.” 

I must say, for the sake of clarity, that I had no idea that Joe Hollis had an interest in bats. So when I heard this my eyes grew wide. Dream magic was afoot. 

♦︎

Shortly after watching this film I had another dream. I went again to Mountain Gardens, to visit Joe as he was preparing to die. He was in a rocking chair, surrounded by books and herbs and young people, as he was throughout his life

I sat next to him and said, “I have to tell you about a dream I had. But I guess I’m time looping, because I had this dream after you died.” (For the record, this was the first time, dreaming or otherwise, that I’d used the phrase time looping.) 

“Oh, time looping,” he said. “I love time looping.” 

So then, in my dream, I tell him my great bat dream, and we laugh together over his understated remark at the end: “a special night.” 

And then I got up to go, touching him lightly on the shoulder, not wanting to take up any more of his precious time. 

I wasn’t close to Joe, but certainly I’ve been inspired by him, and what he created with his life, as anyone who knew him was. But for some reason unknown to me, in the Otherworld of dreams, a door opened and Joe was there. Together we witnessed something from deep in the Otherworld––a Great Bat. And then, as if by mystery’s own insistence, I dream again of going back and telling him of this dream.

♦︎

Consider for a moment that this constellation of dreams is not mine. That no dream, in and of itself, belongs solely to the dreamer. It isn’t a thing to be possessed, recorded, and then forgotten, but an aspect of the world, as real as the ocean, as necessary to life as rain. 

Perhaps you balk at this metaphor, of dreams as rain, but consider how all living things sleep. Every living being must rest. Dreams flow from the river of consciousness that is the prima materia of the living world. It is likely that every conscious being, which is the entirety of the living world, swims in this river of consciousness with every rest period. 

We are all swimming in it. What might happen if we reached out, and touched one another in the dark waters of the night?

Put another way: everything has its own inner world, a dreaming space, and all of these inner worlds are as connected as the living world is connected in the outer world. 

It’s the thing I keep stumbling over, the wild truth that everything is endowed with consciousness. This elderberry tree growing outside my window has her own inner world, her own threshold into the mystery, and from this threshold she arises, and embodies herself in this world. I can reach out to touch her blossoms with my fingertips, but I can also reach out and touch her with my own consciousness, and I find her there, pleased and warm, with no other message than keep going. 

It is difficult some days for me to remember that my work matters when faced with the fascist descent of my country. But we need thresholds to the otherworld now more than ever. We need to feel the spiritual forces that are the weavers of this realm, we need to know they have not abandoned us. We need to drink from the deep well of livingness that is ever-available, and that is eager to find joyful and determined expression in the experience of life.

A dream is a field of energy that we can enter into, if we can sink into our capacity to imagine and feel. Like creative work, sharing dreams nourishes our collective inner world. We need images of wonder and mystery to support our psyches. We need shadow imagery to shake us loose of our illusions.

This pastel is a visual representation of an energy field. Every piece of art is. The real question is how clear was the intent of the artist in creating the work. Did they do any ceremony to strengthen its accompanying energy field? And then, how deeply can the viewer drop into it, and participate in it?

So here is a scene, a dreamscape, and within it an energy field. It points to a living realm underneath ours, that ripples with consciousness, with wonders upon wonders. And in this realm there is a Great Bat, a numinous being, rare and omniscient. He has shown himself to us. 

I invite you to cross the threshold. Step into the wild summer night, the sky pink and vibrant and strange. Hear the swell of insects in the shadows of trees that tower over you. Feel the thunder of awe in your bones when the Great Bat appears overhead, immense and ancient. To see him is to lose your breath for a moment. 

He is a guardian of the Otherworld. He senses the world in a way that  is invisible to us, he knows the song of the earth. His home is a cave, utterly secret, vast and deep in the heart of the earth. No human has ever entered it, nor will they. To even consider such a thing is a trespass upon the sovereignty of the numinous. No human consciousness could survive the repercussions of such a trespass. 

His appearance is like a vision of a god, a divine being. He is gifting you with his presence, he is allowing you to behold him, to remind you, this world is more than you realize, this world is endowed with a livingness beyond your wildest dreams. This world is indeed, a paradise garden, and you are a part of it, we are all a part of it, even in the failings of our humanity, even in our apocalyptic enforcement of the patriarchal paradigm. The garden of Earth has not forgotten or cut herself off from the ocean of spiritual forces that weave this world from the warp and weft of consciousness. Walk in that garden. Feel the ocean of spirit that holds us. All the books ever written cannot begin to impart its greatness. It is incomprehensible. But without question we can feel its presence, for the living world is woven from it, we are woven from it, and it calls us back into itself when we dream, and when we die. 

The sky fades from lustrous pink to a normal blue-tinged gray. The moon sets, as dawn approaches. A normal day will unfold, with grocery lists, and horrific headlines, with small joys and collective grief. And underneath it all, there is a river, sparkling with consciousness. Great beings rise up from its depths, and swing down from the stars, and they bless the water.

♦︎♦︎♦︎

Thanks again for engaging with my work. Let’s never stop nourishing the world in whatever ways feel the most meaningful.

warmly,

Stephanie