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ne question I love to ask people is what they think about when they're trying to fall asleep. I often find this reveals the heart of what that person truly loves. My husband devises new lesson plans for his kids (and once dreamed of the perfect lesson plan, which he implemented the next day). My mother-in-law redecorates different rooms and houses. I go through my kung fu forms in my head, imagining the application of each move, how I can do it more perfectly.

This one moment before drifting off to the dream realm is where we direct our minds towards comfort and inspiration, to a place where we are mentally at peace and happy. I was touched to read this little snippet in the Chronicle where the food critic Michael Bauer described his discomfort at discussing costly fine dining with the group Conquering Homelessness through Employment in Food Service:

In another class, a woman pulled me aside and asked me to sign her tattered copy of "The San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook." She said she fell asleep each night reading the recipes. It was a heart wrenching image, but she said that reading the recipes gave her hope.

In the moments before sleep we are all free to enter the imaginary realm, to visualize ourselves in our most ideal way. Where does your mind go before falling asleep? Please comment below.

Posted by Satya at 8:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

standing on the street and see my Chinese neighbor outside her house (in reality I don't have such a neighbor). There is black smoke pouring out from her kitchen. I ask her what's up and she says she was trying to make tea and it got really smokey and she wasn't sure what to do. So I offer to go inside with her and see if we can figure out the problem. She speaks to me in Chinese, or half Chinese (I can't distinguish between Mandarin and Cantonese), but I can still understand her.

Once inside, the place is dark and filthy. She has several cats and in addition to the clutter and mess of her house, there is spilled litter and kibble all over, and cat feces on the carpet. I locate the source of the smoke: she is making tea on a small hibachi barbeque, and it is smoking because there is something foreign in the coals that is burning. I carefully lift up the grill to see what's in there, and four snakes that are on fire jump out and slither rapidly through the house. In the other room I hear one of them strike and one of the cats cries out in pain. Suddenly the cat and one of the snakes are wrestling, locked in a mortal struggle. I jump up and yell, "Oh shit!" I feel the urge to flee this horrible scene, but don't because of my obligation to help my neighbor. She doesn't look alarmed that one of her cats is injured and may be dying, just sad and helpless as we watch the scene play out. I think the snake is winning because my last impression before I wake up is the cat lying on its side, breathing heavily.

Posted by Satya at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ust got back home from the penultimate Suluk session. It was very difficult to sit there attempting to absorb more teachings when I want to be practically assimilating some of what we've covered. Everything about winter on the East Coast weighed down upon me - immobility and a caustic cocktail of mud, snow, ice, and rain sapped my energy even over the few short days.

And then I'm home and it's hot outside and the flowers are bustin' out all over the backyard, and M. has hidden little presents all over the house and my white white legs saw sunlight for what felt like the first time in years. California really is a fantastical paradise sometimes, a garden underneath which rivers flow....

I had a very hefty dream the first night I was at Suluk though, with birthing my own legs and dreams within dreams and ashes and shrines to multiple Shiite heroes. I'd like to get a sheikh to interpret it but I don't really know any I can ask.

And also a small inspiration for something new to start doing here. I don't want to say too much about it because many times these inspirations on retreat don't bear fruit, but hopefully there will be more to come later.

Posted by Satya at 6:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

or the past couple weeks I've had the 'D' word hanging over my head, as in deadline. Several deadlines, in fact. Part of me thrives on this much work because I really like to hunker down and focus, and procrastination is completely out of the question. But it's very hard to keep a balance of activity and repose, as Murshid recommends. His own schedule was pretty amazing. He would rise early, and his whole day was a balance of meditation, intense work, and rest periods that he would usually spend playing with his children. It sounds great but in practice it takes a lot of concentration to be able to switch gears.

Mostly it's hard to truly relax when I'm all wound up from working. I take the dog out in the afternoons and the fresh air is like a revelation. Dreams at night have been anxiety-ridden - my anxiety dream standby is that I have to go back to finish high school or college, neither of which I finished in real life, and take the SAT, which I also skipped out on. My diet is a nightmare of caffeine, carbohydrates, and sugar, occasionally lubricated with alcohol. So obviously I have a lot yet to master in terms of balance, but still, the satisfaction of accomplishing so much gives a secretly sweet taste of success.

Posted by Satya at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ast night I had a classic dream: I was attending a wedding and was sitting with a fellow guest when I felt myself crunch down on something unpleasant, like glass (though it didn't cut me). From that point on I kept spitting out pieces of metal and slivers of tooth. At one point I spit into a basket, and all manner of things came out, like soda can tabs and teeth and other bits of metal all mixed together. Finally I found a dentist who was also a guest and showed him the damage, and I could feel whole sections of my mouth where teeth were missing or broken off.

The traditional interpretations are concern with appearance, feeling unheard, or even a need to employ caution with words. All three have some relevance, but I don't like to interpret my dreams too literally. Instead I'll just file this one away, like a piece of code I think might be useful later, but isn't important to dissect just now.

Posted by Satya at 9:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)