Grandpa's horses

Or: go into your dreams and make something from them

Logging Sleigh in the Big Pines. Jacquard weaving by Mary Burns. Used with permission of the artist.

I dreamed the other night that I walked down a lush green path beneath a stone tower house. The path ran through verdant forest to a river, and two girls chased along it, giggling, disappearing from my sight. I climbed up on a stool or ladder to fix something that was broken, like a window or a sign.

As I stood there working, a hush fell. It was the deep quiet of true magic. I heard it first: the jangle of a harness, soft in the utter silence. Then hoofbeats. I turned. Coming along the path, coming out of a black and white photo of winter and snow, trotting into the soft, lush, green, were two horses. Clydesdales, or some sort of working horses, all dressed up in their tack for a day of labor.

They were my grandpa’s horses. I recognized them in the dream, and I turned to greet them with expectation, with excitement. I drew in my breath in anticipation of what would happen next.

Then I woke up.

My grandpa had four horses: Bob and Bill, Queenie and Bird. He grew up on a farm, and I don’t know if he remembered a time when he didn’t work. He loved to read, and he would stay up late with a book some nights, then awaken before dawn to milk the cows.

He loved those horses. When he was in what palliative care refers to as active dying, he heard them coming for him. The jingle of their harnesses. His dad was driving the sleigh.

So when I dream of Grandpa’s horses, I know he’s coming to visit me. I don’t speak from some epistemological standpoint where I can prove that my grandfather is with me. I don’t think anyone has incontrovertible proof of mediumship, or the experience of being visited by those who have passed on. All I know is what is true for me.

Recently someone told me that my use of the word know bothered them. “You don’t know that your grandparents’ spirits rang that doorbell. It would be easier to accept this story if you used words like believe or feel.”

Sure. Because words like believe or feel are soft. They can be nudged aside. Sure, you BELIEVE that, but the reality is…

To use the word know is to claim an experience for myself. To underscore my conviction. To state: it doesn’t matter whether I am believed; I know what my experience is.

Now, I don’t need you to agree with me. For me, this is the crucial difference between a mystical, experiential engagement with the world and a belief in the absolute, whether that’s a fundamentalist religious belief or an atheistic one. I’m not going to run around shouting That’s the way the world is! My purpose here is to share my reflections on experiences I’ve had. Sharing my beliefs with you would be tedious, and honestly, who cares? Everyone believes a little differently, because we are all a little different. Presumably you’re reading this because you resonate with something I’m saying, even if we don’t agree on everything.

In these times of change and upheaval, what do we have but our convictions? What do you know—not through knowledge acquisition alone, but in your bones? What does your integrity tell you? How can you act, dream, create from that place?

What do you dream of? Who is coming to visit you? What stories do they tell, what way are they showing?

When I look at the future, I’m worried. So here is one thing I can do. I can create. I can share the world as I know it, yes, through my vision, my knowledge, my experience. Creativity is a political act. Go into your dreams and make something from them.