Sleep Dream. I am in a village somewhere in Latvia, standing on a hillside, looking out at a winding dirt road that rises and falls over several other hills, passing below where I stand. It is a sunny summer’s day.
In the distance I see a dozen or so young people moving in single file along the road, coming in my direction. It is a group of males and females, young folk in their late teens and early twenties, robust and vigorous. The women are dressed in a version of the Abrene folk costume, the ankle-length, ivory colored skirt outlined in red, white blouses, white scarves tied turban-style on their heads. The fellows are wearing rather wildly colored jackets with large checks of white, pink and sky blue, and squat, round hats of the same color and pattern. (Such a costume has not existed in the waking world.) I think in the dream it is wonderful that the men have such wild attire, like something from the Alsunga district. A wonderful change from the drab colors of most Latvian men’s folk attire. First in line come four women, then four men, then four more women. They carry old-fashioned wooden-pronged rakes over their shoulders.
I realize that they are going to work in the fields. They are moving along quickly, in a polka step, singing. They are ready to do work, they are groundedly happy.
Then I see that there are several more similar lines of field workers also moving along the same road in the same direction, all of them singing and dancing. They move forward one line crisscrossing with another, weaving braid-like patterns. I am amazed at the fluidity and joy of these folks. “This is how dance originated!” I think to myself.
Dream Exploration. Latvia has been a phenomenally powerful, archetypal geography in my life. It was my parent’s homeland, from which they were wrenched by World War II. As permanent Exiles, Latvia became the Golden Land (that never really existed.) Particularly for Zaiga (my mother), this nostalgic Latvia became her life’s obsession. It became her cult, on the altar of which everything and everyone in America was to be sacrificed. Zaiga became her own version of Hitler and Stalin, in the name of Latvia. She never made it back to see the harsh reality of this country, so distant from what she had confabulated in her memories and longings. (Her golden dream, grounded neither in her heart, nor in external reality, became the source of tyranny, she repeating the brutalities that were perpetuated upon her by global politics.)
Latvia was a strange unreal reality that I had to contend with in my American childhood. Not allowed to fit into American reality (only Latvian spoken at home, thank you, no American friends allowed into the family circle, the family participating only in Latvian activities), I came to believe that my life’s bizarre story would make sense in Latvia. Such a disappointment for me, when I found myself in Latvia, both Soviet and independent, to realize that I do not fit in there any better than in the U.S. I am just as much an outsider there as here.
In my youth, my primary way of connecting with Latvia was through its culture, particularly its indigenous, non-Christian folk culture. The world of dainas (Latvian haikus expressing the beautiful female-centered, non-industrial world view), folk songs and folk dance was and is a truly astounding geography of heart, mind and soul. (Interestingly, it was a parallel Latvian realm to the territory of Rage, Hatred and Intolerance that was the Latvian world in my family of origin.)
So, I am in the beautiful Latvian countryside. I feel rooted. It is not significant whether or not I “truly belong.” I am simply there, in a specific moment and a specific place, simultaneously interconnected with the Universe. Then these beautiful beings appear before me, dancing and singing. They are timeless folk, archetypal. Perhaps they are the beings of Latvian mythology, Dieva dēli (sons of Dievs, the non-Christian God) and Saules meitas (Daughters of Saule, the goddess Sun).
Their movement is like the flow of Time, a river of coherent and beautiful motion. They are profoundly connected with their space and time. Work is not drudgery, but, rather a caring for the land and for the community. Work is beautiful, even if hard, a source of meaning and joy. Work is song and dance.
As with the Latvian divinities, these folks in my dream are tremendously vital, embodied, connected to the Earth. They are not delicate beings, neither flighty nor brittle. These beings eat, drink, sweat, shit, piss, fuck, sing and dance. Their power and beauty lies in their corporality, their joyously being part of all the cycles of Earth.
This dream shows me that the gold in my problematic Latvian life is that I was allowed to step into the world of Dainas, a Way and a View of how to be on this planet that is robust, vital and meaning filled. Indeed, it is a dreamful way of being. It is mine to do and be.