Dreamways

For those of us who still harboring doubts as to the value and need for sleep dreams, reporter Robert Moss informs us: "Current research indicates that dreaming has a real, practical function but also that it can spark our imaginations in unexpected ways. Best of all, one doesn’t have to be especially 'adept‘ at dreaming: The power of dreams is accessible to everyone.“ ("Waking Up to Our Dreams“, Parade Magazine, 29 Oct 07) Sleep dreams are not only physiologically necessary, but they also are a source of creativity that is accessible to all of us.  read more »

EMPIRE OF DREAMS

On the first page of my dreambook
It’s always evening
In an occupied country.
Hour before the curfew.
A small provincial city.
The houses all dark.
The storefronts gutted.

I am on a street corner
Where I shouldn’t be.
Alone and coatless
I have gone out to look
For a black dog who answers to my whistle.
I have a kind of Halloween mask
Which I am afraid to put on.

- Charles Simic

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‘The Song of Deborah and Barak’ from the Old Testament is re-told by Mark Twain in his 1869 best-selling book, The Innocents Abroad, a travelogue Twain penned describing his journey to Europe and The Holy Land with a group of religiously minded American tourists as part of the first-ever luxury cruise. “Somewhere in this part of the country – I do not know exactly where – Israel fought another bloody battle a hundred hears later. Deborah, the prophetess, told Barak to take ten thousand men and sally forth against another king Jabin who had been doing something.  read more »