I had a dream and you were in it / is all you had to say. – Father John Misty
I was speaking with an adult student this past week after an evening class at LexCE. Referring to the United States she said, “I wish that I had attended high school here.” As we walked down the stairwell she stopped to look at the mural of author faces painted on the wall. She asked me about the picture of Arthur Miller and what I knew of him. Out of all of the authors she seemed particularly intrigued by his image. I mentioned the plays that I could recall….”Death of a Salesman” and “The Crucible,” but they didn’t register in her memory. As we walked out of Lexington High School and to the parking lot I thought more about her wish to attend high school here. In a way her wish had come true – albeit decades later, for different purposes, and on a different and unique timeline. Sometimes our best dreams circle back and appear in waking life. At other times waking life informs us of a long forgotten dream. In the realm of the psyche, the reverse engineering of life/meaning is often a possibility. Regret might mostly be a persistent invitation to integrate something that is still present, viable, and pliable in some way. This process could happen in a LexCE class. It could happen in a dream. If we are both fortunate and intentional, life can be what we make it and dreams can also be that way. Arthur Miller wrote, “Everything we are is at every moment alive in us.” He also wrote, “A child’s spirit is like a child, you can never catch it by running after it; you must stand still, and, for love, it will soon itself come back.” As Miller and Father John Misty point toward, and as all ancient wisdom traditions proclaim, a child-like spirit of awe and wonder is a true source key to happiness. Seasons change and sometimes, over time, reasons and realizations do too.The rounding renewal ritual of our world now turns longer toward the sun.
Spring is here again!
Craig Hall, Director
Lexington Community Education 🐝
In the name of the Bee –
And of the Butterfly –
And of the Breeze – Amen!
– Emily Dickinson
