Breath On The Roots: Nurture the Deep Structure of Your Dream
All around us, the Earth does grow: living, breathing, animate. The Wind is speaking all day; the waves have their moods and irrefutable arguments. All day, we converse with alive-ness. All night, we talk with the Moon about rebirth, as we sleep and she cycles through visibility and disappearance. Even the distant Sun, a burning truth diminishing and hiding, bursting forth, heating up, drawing back, getting older. Clouds tell tales all day to the Eagles, who listen with their eyes.
We feel the closeness of swift death around those windowsill seedlings should they go dry for even a day and yet we marvel at the strength of early Spring flowers, which are always the most delicate. Freshly planted gardens grow naturally with just a steady presence from us. Less and less do they need us as they mature; more and more do they reciprocate our early attentions.
Spring calls for surrender to what’s beyond our control as much as it asks us to plan well. We eagerly await the first, fresh buds on the neighborwood’s oldest trees, too, often taking for granted the wisdom of their decades-long, perennial effort.
All around us, we know the Earth to be alive. But rarely do we think of our own dreams and visions as living, breathing beings. Rarely do we perceive our creative ideas as having their own lives, histories, DNA, intuition and root systems.
We know that for a young wildflower to bloom, it’s got to adapt constantly in its root-structures, latching onto a bit of wet soil here, loosening the grip there as the wind and sun, rain and soil command. And yet, how often do we stick a new idea into the ground of our life and then forget what’s happening beneath the surface, wondering why things are struggling to truly grow? Or we tinker too much with a wise, young dream, fussing until we’ve snapped a branch or saturated roots that long to stretch, not drown.
How often are we doubtful, by way of either neglect or hovering, that our dreams do, in fact, have an intelligence all their own? Do we have the dream… or does it have us?
Am I the one with the ideas, pushing them into this page like seeds in soil? Or are my dreams and ideas ancient seed-wanderers and I, the perfect soil?
There’s a tension in ownership when it comes to our dreams. Over-own them, and you imprison them, root-bound them. They don’t have the space they need to grow wildly in their own way— a way far be it from us to fully know. Under-own them, and poof— they’re someone else’s. Or they drown in underground possibilities but never see the light of day. Sometimes, a dream will simply go dormant for the sake of self-preservation, surfacing in some distant epoch when our Souls are finally ready.
Either way, we must always dance with this tension — neither over-owning and thus colonizing our visions, nor under-owning and thus risking their very lives.
But worst of all is to merely entertain a heart-felt dream, erroneously believing the myth that what we long for is a silly day-dream, a fantasy, an unrealistic idea— something that can stand to be left in the ground another year or decade. And when strange dreams and nightmares come, we’re inclined to write those off, too, as “just dreams”—not living, breathing clarion calls conjured in stunningly personalized service to our deepest longings in life.
Say to me: “It’s just a bad dream. Dreams aren't real.” And watch how my eyes light up with fire that burns your self-underestimation to ash, then helps you rise a phoenix of truth out of your dark images.
Say to me: “It’s just a daydream, but let’s be realistic,” and hold on tight as I grab your hand and take you into the valley of your vision, to a wildflower field where all you can smell is the sweet heartbreak of just how much your fantasy will mean to you on your deathbed, if even partially realized.
Say to me: “This dream won’t quit, and I’m listening,” and we’ll sit together by this tree that is your dream, sipping a strong drink, looking for secret passageways down into its root systems to learn everything we can about how it’s made, what it needs.
Day-dreams and nightmares, synchronicities and symbols by any other name are visions: highly imaginative landscapes of knowing, sent by Soul.
The presence of your imagination is a threat to the deep structure of modern, industrial-capitalist culture. Such cultures must take pains to control or wholly disregard the soul calling of its individual members, because such journeys upset the slick machinations of mass production and consumption. And so, embedded in the deepest structure of our culture is a vehement disqualifying of the Soul’s most direct and universal language for communicating with us.
Just as we don’t often contemplate the underground activity of trees, hard also is it to fully notice the deep structure of the culture. There’s a decaying but still ubiquitous root system affecting all which happens visibly, choreographing our ways of being in the world largely without our awareness, though we are collectively awakening and questioning our conditioning.
Deep structure— what we can’t see— affects how we approach creative endeavors. A dream career, a life change, an art piece, a moment of vulnerability, the making of a home or a baby or a community initiative… the simple but dedicated planting of a neglected flower box… All of these, grand visions and small, stem from longings that come up through us, hitch themselves to a very personal desire and grow into interconnected meaning for the whole. Cultivating healthy deep structure in our lives calls for flexibility, deep listening, courage to break the status quo, and a willingness to tend the less glamorous, unseen roots of every project, every idea.
In talking with hundreds of people about their dreams, what I’ve found is that most of our best ideas, our most creative yearnings, are not, in fact, spring chickens. They’re old growth. They’re virgin forests in us. They’re already rooted, though the root structure may be in dire need of attention.
We often berate ourselves for not acting on a certain dream, but the truth is, the best kind of dream is one that’s been incubating, growing roots— with only a modest above-ground visibility— for a long time. Take heart, and love the old trees of desire represented by your longest or most dearly-held longings.
Spring seasons (both literal and metaphorical) do always call for some level of soil turning, plan-making, hardening off and planting anew. But I’m willing to bet that just as many Springs are all about being with what is already growing, and trusting how it wishes to grow next. Spring is about the expansion and emergence of what already is. We do this through taking ample time for deep structure: the who, what, why, when and how of that one dream or goal or change that just won’t quit. You know which one I’m talking about.
The roots of your dream moves outward always, looking for beneficial elements and companions — Emotional waters to soften and clarify. Wise soil and firm rock to keep us tethered and confident when the winds howl above us. Mycorrhizol friends who can help nourish us, and are likewise energized by our growth.
There’s an innocent wisdom already encoded into our most beloved, living, breathing ideas… an innocence which knows what to do, which is wired for success and which needs only for us to be present to its constantly shape-shifting root structure.
All I can think when I see the Daffodils lately is: Thank the gods you didn’t turn away from your small, bright longing to exist in the world. And old Grandmother Oak, whose been here, done that every Spring for decades, nevertheless pushes out un-guaranteed and ever-miraculous buds as we speak, leaving me to wonder: What has she been up to and what is she doing this very moment beneath my feet, where all the unseen magic churns away to the tempo of this particular year's improv melody.
Join us at the Threshold Sanctuary where we explore this theme in-depth...
Breath on the roots topics INCLUDE:
Tracing the roots of dearly held dreams in order to strengthen resolve and clarity.
Ways to work smarter not harder when planning and taking action on soulful projects.
Flexibility While Taking Up Space.
Partnering with Nature to get to know the deep structure (the hidden or under-appreciated wisdom, values and magic) of your goals/projects.