Dream Yourself Into Being

“I wonder how we can put wings on our bicycles?” the Wright brothers asked themselves as they lay in bed at night. “The Wright brothers had dreams of flying. And they finally did it,” replied Ray Bradbury to a journalist’s question in a recently-reprinted interview in the Albuquerque Alibi, a tribute to Bradbury who died June 5^th at the age of 91. The question he answered was “In a world based on facts, what is it that fiction does for human beings? What purpose does it serve to read things that aren’t real?” Bradbury answered, “It makes us dream and it makes us accomplish. Einstein had to dream first, didn’t he, before he wrote his theorem? Darwin the same way. You’ve got to read myths – and you have to dream yourself into being.”

Hummingbirds reminded me this week of dreaming myself into being. Summer is monsoon season in New Mexico. Afternoon thunderstorms sweep through the Rio Grande Valley with booming cannon thunder, incandescent shards of lightning and pelting rain soaking the garden. Weather announces season here. Hummingbirds migrate in May and October (spring and fall) bookending summer. To the Pueblo Indians, the hummingbird’s rainbow coloring associated it with ritual practices and ceremonies to bring the rain, writes Ted Andrews in Animal Speak, his book on animal symbolism.

Hummingbirds let us know when to put the feeders out and when to put them away. I have two. One jumbo, red, six-flowered feeder is in the front garden where I can watch it from my bed. A few days ago, a hummingbird flew right up to my bedroom window, hovered there and stared me in the eye. “What was that about?!” I asked myself. They did that to a friend of mine in San Clemente, flitting back and forth in front of her kitchen window, but only when the feeder was empty. Mine was full. A little later, while I was sitting in my meditation chair, a hummingbird hovered at my living room window, peering in at me. Of course I had to consult Ted Andrews’ Animal Speak again to see what they were communicating symbolically. Hummingbirds represent tireless joy and the nectar of life. Their name comes from the vibration of their wings, a humming that “creates an internal massage restoring health and balance.” What a perfect description of my post-surgery preoccupation. The hummingbird not only reminds us to restore health and balance, but also “to find joy in what we do and sing it out.”

Andrews also points out “the hummingbird has the ability to move its wings in a figure-eight pattern – a symbol for infinity and links to past and future and the laws of cause and effect.” During my morning walk today along the ditch bank adjacent to the Rio Grande Nature Center, two hummingbirds linked past and future, showing me how I have dreamed myself into being during the last nine months. Seven months (seven is the number of completion) before my hip surgery when I was making major medical decisions, I made an appointment with a very gifted Holographic Repatterning (HR) practitioner and dear friend. HR is just what it sounds like. By applying kinesiology (muscle testing) to your body’s energy field, the HR practitioner identifies dissonant, or blocked, energy that lacks coherence, revealing problems, issues, misalignment with the truth. A variety of modalities (light, color, frequency, movement, jin shin points…) is used to remove blockages and realign, or repattern, the energy so it is coherent. Homework can include using an affirmative statement in alignment with the new energy pattern. One affirmative statement I created during my HR session was “I walk along the Rio Grande in perfect health at one with everything.” It’s now been nine months since the HR appointment (the period of time from conception to birth). Today was the first time I walked along the main acequia (irrigation ditch) by the Rio Grande without limping, without pain, with a new hip, in perfect health.

I have other dreams waiting to be born – including a book-writing dream. Not to worry, Ted Andrews says. Well, not quite in those words. What he says is the hummingbird is a “wonder of migration.” I migrated from California to New Mexico a year ago this week. The hummingbird can journey 2500 miles or more from Alaska to Central America. Andrews says, “Scientists are still unsure how it is able to store up enough energy to accomplish such a journey. But it does, and because of it the hummingbird is a symbol for accomplishing that which seems impossible. It reminds us that if we truly enjoy what we are doing, we become light as a feather, and life is rich with nectar.” The rich nectar of my hummingbird experiences feeds me with the courage to endure by reminding me I have already successfully dreamed myself into being and can continue to do so now and in the future. As in one, so in all, since everything is connected. Thank you, Ray Bradbury, for your gifts of wonderful writing and for reminding us we need to continue dreaming ourselves into being.