I am given the opportunity to build any model I want. Almost before I have started exploring for myself, someone suggests I build a model of a smaller structure in the courtyard of the modern building we are in. I agree and start making the model. I soon realize I need to include the courtyard, and also the taller modern building. Later, I see a model someone else made. It’s a beautiful Asian pagoda or temple built with natural materials and organic forms. I wonder why I didn’t build something like that since it’s much more interesting to me.
For me, this seems to reflect how I relate to these writings and how I express my own explorations and experiences.
In my teens and twenties, I included my wholeness and passion far more. And now, after academia and Zen and a marriage where I ended up repressing a lot of my wholeness and aliveness, I am left with the way I write here.
The night before this dream, I had a conversation with my partner about this. I write in a relatively removed and analytical way here, and that has its place. It’s valuable. And yet, it’s not really satisfying to me. I wish to include more of my wholeness and passion, similar to how I did it in my teens and twenties.
At the same time, I can’t write like Jeff Foster since it wouldn’t be authentic for me now.
The question for me is: What’s more authentic for me? If I write in a genuinely authentic way, how would it look? If I go outside of what’s familiar to me, in the direction of juiciness and authenticity, what do I find?
Why did the dream choose building a model as a theme? If it is about how I express myself here, then it is similar to a model. Many of these articles are models, in a sense. They are outlines, structures, maps.
Why jump on what someone else suggested in the dream? Because I have done that often in my life. I have often abandoned my own aliveness, passion, and guidance in the favor of what someone else suggests or wants for me. (I did that to a great extent in my previous marriage, which was a terrible experience and something I am still very much recovering from.)
Why the modern building? Perhaps because it’s logical, impersonal, and a bit cold, just like I experience my own writings. (Which don’t feel authentic for me, and yet I find myself in that pattern.)
Why the inclusion of the surroundings? Because anything can only be understood in context. We need to know the larger whole, and I often include that in these writings.
Why the Asian pagoda or temple? It’s sacred. Has deep traditions. Is connected with nature. It feels much more alive and juicy to me, and far more what I am drawn to.