Dawn’s Return— Now at West End Gallery
A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
–Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist (1891)
Sitting here in the studio at 5:15 AM waiting for the sun to come up. Still a ways to go before it cracks the horizon this morning. Nestled in the woods as I am, I don’t get to see many spectacular sunrises. Just the light filtering through the trees.
But it’s enough just to see the darkness recede.
Is it punishment though, as Wilde’s character, Gilbert, states in The Critic as Artist?
I guess it could be viewed that way. The dreamer tends to sense and see things before others. They can often spot patterns and trends that portend future events. Unfortunately, that isn’t limited to only good or inconsequential things.
Sometimes the dawn ‘s light reveals troubling news to the dreamer long before others even notice that it is on the way. They have to live with it and try to alert the others, many who refuse to believe such things.
I suppose it is a punishment in that way– to see indications of danger and travails ahead but having your warnings ignored or minimized.
Hmm. Something to think about this morning, once dawn breaks.
Here’s an old song written in the years immediately after World War I, at a time when the world was just emerging from the dark. It is The World is Waiting For the Sunrise. It was originally a hit for bandleader Isham Jones in 1922 and became a big hit for Les Paul and Mary Ford in the early 1950’s and it has been recorded by all sorts of artists over the years, including the Beatles. I really like this version from Willie Nelson along with a group of old time Texas musicians such as Paul Buskirk on the mandolin.
Give a listen, if you feel like it. I’m going to listen to it again as I sit here still waiting in the dark for the dawn to break.
Redtree Times 