Night’s Dream— At Principle Gallery
“As I thought of these things, I drew aside the curtains and looked out into the darkness, and it seemed to my troubled fancy that all those little points of light filling the sky were the furnaces of innumerable divine alchemists, who labour continually, turning lead into gold, weariness into ecstasy, bodies into souls, the darkness into God; and at their perfect labour my mortality grew heavy, and I cried out, as so many dreamers and men of letters in our age have cried, for the birth of that elaborate spiritual beauty which could alone uplift souls weighted with so many dreams.”
—W.B. Yeats, Rosa Alchemica (1896)
It seems like each new day sees us bearing witness to yet another outrage, often greater than that of the day before which was greater than the day before it. This downward and backward spiral goes on and on to a point not so long ago when those with darkest and most amoral souls were vilified and ostracized, not idolized and elevated before the public in the way we are currently experiencing.
Those days, though not so long ago, seem like ancient history now as the behavior of the worst of us grows at an alarming geometric pace. To those of us who wish to lead a simple, quiet, and peaceful life that sees us doing no harm to others and others doing no harm to us, these days feel like we are being beaten down with a bag of oranges, each blow hurting a bit more until we are in a state of numb submission.
The dreams and aspirations of so many that once seemed to be within reach now feel even further removed, distant like the stars in the sky. It is a time when dreams fall by the wayside. It begs the question that the poet Langston Hughes asked in his poem Harlem:
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.Or does it explode?
What will happen with the dreams of so many being not only deferred, but destroyed?
I don’t know. It certainly feels that is must be sagging like heavy load for many folks at this point. Or like they are furiously treading water just trying to stay afloat.
The question remains: How does one keep their dreams alive in times such as these?
Maybe that is one purpose of the spiritual element of art in all its many forms–to lift our vision and our spirit, to inspire creative thought and action that will transcend the horror that stalks the present moment. To stave off the drying up, the festering, the stinking rot, and crusting over so that dreams may be kept alive.
Maybe.
And if it explodes? Maybe art then provides guidance and unity through the explosion as well as a reminder of who we are and the values we hold dear. And in the aftermath of the explosion it may serve as a template to follow in our rebuilding so that the errors that brought us to this point are not repeated.
Well, until time and a new darkness clouds our memories once more and we begin a similar downward spiral.
My dream is that we don’t forget, that we are lifted up and dreams continue to be both dreamed and realized by many folks, not just those privileged few who dream of hoarding everything for themselves.
Here’s a little-known song from Bruce Springsteen that I am pretty sure has not been shared here before. It’s called Dream Baby Dream. I saw him perform this once during a solo show in 2005 that featured only him and his guitar, his piano, and for this song, a pump organ. It is a spare, simple song and its sound mounted throughout so that it became almost mantra.
Very powerful. A mantra for our times, perhaps.
Redtree Times 