painting by Claudia Chapline

In a dream, I’m standing on a ladder painting a large (American) flag. When I awoke the next day, I sketched the flag in my journal and then I made a small painting from the drawing/dream. The stars resemble exploding bombs, the stripes, missiles. A skeleton’s head emerges from the war machinery.

For me, the flag painting symbolizes the discrepancy between American ideals and manifest American policy.

March 11, 2006
Claudia Chapline
Artist, activist, Gallery owner
Stinson Beach, California
www.cchapline.com

(Editor’s Note: Around the time of the dream, beginning the third year of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis had died.)

~~~~~~~~~

THE PEACE POETRY OF CLAUDIA CHAPLINE

March Wind in February

Roaring dark branches crash against the house
weather strips whistle wind songs sunbrellas
flap white caps yellow chairs in the lagoon
pine trees wave hello crane pulleys sway overhead

aluminum thoughts plastic words fly in and out
say goodbye dreams fragment gates open
between sleep and waking I wheel out and in
outside a feral cat cries

elsewhere a flag shreds the far groaning
screams in a wind of fire I see it a flag of
death red stripes of blood dripping on the
white ribs of civilizations the stars fiery
sparks from bombs bursting in the blue black
night of lands destroyed in this wind of war

but here now in Eastcoot Creek wild salmon
still spawn between the willows
here the camp the captain time being what
not forever spilling seeds of life in silver mist.

October 10, 2001

On the anniversary of my mother¹s death
the United States is bombing Afghanistan
they are bombing Afghanistan
to rid the world of evil

To rid the world of evil
the U.S. military
is killing Afghan civilians.
food drops onto landmines.

my tears are falling
on the anniversary of
my mother¹s death.
it is Arts Day in California.

How They Strut

High mucky mucks decorate each other
with ribboned medals of valor for service
in the war of their making

women of the world
raise your voices against their wars

I see the goddess Kali dancing with them her
dance of death she wears a necklace of skulls
she holds a bloody head in her left hand a
burnt child in the other

women of the world remove your rings
that sparkle with African tears

how they strut those high mucky mucks
preserving freedom to kill for oil

women of the world join hands
in a circle of love

how they strut smiling those
greedy killers patting each other¹s backs

walk together toward a necklace of peace
women of the world

how they strut those old men with pendulous bellies
while their young civil servants sons of other fathers
fall and die in their War on Iraq

how they strut while the world cries
for the voices of women
the voices of love.

If

For Kay Ryan, U.S.A. Poet Laureate

If I were Poet Laureate of the USA
I would send a Poetry Plane to Afghanistan
dropping food and poetry on hungry citizens
apples of love and also oranges falling
into mothers¹ baskets sonnets and villanelles
flying books by Dickinson and Frost as
well as primers for the little ones

If I were Poet Laureate of the USA
I would encourage the Secretary of Defense
to drop books instead of bombs
Operation Book Drop would make friends
and cut costs

If I were Poet Laureate of the USA
I would ask Homeland Security to send
Armies of Teachers and Builders of Schools
so all children everywhere could learn
to read and write
since war doesn¹t work
shouldn¹t we try education?

Claudia Chapline
www.cchapline.com

Claudia Chapline © 2009

“I was back in the cabinet room of the (Johnson) White House sitting behind the president, who was talking to his military advisors, and they were spread out around the table. And, this was in the dream, seriously. He asked the military advisors and his national security advisors how many troops should I send: 40,000? And, a voice in the back of the room said, ‘Not enough.’ 80,000? A voice from over there said, ‘Not enough.’ 120,000? A voice from over there said, ‘Not enough.’

“The military and the hawks in the administration will always say ‘not enough,’” explained Moyers, who served in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, including two years as Johnson’s press secretary.

Analysts, generals, and pundits have likened the now eight year U.S. conflagration in Afghanistan to the decade plus U.S. involvement in  Vietnam. Ostensibly to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia, President Dwight Eisenhower sent “advisors” into Vietnam in the late 1950’s. President John F. Kennedy twice tripled their numbers in the early 1960’s.  Lyndon Johnson, drawing from a huge pool of young American draftees, turned the advisors into combat troops. U.S. troop strength was a half million at its peak in 1968.  After more than a dozen years, billions of dollars, and the death of more than five million Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians and 60,000 Americans, the U.S. pulled out of the quagmire of its own making in Southeast Asia in 1975.

As a candidate for president, Barack Obama pledged to make Afghanistan, which G.W. Bush attacked in October, 2001 in the aftermath of 9/11, the home front of the so-called war on terrorism. As president, Obama in March approved a 34,000 troop increase, bringing the U.S. troop levels to 68,000 with as many or more contractors and mercenary forces. That troop level is twice the number as when Bush left office.

At West Point December 1, President Obama announced an escalation of combat in the region, nearly doubling the troop (and contractor) levels in Afghanistan and extending the attacks by the CIA, private contractors, and drones in Pakistan. All this to prevent 100 al Qaeda in Afghanistan and 200 in Pakistan from plotting and training for another attack against the U.S. However, eight years later, the U.S. government has yet to provide evidence al Qaeda was responsible for September 11.

Apparently, the Johnson White House was a hotbed of night time dreamers. On March 31, 1968, two months after North Vietnam launched the massive Tet Offensive and faced with a divisive battle for the Democratic nomination, Johnson announced in a televised address to the nation he would not seek reelection.

Johnson’s decision came after a dream, according to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. In her biography, Lyndon Johnson and The American Dream (Harper and Row, 1976), she described the dream:

“He saw himself swimming in a river. He was swimming from the center toward one shore. He swam and swam, but he never seemed to get any closer. He turned around to swim to the other shore, but again he got nowhere. He was simply going round and round in circles.”

He realized “the impossibility of his situation.”

Goodwin posits this dream, similar to dreams Johnson remembered from his childhood, reflected divergent parental expectations and Johnson’s persistent fear he would become physically paralyzed before the end of his next term, like his grandmother when he was a boy.

Calling her analysis “admittedly psychoanalytic,” Goodwin suggested the river was the Pedernales, near Johnson’s childhood home in Texas.  The river could also be the Mekong, which Pete Seeger immortalized in his song “Waist Deep in The Deep Muddy, inspired by pictures of U.S. troops wading across Vietnam’s major river. The Mekong Delta was the site of deadly battles between the Viet Cong and U.S. troops.

After a months’ long censorship struggle, Seeger performed the song on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on CBS to more than 7 million viewers.  His appearance was in January 1968, around the time of the January 31 Tet Offensive and shortly before Johnson’s dream.

Perhaps Johnson’s withdrawal from politics could have precipitated an end to the war if he had shared his dream at the time, but Richard Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey, Johnson’s vice president.  Nixon said he had a secret plan to end the war; instead, Nixon escalated the Vietnam conflagration and expanded the war into Laos and Cambodia.

As these “war” stories show, dreams can help us see clearly,  revealing what is hidden. More than psychological percepts or random firings of the brain, dreams offer messages of guidance, insight, prophecy. A snapshot of a moment, a picture of the big story, a potential prophecy of events to come.

For centuries, dreams have guided nations toward (or away from) their destinies. In the Old Testament, God spoke through dreams with both plain words and symbols.

A famous political prophecy is the dream of the Egyptian Pharaoh (Genesis: 30-46) : ÒIn my dream, I stood upon the banks of a river. There stood seven fat cows. As I looked, lo!, there came from out of the river, seven lean cows, and before my very eyes, they swallowed the seven fat cows, but remained as lean as before. And, then I saw seven empty ears of corn swallow seven full ears of corn, but remain just as thin as ever.”

Joseph, who became Pharaoh’s chief governor, interpreted the dream as seven years of plenty and seven of famine; he proscribed a public policy of storing food during the seven abundant years to prevent starvation during the next seven years of lack. His assessment saved the nation.

In the Bible’s Book of Daniel, a dream in the second year of his reign troubled Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon famous for the magnificent gardens hanging outside his palace. He saw a gigantic statue  “with the head of gold, breast and arms of silver; thighs and belly of brass, and legs of iron. The feet and toes were a mixture of iron and clay. ”

Filled with hubris, Nebuchadnezzar commanded the people to worship a golden idol he commissioned. In a lesson for leaders with designs of empire,  Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom crumbled and the king descended into madness.

Eventually, the King listened to the wisdom of Daniel, his court advisor, and changed his ways.  After seven years, Nebuchadnezzar’s sanity returned and “the honor and glory he once possessed were restored to him.”

Around the age of 40, Muhammad, who would become a prophet and the founder of the Islam religion, was meditating in a cave near Mecca. The angel Gabriel appeared in a dream and said, “O Muhammad, you are the messenger of Allah.” Over three years, in dreams and visions, Gabriel revealed the Qu’ran, the book of divine guidance for Muslims, to Muhammad.

Ancient Greek philosopher Plato and Roman philosopher Cicero explored the ideal commonwealth in their writings.  Their treatises sought to instill a desire to lead an upright, law abiding life. Plato’s Myth of Er in his Republic and Cicero’s Dream of Scipio from De re publica are vaunted vehicles.  Departed souls, sometimes in dreams, revealed the essence of statesmen-like virtues.

Dreams have also guided generals and commanders in battle.
In 49 B.C., the night before Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River to lead his troops into Rome, he dreamt of sleeping with his mother. Caesar conquered Rome, the mother city. Before his defeat at the battle of Waterloo in June 1815, military and political leader Napoleon Bonaparte dreamt of a black cat. The battle ended Napoleon’s rule as the French emperor and Waterloo became synonymous with career-ending defeat.  Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian statesman and first chancellor of the German empire (1871-1890) was so proud a dream guided him to victory over Austria he described the premonition in detail his book Thoughts and Memories.

Dream allusions are unusual in biographies of powerful contemporary political figures.  It is noteworthy, therefore, that an index entry in Goodwin’s biography of Johnson reads  “dreams and nightmares — during illness, as President, as Vice President, see also analytic insights” and more than a dozen pages explore his dreams.

Daniel explained the power of dreams to King Nebuchadnezzar like this: “Your majesty, … there is a God in heaven who is able to reveal all hidden things, and He has done this for you so that you may know what future events are going to take place during your lifetime and beyond.”

He added: “God has made these events known to you so that you may know in advance His plan that will surely come to pass.”

Whether dreams are heaven sent or a message from self to Self, they give a snapshot of the reality of a situation. Unfortunately, as President Obama considered the mission, strategy and tactics, and troop levels in Afghanistan and Pakistan, he would have done well to consult not only the advisors around the table in his cabinet room, but also historical dreamers, and, most of all, his own inner dream advisor. Let’s hope nightmares wake him up to his and our humanity — soon.

c Joyce Lynn 2009

“You have an abnormal Pap test — Class 3 — pre-cancerous,” the internist stated flatly. “It’s probably related to your IUD. Make an appointment to have the IUD removed.”

Abnormal. Pre-cancerous. I hang up the telephone in my office and steady myself against the desk. “Why me? Why now?” I ask myself. “I need to redo my will. Why do anything else?” Feeling terrified, I begin to think about immediacy and squeezing as much as I can into my remaining time.

In a quiet corner, I peer out the window in astonishment at the news. It is 1984. Ironically, I had recently turned 40 and wanted to be sure I was in tiptop shape. Then, from somewhere, I recall what I dreamed the night before the routine physical.

I scrawl what I remember from my dreams on the backs of pink telephone message slips:

I am riding on a bus up California Street in San Francisco . . I am sitting in the elderly/handicapped section. The bus driver says to me, “Ugh you’ re disgusting. Around your mouth is dirty and you have stuff - lesions - on your skin.”

As a woman, did I somehow consider myself to be handicapped? Did society consider a woman who spoke out about her views unclean? These thoughts race through my mind all the way home from work until I am finally in the warm embrace of my apartment. Pacing between my couches, I resolve that I will not let the diagnosis get to me.

Four days later, I begin to wonder whether psychological wounds could be the culprit causing cell disturbances in my body. The idea seems to go around and around in my mind, triggered by a book an acquaintance suggested I buy. The small, orange book, entitled The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity, prompts me to consider the connection between our thoughts and physical conditions. According to this non-denominational, metaphysical approach to the Bible what we radiate we attract. Changing our thoughts can change our lives.

One night before my gynecological appointment (nearly a week after my visit to the internist), I have a dream in which the symbolism is delicately clear:

The people at work are here. Definitely my co-worker Freda is here. On her desk is an amaryllis plant. I wish I could afford flowers. At least I can enjoy hers. They are so pink, vibrantly pink.

I try to feign a normal day-to-day routine. I continue to talk with my actor friend about the screenplay we are writing together. It’s called Real Dreams, and we hope to produce it at some point.

That night, I dream again:

I wake up in an operating room. No, it’s a kitchen. I put a big wire whisk in the center of a silver flower. No, it’s a cookie cutter — a metal container.

Only recently does that dream make sense to me. I think I was operating on my consciousness. In effect, I was trying to cut out images from my memory.

Finally, I have my visit with the gynecologist, who explains the Pap test results to me. A reading of Class 1 or 2 could be IUD related; Class 3 is suspicious and, with a clump of abnormal cells unlikely to be IUD-related; Class 4 is dangerous; and Class 5 is cancerous. The doctor decides to do another Pap test.

For the two weeks until the results come back, fear continually fills my mind. Finally, there is a message for me. The doctor wants me to call him the next morning.

“It’s still a Class 3,” he tells me.

Still? I want to scream into the phone. He wants to see me the next day to take some scrapings from my cervix and determine the seriousness of the findings.

While I’m riding the bus that day, I pull the prosperity book from my purse. It advocates offering a prayer of thanksgiving that one is healed of the affliction and asking God to send help in the appropriate way.

I do this even though this God language is foreign to me. “God” was a word in the prayer book we used in Sunday school while I was growing up in central Ohio.

That night, I dream:

I am somewhere and a miracle worker type, like a preacher, performs a miracle on a blindman. I am really impressed and wish that for myself I literally hold him down and I persevere until be performs a miracle on me . . .

The next morning I awake feeling calm and dear. For the first time in weeks, the tiredness disappears and I have energy.

I arrive at the doctor’s office, and he does the scraping and does yet another Pap test. He explains the medical options available to me if the next test proves to be higher than a Class 3. The options include conization –cutting a triangular area from my reproductive organs–or possibly a hysterectomy.

Five days later, I walk in from my morning hike as the phone rings. “How are you?” the doctor asks.

“You tell me,” I say, holding my breath.

“The tests show you are fine. Some cells were growing faster than they should. That accounts for the Class 3. Come back in three months and we’ll see what, if anything, we need to do,” he says.

I feel joyous, elated. Around and around in my brain were the words, “Thank you, God.” Now I could look ahead and plan. All systems were go with my camping trip to Yosemite.

Three months later, the Pap test registered Class 2; six months after that, a Class 1. And every Pap test in the six years since then has been Class 1: Normal.

I believe that dreams guided my recovery to physical health and became the place where transformation happened. My key dreams retold here provided what I consider to be the diagnosis (bus dream), the choice to be well (amaryllis dream), the surgery (cookie cutter dream), and the cure (the preacher dream).

This experience has unquestionably changed my life. It began a process of resolving my long-time fear that, as a woman, I was handicapped-as a woman I could not have a successful career and a happy family life. The seeds of this belief were planted in the house in which I grew up, and I believe society reinforced this attitude. This healing process continues today.

I call upon the guiding and healing powers of dreams in every aspect of my life. I record my dreams in a journal, sometimes first talking groggily into a tape recorder. I try to discern the multi-level meanings and apply their messages in my waking life.

Dreams empower me to look within myself rather than to outside “authorities” for the answers. This crisis gave me my first experience of God and led me back to my religious heritage. As a result of this healing experience and my subsequent use of dreams, I have come to believe the Divine communicates through dreams.

Since the era of ancient Greeks, humankind has called upon the healing powers of dreams. The technological age buried this connection but a renaissance again explores the potentiality of the mind — the dimension where dreams reside. Respected physicians are unveiling this innate source, which communicates in symbolism and imagery.

Dr. Gerald Epstein, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City and author of Healing Visualizations: Creating HealthThrough Imagery (Bantam Books, 1989), postulates that imagery-a mental process-produces physiological changes that are non-linear and holographic. A change in the image moves a person toward wholeness, the mental counterpart of what happens in physical healing. “The mind gives instructions to the body as to how to respond,” says Epstein, who also continues a private practice.

This was the first time I had used dreams for healing. Dreams appealed to me because they reminded me of short stories I liked to analyze in high school. I used a book on dream theories with a spiritually oriented dictionary (Do you Dream? by Tony Crisp) that I found in a bookstore to acquaint me with dreams.

This experience marked my discovery of and entree into using my inner source of well-being. I believe that everyone can use this powerful tool.

With their symbols and images, dreams offer a fascinating connection between mind and body and a natural health treatment we can call upon every night.

Joyce Lynn, who grew up in Columbus, is a journalist living in Mill Valley, California. She has contributed articles to numerous regional and national publications. She is producing a drama­ documentary about her health experience and how thoughts affect health.

first published, AirFare/December 1991
© Joyce Lynn 1991-2009

With dreams, we can break free of the chains of creative confinement and bring interior conversations to light. PLUM DREAMS WRITING SALON (online, on site) can infuse your book club, writing group, spiritual gathering, or visionary society with a wellspring of creativity and wisdom.

WHAT OTHERS SAY:

“Thank you all for helping me become more secure in my expression of my innermost self. I have gone from FEAR to looking forward to each assignment.” –RP, California

“This process has changed my life. . . . Connecting writing and my dream work with the voices and messages in my dreams is very powerful. . . I’ve been wandering around humming the past few days. My husband and daughter have noticed something is different.” –CK, Missouri

“I wanted to thank you for your input. I have really looked hard at my house dreams and driving dreams. Thank you for your great questions. They have helped me look more closely at these symbols.” –HP, California

Inquire here

]]> http://plumdreams.com/2009/10/03/plum-dreams-writing-salon/feed/ http://plumdreams.com/2009/10/02/from-joyce-a-public-health-option/ http://plumdreams.com/2009/10/02/from-joyce-a-public-health-option/#comments Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:52:59 +0000 joyce http://plumdreams.com/?p=249

Watching a recent Sunday talk show on health reform legislation, I had a sickening feeling (and intuitive pain in my neck) that once again the people will lose to the corporations. Already reaping financial bonanza, even from Medicare, the health insurance companies, exempt from anti-trust laws, and big Pharma will cement their power, making legislative reform and Medicare/health care for all an even more distant reality. The tide of corporate power rises.

Meaningful health insurance and health care reform slip away as deaths from undiagnosed and untreated illnesses increase and bankruptcies from exorbitant medical bills rise. With more bluster and bravado than belief, I e-mailed a friend, a long-time health care activist, “Distressed, but not discouraged.” As I hit “send, ” what we the people can do to crawl out from our victimized state crystallized.

We can call upon our dreams, our Inner Healer. As PDJ readers know, I’ve experienced this paradigm first-hand.

A drawing of wheat blowing in the wind (Field of Grains) in a dream led to a vegetarian cooking class. That was 20-plus years ago. I still binge on M & M’s on occasion and insist friends lock up their chocolates, but the blue print for healthy eating is firmly in place.

Dreams and Good Health, my story of calling upon the guiding and transformational power of dreams in the face of a potential health crisis, first appeared in print in 1991. Reproduced here in Featured Dream, it chronicles self-care and the companion spiritual journey rooted in the laws of metaphysical science.

While in warrior pose during a recent yoga class (honestly), I recalled a dream leading me to care with a world class herbalist and acupuncturist. Two years ago, exhausted from bearing witness to illness in my family and sickened from sloshing around in the political sludge of the 9/11 Commission, I was grateful for the guidance.

What would jump start burned out adrenals and fix fuzzy sluggish energy, I asked my dreams one night. A beautiful Chinese silk cord, knotted like an elegant kimono clasp, appeared at my neck. The throat chakra perhaps? I scanned the listings in the telephone book for Chinese medicine. Several calls led to a clinic/school of acupuncture, where apex-quality care at community rates is dispensed.

With renewed energy, I amped up my (writing) voice, weakened by diffuse projects and responsibilities. I’ve focused with Zen-like concentration on the book I’ve been drafting in the wake of 9/11 and told friends sloppy communication is unacceptable. A stop sign signaled when the time was right to complete the Yin/energy treatment. Once again, dreams guided me to ameliorate the symptoms and correct the underlying cause.

Recently, considering a referral for a second opinion about a chronic health condition, during a nap I remembered another stop dream, this one a red light on the route to that doctor’s office. Listening to the dream guidance, I chose a different alternative.

A marvelous feature of dream treatment is how it mirrors the operative Western, Eastern, or energetic medicine modality. On the morning I needed to decide about an appointment with a new holistic provider, I dreamt of a tan van in the driveway of a suburban home. Children, one dressed in  a 1950’s stripped shirt, were ousted from the passenger side window. At my appointment with the practitioner, he talked about the emphasis my parents’ generation put on perfection and protection. My dream signaled, first, this healer and modality were the ones to pursue. Second, my dream described the underlying dynamics of my physical problem and how to move forward.

We need Medicare for all (with payment and other modifications), but the real health care reform we crave is an expansion of the lexicon of doctors, care, and “medicine” from traditional to holistic, from  to those whose foundation is the mind/body/spirit nexus.

In the meantime, which could be a long time, and regardless of when true legislative health reform happens, remember intuitive, self- care is a public option available to everyone anytime. Regardless of what happens legislatively, we can kindle the Healer within.

I hear the word MAXIWELL.

I maximize well-being.

MaxIwell,

a mantra-in-the-making:

I maximize well-being.

I maximize my well-being.

I maximize well-being.

This sounds like the key to health.

The capacity to heal lies within.

– Plum Dreams Diary by Joyce Lynn

Then, I saw the image from my dream on a flyer promoting  a natural foods cooking class.

The class revolutionized my eating habits-and pointed the way to what I call the Divine Eating Plan. The instructor evoked the Bible as the supreme nutrition manual; the Garden of Eden, a model for vegetarianism and healthful eating.

The plan: A diet of grains, legumes, and vegetables and fruits, specified amounts of protein, a simple program based on the premise calories are what count in weight loss, and a spiritually-oriented procedure for stemming food addictions and overeating.

Finding this time-tested eating “formula” connected me with the abundance of the earth and the Source of that abundance. That was 20 plus years ago. The result: decades of health and comfort and surety about food, diminishing the turmoil of a hunger-filled sector of my life.

In this era of mandatory sustainability, vegetarianism and vegan eating mean better health for the planet, too. The 2006 United Nations Food & Agriculture Report called raising livestock for human consumption the most serious ecological problem affecting global warming, exceeding even the hazards caused by automobile emissions. That’s right, eating a vegetarian diet is more environmentally conscious than driving a hybrid.

According to the report, the grain or corn fed to one cow would feed ten people. In addition, feeding livestock requires huge amounts of fossil fuels/oil (contained in fertilizer, yuck) and water, wasting valuable resources. For example, it takes 2,300 to 5,000 gallons of water to yield a pound of beef, something impossible to sustain in an era of record draughts. The waste products of farm animals pollute rivers and poison our drinking water. Antibiotics and chemicals shot into the animals humans consume can cause resistance and worse. (Source: San Francisco Vegetarian Society’s Global Warming & Your Diet, http://www.sfvs.org)

My field of grains dream led to a healthy “diet,” appropriate for me. Instead of jumping from one fad diet to another, ask your dreams for guidance about the eating plan for you (and, of course, check with your health practitioner). All of us benefit when each of us eats well.

C Joyce Lynn 2009

Artist Marsha Connell watched preparations for the Persian Gulf War from the bottom of a hill. The view that appeared in a dream began a healing process that ultimately brought her peace.

Collages, dark landscapes spiked with light, became her way to communicate. “I felt a distress so profound there were no words for it,” Connell says. She calls the collages “Dream Vessels” because each dreamlike picture contains a vessel — a pot, a vase, a ship.

A month after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, Connell dreamt that women writers, artists, and poets were brought in to observe the fighting.

A friend suggested the dream meant the artist was to bear witness. Before this dream, Connell felt artists lacked power to elicit change. Then she wondered, “Could I create art about the war, but not beautify the destruction?”

Connell cut up magazines, made two collages and duplicated them on a color copier. When she looked at the copies, she says, “They shocked me. They moved me so much. There was alot of darkness but also hope. They had hope for the world.”

One collage, “Mayam,” is a kaleidoscope of red, glowing smoke, dark rocks jutting from the ocean, and the sedentary head of her teacher Maya, who committed suicide. More rocks and shattered pots loom. Behind the smoke emanates light.

Reba, Connell’s daughter who was spending her junior year in Israel when the Gulf War erupted, was the original recipient of the collages. Since Israel was under missile attack, the war posed a double agony for Connell as she worried about her daughter’s safety and the future of the world.

Connell made dozens more prints, which she sent to Reba, who hung them on her dormitory walls in Jerusalem.

The series led to a show of Connell’s collage prints at the Bade Museum in Berkeley, California in 1993. A limited edition book of selected collages and poems accompanied the show. Connell made another three dozen collages that led to more shows and appearances and a video for cable television.

Before the burgeoning interest in her collages, Connell, who also teaches art at a local Junior College, was known for her watercolors which are in private collections throughout the Bay Area.

For Connell, vessels hold personal, political, and spiritual significance. Like the white, translucent oriental vase adorned with roses filling the center of the collage “Witness,” as a young girl, Connell often felt fragile. Her mother’s name is Rose.

In 1989, Connell traveled to Ecuador on a cultural exchange to meet the women of a small village who made pottery. She was driving through the mountains when a car crashed into hers, shattering the pots she was going to exhibit in the United States. Connell created a collage which conveys her feelings of loss and then restoration.

She finished the original series with a collage called “The Whole World Is a Very Narrow Bridge.” She fears crossing bridges and when she made the collage the world filled her with the same terror. But she points to a verse from the song, “The Whole World” as her newly acquired axiom ….the whole world is a very narrow bridge and the important thing is not to be afraid.

That collage was transitional. Connell (www.marshaconnell.com) has created dozens of collages, markedly different from the earlier ones. Instead of fiery reds and dark hues, in some watery greens and blues prevail. And eggs, the spiritual symbol of wholeness — birth, rebirth — are a central and recurring theme.

In her poem, “Dream Vessels,” Connell writes: “The vessel offers the possibility of transformation, hope/reconciliation of opposites…Vessels poise/between her story and history, bridging nature and the human-made, bridging hope and forces of destruction.”

“Somehow, through doing this, I felt I was finding a way to bring hope together with the darkness,” she reveals. “As the work told me its stories, it was bringing more sense to the world. The collages were my healing. Gradually, I found my own center again and my own peace through doing this.”

(by Joyce Lynn from her article, which first appeared May 6, 1993, in the Santa Rosa (California) Press Democrat)

c Joyce Lynn 1993-2009

“My cousin is hugging me. It is a good feeling. My mother does not get along with her mother, so I am like a bridge between families.

“My (personal/political) tool is loving people.”

“Abby” P.

East Bay, California
October 12, 2008

I described my early a.m., October 2, 2008, dream to a friend, telling her the Grim Reaper symbolized Poverty. I said Poverty was attacking me. But looking at the dream in context with concurrent political events, I expanded my interpretation. The U.S. Senate, the evening before, passed the Bush administration’s Wall Street bailout — a $700 billion theft of the U.S. Treasury. Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, as well as Congressional Democratic leaders, supported the bailout. Their mugging for the cameras was sickeningly reminiscent of Congressional leaders and Presidential hopefuls rushing to give G.W. Bush authority to use military force in Iraq five years before. That vote opened the doors to massive corporate war profiteering.

In August 2007, I dreamt of an ink-black swastika transposed on the speaker of my cell phone. Earlier that month, Congress, bowing to the Bush administration, expanded government wiretapping powers viatelecom companies, like AT&T. The Fourth Amendment, which confers the right to Americans to be safe and secure in their homes and personal communications like correspondence, phone calls, e-mails, slid into a dark hole.

My dreams reminded me of those journalist Charlotte Beradt described in her book, The Third Reich of Dreams: The Nightmare of a Nation 1933-34 during the rise of Hitler and a totalitarian state in Germany.

I described the rising tide of fascism in the U.S. after a dream in the winter of 2005-6 in Political Diary, #19 and at the June 2006 911 Truth Reclaiming Our Future Conference in Chicago: A knee-deep flood swirled on Bush Street in San Francisco. Fascism — when Government and corporations collude to control the citizens of a nation — the ruling regime suspends basic constitutional liberties often in the name of a religious or nationalist war against a real or conjured up “enemy.”

Finding one’s voice is mandatory for preserving health. I read a research paper describing how people with a certain form of epilepsy can minimize the occurrence of seizures if they speak out and their family hears them and listens to their message. In Eastern medicine, activating the throat chakra can heal a thyroid deficiency, a deficient yin, stifled creative expression.

Finding our voice is the first step in resurrecting our small d, democracy. A scream in the night is a beginning. But it will take millions of us waking up from the nightmare of the rising tide of fascism in the U.S. to find and carry out millions of positive actions to stem the tide and reclaim true safety, security, and self-esteem.