A field of grains blowing in the wind appeared on my nighttime dream screen-the distinct answer to a daytime quandary. After facing a potentially serious illness, I searched for a healthy eating plan.

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.

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Art by Marsha Connell

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.”

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Art by John Hershey

“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