Japan and The Dream of Water, revisited

It seems like weeks since the Japanese earthquake and tsunami hit, yet it has really only been hours. It seems like weeks because it has been difficult to tear myself away from the news and videos about this tragedy...I feel as if I am living it,moment by moment, with them. Suddenly the people in Japan, a country I have never visited, feel like my next door neighbors.

I wanted to write about the combination of awe and horror and compassion that I experience when I see that wave of water washing through whole cities. But then I realized I already had--six years ago, when I sent an email out about a 'prophetic' dream I had before another Asian Tsunami.

So here it is, from January, 2005:

Friends,

It is New Year's Day and we are surrounded by a tidal
wave.

On television and in our memories, the images
continue:
the rushing wall of water, the cars, buildings and
bodies floating in the swollen sea, fragile and
temporary as children's toys. The faces of pain, loss
and anguish are our faces. National boundaries are
dissolved, at least momentarily, as we send love,
financial support, healing.

Because my dreams are frequently wiser than I am, I
want to share a dream with you that I had about a week
before the Asian Tsunami hit.

In the dream I am on the beach with a group of
international students from the school where I teach
English as a Second Language. The students are from
all over the world. Suddenly a huge tidal wave
arrives and we are all running along the beach in
panic. I see something metallic floating in the water,
a vehicle of some kind. I think in my dream that it
could be some kind of military vehicle, like a car or
a plane or boat. It is clear to me that this vehicle
was made by man in a moment of self-importance, and it
is now utterly useless, bobbing helplessly along on
the water.

We all run away from the water and manage to reach
"higher ground." We are then all huddled inside a
room together, feeling fear but also deeply connected
to each other, and relieved that we are safe. One of
my Muslim students comes over to me, and I put my arm
around him, feeling a wave of love and compassion.

I woke up from this dream, asking, as I usually do of
dreams, what it was saying to me:

There is something more powerful than you, the dream
said. Maybe you should pay attention.

Your technology and the shiny vehicles that get you
through your life are useless in the face of this
power, the dream said.

It is the power of water, the dream said. it is
feminine, emotional, receptive, illogical,
mysterious, compassionate, ruthless, ferocious,
cleansing. It is running the blood of your veins and
in the ocean that links continent to continent. It is
the Tsunami and it is the wave of healing that
follows.

Maybe you should pay attention, the dream said.

It is the power of Mother Nature, the dream said,
seeking to balance all her elements, no matter how
horrific the sacrifice. With so many man-made fires
and explosions raging on the earth right now, it it
any wonder she chooses to respond with water?

Maybe you should pay attention, the dream said.

Look around you, the dream said, those people with
their different languages and religions are all
huddled in the same fragile room with you.

Find the person in the room who is most unlike you,
the dream said, the person who is supposed to be your
enemy, and reach out to him or her in compassion.

If there is a god, the dream said, he or she exists
not in the labels we have assigned, but in this
gesture, in this stretching of the heart.

You are alive, the dream of water said , and this is
a gift that can be taken away at any time.

Maybe you should pay attention.


Love,

Lisa

Houston Art Car Show

Auto-motive Houstonians

Let's be frank. There are a lot of very large people in Houston. Some are vertically large, going up and down like the Houstonian skyscrapers that dominate the downtown skyline, and wearing big cowboy hats that make them look even larger. But many, oh yes, are also horizontally quite large, with nice large bellies and big butts.

I was curious about why Houston seemed to have more than its share of horizontally large people. My friends Mike and Nic said they had read a study that said Houston had one of the highest rates of obesity in the country.

Then I remembered about the no car, no hamburger rule. (see previous post) And I figured that with so many people stuck driving around eating hamburgers inside their cars, this was bound to happen. The hamburgers eventually make the bellies expand to fit the size of the pick-up trucks and SUVs.

Unlike Los Angeles, which is also an automotive city, Houstonians are unapologetically large. In L.A., the prevailing look-like-a-movie-star-or-else mentality of much of the city has resulted in lots of gyms and yoga classes, and for those who can afford it, liposuction clinics.

But Houstonians don't seem to give a damn. They just drive around and drive around, buying good Texan beef hamburgers and not so good variations of it, getting larger and larger, depositing their money in drive-in banks, and using up all that oil that has made Houston what it is today.

Unlike some urban Californians, who are often too busy rushing around improving themselves and/or becoming enlightened to pay attention to anyone but themselves, Houstonians are as generous and hospitable as they are large.

Their generosity, or what I've seen of it, is simple, downhome, matter of fact. That guy who bought me the hamburger for instance. And walking down one of those interminable roads on the outskirts of Houston, the roads that have no sidewalks because pedestrians here don't exist, walking and enjoying the walk and the scenery and the exquisite pleasure of having legs, three Houstonians slowed down and offered me a ride, a look of alarm and concern on their faces.

No Car,No Hamburger

So there I was standing with my red backpack at 10PM at night in front of the window at Wendy's on Westheimer, my stomach grumbling and whining.

"I'll have a hamburger," I said.

"I'm sorry," she said, "you have to have a car to get a hamburger."

"What do you mean I have to have a car? I'm standing right here. I have two hands. You can put your hamburger in one of my hands and take my money out of the other. What's so difficult about that?"

"I'm sorry," she said. "No car, no hamburger."

She was a thin, pretty, mocha skinned African or African American teenager, with one of those
interesting Houstonian accents that I can barely understand. She looked nervous. She was only carrying out company policy.

"Do you want me to drive you around to the window?" offered some strange big guy in a pick-up truck. We were already at the window. He was offering to drive me around in a circle so we could return to the same window with me inside his car instead of outside it.

He was probably only being hospitable, but I declined.

I allowed my mouth to make a few grumbling noises to match my stomach, then went across the street to MacDonald's. Not wanting to repeat the scenario, I asked some other strange big guy in a pick-up truck to buy me a burger and a Coke, extending my five dollar bill.

With my backpack and my obviously car-challenged state, he must have assumed I was financially challenged as well.

"That's okay," he said, waving away my five dollar bill, and handing me the burger from his car window, before driving off.