Tree of Dreams

I am the tree of dreams

crows in my hair

children in my branches

lovers' names scratched in my bark.

In timeless times

and endless winds

my rustling leaves

are weary of singing

songs of times when I

was young myself.

Only the dreamers can

change the dream

so I am here till the end of times

to keep the dream alive.

Dreaming of an Angel

Last night an angel came to my side. At first I was only aware of a brilliant clear light which seemed to fill the space around me, and with the light came calm, and a sense of trust that all would be well. Then it seemed to me as if the light, although still bright, grew softer, and in this velvet softness a form took shape. The form looked at me with eyes of love, and I understood that she wished me to come with her. Whether she truly spoke to me, or whether I felt her thoughts enter my own I cannot say, but I knew that she had been waiting for the moment when I would open my eyes, see her, and follow her. 

So I was dreaming that I had awakened, and despite the feeling of trust I found myself feeling a little uneasy in this strange waking/dreaming state. Still I followed where the angel led me. I half-walked, half-drifted through fields and along pathways where perhaps I had been before, but had since long forgotten: the half-remembered landscapes of dreams. But because of my lingering unease my own movements were not as fluid as those of my companion of light. Perhaps it was this hesitation which the angel felt, for she urged me to awaken more fully, that although I thought that I was fully awake, my hesitant manner betrayed the fact that I still had a further stage to go.

And so I trusted more, let go more, and realised that my hesitation, and the fear which caused it, was groundless. When I dared to truly look around me a new world was revealed: an intense world full of light and colour, and my feet finally felt firm ground. I no longer needed to half-drift in this world. I could leave my footprints firmly in this place, knowing that it was where I now truly belonged. Knowing that it was a part of me, and that I could freely claim my place there, and that the intensity of all which I saw there was how things truly are, always, as long as I felt total trust.

The angel now took my hand in her own and led me even farther. With all fear gone, and with my presence in that place now fully experienced and accepted, my body became feather-light. I no longer needed to leave my footprints there to know that I was a part of this place. Now I seemed to glide through this new land without effort. But there was one more stage to go through, one more awakening for me to experience. And that was my awakening into my own everyday world. When touched by morning light once more, my dream of the angel stayed with me, filling me with a deep sense of peace and solace. No longer was I dreaming for I woke up - awakened.

Guiding Angel - Tiffany Glass & Decorating Company, circa 1890

The Shepherd and the Shell

She has come from the sea, and he, all uncomprehending, can only wonder. His flock continue to graze on the salty grass of the coastal dunes, but he, the normally-attentive shepherd, has already forgotten their existence. Unawares, he sinks to his knees, suddenly suspended in a world between the commonplace of the everyday and a larger reality in which anything can – and does – happen.

She strides confidently out of myth, crossing the impossible space between the waves’ edge and the intervening sand, wading across a shallow lagoon to confront him. Her golden hair, decorated with strands of marine plants, flutters in the sea breezes as it must have fluttered in the more measured rhythms of the currents beneath the waves. She is no more aware of her nakedness than he now is of his surroundings. Her presence is more real than his reality. His water flask also lies forgotten on the ground at his side, and his shepherd’s crook, the emblem of his task, is grasped in his now-unsteady hand.

In her pale hands she holds a shell, and her simple gesture indicates that this is her gift to him. No word is spoken, for none is needed. Were she to speak, her language would perhaps be incomprehensible to him, as his earthly dialect might be to her. So she does not speak. And he cannot, transfixed as he has become by her miraculous appearance in his world.

All that he can do is extend his wondering hand to receive this offered gift from the sea, barely aware of his own gesture of acceptance. She smiles down at him, seeming somewhere amused at the consternation which she has caused, but comprehending as well, compassionate in her invasion of his reality. For a moment, for a brief sliver of time, her fingers brush his own as he takes the shell from her, and he feels an impression of pale skin more silken than human skin could be, like the smooth pelt of a seal.

Now she smiles at him, gesturing with her hands, cupping them to her ear to indicate what she wishes him to do. He obeys, holding the shell to his own ear. Entranced, he hears it: the slow murmur of the deeps, the tug and sigh of currents, the restless, wandering voice of the eternal ocean. He closes his eyes, surrendering to the sound, listening, listening. He has no wish to open his eyes now, understanding what will happen when he does. But he must, and eventually, he does so. She has gone.

Painting: The Sea Maid by Arthur Hacker.

The Girl in a Kimono

She was born in 1877 in Zaandam, in the province of North Holland. When she was 16, Geesje Kwak moved with her sister Anna to Amsterdam to settle into the safe young ladies' profession of milliner. There, among the ladies' hats and bonnets, ribbons and bustling clients, she might have remained in obscurity, her name - and her features - unknown to art history. Except that one day her path crossed that of the artist George Hendrik Breitner.

Breitner, already something of a name in the art world of the time, had recently acquired a studio on Amsterdam's Lauriergracht (Laurel Canal), one of the prettiest spots in the city. In 1892 the artist had visited an influential exhibition of Japanese art in The Hague (which had also inspired Vincent van Gogh, among others), and had enthusiastically acquired several kimonos and some decorative room screens as a result. A year later, the artist's chance meeting with the young milliner seems to have lit a spark of inspiration, and Geesje found herself being asked - on a paid professional basis - to pose as a model in the kimonos. Breitner seems to have been meticulous about details. There is an existing notebook in which he recorded the various dates and hours when Geesje posed for him, and the amounts which she was paid for her time.

The notebook suggests a methodical, business-like approach to the model sessions, but the series of paintings which resulted reveal a special alchemy. Breitner's brushwork in the canvasses shows extraordinary verve and confidence, as if nowhere was it necessary to go over the same brushstroke twice. They are images which indicate that the artist knew exactly where he needed to go to achieve the required result, and what he needed to do to get there, and Geesje seems to have been the catalyst. Posed either in a red or in a silvery-white kimono, Geesje is there in the canvasses as a tangible presence, even when only her face and her hands are visible. Breitner never allows that presence to be swamped by the surrounding patterns of kimono, carpet and room screen which swirl busily around her; the balance between the naturalistic treatment of the model and the eddying patterns is always perfectly held.

Always a restless innovator, Breitner was among the first artists to use his own photographs as references for his paintings.  And indeed: among his collection we also come across his photographs of Geesje, apparently made by the artist for this very purpose. One photograph by Breitner in the Leiden Museum print collection shows a thoughtful Geesje posing hand-on-chin. This gelatine-silver print offers us perhaps our clearest look at the girl who inspired the artist. What must Geesje herself have thought about it all? Was she bemused? Was she flattered by the unexpected attention? In any event, she did not feature further in Breitner's work. There are two reasons for this.

The first reason is that, incomprehensibly, the series of paintings featuring Geesje met with either an indifferent or a scoffing critical reception when they were exhibited. The critical reaction was cold enough, apparently, to discourage the artist further in this direction, and he went on to other themes and subjects. The second reason is Geesje herself. Two years later she emigrated with her older sister Niesje to Pretoria in South Africa, where she sadly died before reaching her 22nd birthday. But this young death of the girl who became Breitner’s model and inspiration offered its own transcendence: the mysterious immortality which art can grant, even to a young unknown milliner. 

                                         

A Dream of Birds

I wander over the ways, while all around me people turn the rich ochre soil, planting row upon row of new young trees with the greatest care and attention. I walk on, leaving the silently-absorbed people behind me still busy with their devoted task. Now I notice something lying on the ground ahead of me: a large and apparently lifeless young female bird with its neck bent in a strange, unnatural curve.

Next to this creature is a second bird, evidently a larger female, for she is giving birth while standing, splaying her legs as a giraffe does – and also like a giraffe, but certainly not like a bird, she is giving birth, not to an egg, but to a live young one. The new-born baby bird drops to the ground next to the first, who until now has remained unmoving. As if sensing the presence of the new-born next to her, the first bird now suddenly comes to life. She shakes her head, shakes her feathers, straightens her neck, rises up to stand on her two legs, and begins to prod the baby with her beak, encouraging it to do the same.

Seeing this, and apparently aware that her own task is now fulfilled, the mother trots away, the splendid radiance of her iridescent feathers leaving a trail of rainbows in her wake. The new-born and the one now standing over it, who seems to be barely older, also have this same radiant plumage. Lapis blues, turquoises, even raven-blacks: all are shining with the brilliance of butterflies’ wings. 

My feet carry me onwards, as if I am forbidden to linger for too long at any one place. Perhaps that is so, for footsteps are always footsteps in time, and the way we see things now is not as they will appear to us tomorrow, or as they seemed yesterday. And so I leave the two birds behind me, with the new-born still being encouraged to stand by her companion, her identical other.

Did the new-born also manage to struggle to her feet? I am sure that she did. The struggle to stand up is inherent, instinctual. We make the effort even though it is so much easier simply to stay lying on the ground. Farther behind me, new trees are already growing. And I who must walk on, follow the path which the mother has taken, walking in the trail of rainbows which she has left for me to follow. 

  Search for the Soul by Kamil Vojnar

The Longing

The Longing

I am dreaming

I am dreaming everything –

and everything which happens to me

happens because I dream it.

My dreams are not always the dreams

which I wish to have – 

but they are the dreams

which I choose to have.

They are my dreams,

both good and bad –

for that is my choice

and to imagine that there is no choice

is also a choice.

There is always a choice –

always.

I am longing

I am longing for everything –

although I do not always know

what it is that I long for.

Neither do I need to know – 

for not knowing is for me

the most precious longing of all.

This is the longing of my heart’s secrets

and my heart does not tell me everything – 

neither would I wish it to

for I will know all these things one day

when I awaken.

Pastel  Portrait of Emma © by David Bergen