The Sun and the Watery Tower

"Keep your mind on the things you want and off the things you don't want." ~ Hannah Whitall Smith


A few months ago I had a recurring dream. In the dream, my family and I were driving somewhere near the beach, and suddenly a wall of water rose from the ocean and formed an extremely tall and terrifying tower of water. In one dream, we were on the higher level of a parking deck when the first wave came down, and although panic was quickly spreading all around us, we knew we were safe.

After that, I had similar version of the same dream on different occasion, but one of them in particular really caught my attention. Unlike the majority of dreams which are nothing more than snippets of unrelated debris from the previous day, this dream was as clear as a film; if I close my eyes right now, I can still see it.

In the dream, my family and I were once again driving parallel to the coast, looking at crashing waves while we pleasantly cruised along. Unexpectedly, the sky turned dark toward the southeast and the wind began to blow. Suddenly, the water started receding, and it pulled itself up in a tower ever higher and scarier than the one in preceding dreams. I stood in front of it, knowing that it was only a matter of time before it would fall back down. Standing in front of the powerful mass of water - so high up in the sky I couldn’t even see the top – panic seized my entire being. I looked up at the dark water ready to swallow me in its fluid bite and then closed my eyes, hoping to savor the last few moments on this earth.

A thought flashed through my mind. Without wasting any time on rationalizing whether it would work or not, I opened my eyes, and turned to look toward the west, where the sun was still shining. I tried my best to detach from the feeling of fear gripping my very soul, and focused on the healing power of the sun. As I kept my concentration centered on the sun, I could see with the corner of my eye that the tower of water was getting smaller. Without questioning what was happening I continued doing just that – I ignored the fear and focused on the one thing that, I felt in my heart, could neutralize the killer wave. The mass of water continued shrinking, until, finally, it disappeared.

I don’t remember much about the rest of the dream, aside from the fact that we were back in the car and driving to some other location.

When I woke up the next morning, I couldn’t shake the dream, and continued to think about it for the next several days. I still occasionally do, although I no longer feel a sense of dread when I think of the wall of water looming over us. I believe this dream contained a powerful lesson, for it highlighted our ability to fight adversities by focusing our energy on their opposites.

We might be powerless in front of some seemingly insurmountable threats in our path, but something exists which can neutralize each of them. There is no ill in the world without an antidote; to find it we need to understand the nature of what is looming in front of us and beam our energy in the opposite direction. Some monsters can be big and scary, but it is comforting to know their opposites pack just as powerful a punch.

What I Learned from a Sour-Apple Worm

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. -- Albert Einstein


Of all the things my children were blessed with, curiosity is certainly the trait that brings home the prize. They never tire of asking questions, and charge everything with a genuine interest to learn something new at every turn.

Even if their unbridled desire to always find out different things delivers them occasionally at the doorstep of trouble, it also helps them fully experience every moment. Everything is ‘cool’ to them – from the colors of the sky, to the graphics of a new video game or the tart flavor of a piece of candy they have never tried before – everything is a way to see, hear, feel something new and record the sensation triggered by the experience.

A few days ago, my daughter and I went to a video store, and she picked up a package of sour-apple-flavored worms from the display at the check-out counter. Yellowish green in color, and coated with a thick sugary slime, they were about as appealing as a bucket of swamp water, yet Morgan walked out of the store proudly holding the loot in her little hand with a huge smile of accomplishment.

When we arrived home, her brothers had just returned from school. Morgan ran out of the car and barged inside to show them her purchase which I thought would not excite them at all. I was wrong. They hung around her like starving men waiting for a morsel to save them from sure death. She opened the package, pulled out two flimsy strings of green candy, and handed one to each boy. Their eyes lit up, and as they opened their mouths to invite the disgusting little critters in, a flash of pure bliss spread over their faces. At that point I had to try myself, and asked Morgan for a nibble; never in my life have I tasted anything more disgusting – tart enough to paralyze my mouth in a twisted sneer, and overly coated with sugar to avoid being compared to poison, I quickly thought that the bucket of swamp water would have surely been tastier. The first thing out of my mouth – when I was able to move my jaw again to talk – was: ‘How do you eat this stuff?’

All three looked at me as if I had asked the unthinkable. “Are you kidding, Mom?” asked one of them, “this is the best candy ever; it is so tart it makes you shiver.”

So that was the key! The candy wasn’t good, or bad; it was only intense, and a new flavor to add to their young collection of tasty knowledge.

I suppose I never thought of new experiences that way, and quickly opened to the concept that something not previously encountered is cool for that reason. I immediately thought of the movie Meet Joe Black, and particularly of the scene when Brad Pitt makes such a huge deal of trying a spoonful of peanut butter – something so ordinary to us yet so fascinating to a spirit simply because of its texture.

Every day we witness many miracles – the beauty of a sunrise, the striking, powerful sight of a stormy sky, the perfect color pattern of a flower growing alongside the highway, the smile of a child or the birth of a puppy – and at the end of the day, all we likely remember is the jerk who cut in front of us at the intersection, or the coworker who didn’t pull her weight and got extra recognition. We probably don’t think of the man who humbly held a door, the heavenly taste of a new piece of pie we tried at lunch, or the homeless man who taught us lessons of giving and acceptance just by standing at the corner when we drove by.

Thomas Holdcroft once said that life is a grindstone, and whether it grinds us down or polishes us up depends on us. Our lives are bejeweled with many small miracles if we can look past the patina of illusion and allow ourselves to find the sacred in the ordinary.

Face to Face with Fear

“The hens they all cackle, the roosters all beg, But I will not hatch, I will not hatch. For I hear all the talk of pollution and war, as the people all shout and the airplane roar, so I'm staying in here where it's safe and it's warm, and I will not hatch!” ~ Shel Silverstein

After coming in from playing in the creek behind our house, yesterday afternoon, my son needed dry clothes. Since I was busy preparing dinner, I asked him to go up to get them. A short while later I found him, still in wet clothes, sitting on one of the steps of the staircase. He smiled at me, half embarrassed and half frozen, and simply said that he was scared to go up alone. I later found out from my older son that the night before they had watched a scary movie before going to sleep.

The fear of imaginary monsters lurking around the upstairs overpowered the discomfort of wearing wet clothes. When we approached that discussion - after changing into dry pajamas - he said that although he knows nothing is really up there, he could not shake the feeling of dread.

It is easy to come up with intellectual facts as to why one should not be afraid, but fear is ultimately a force with a hidden switch, one that is hard to isolate through rationality. We might know that something is possible to overcome, but when fear is triggered, all good propositions fly off like leaves in a hurricane.

One can be stuck in an unpleasant situation – and wishing to get out of it – but remains frozen in a state of paralyzing fear and accepts living in dire conditions rather than standing up to what he or she is afraid of. Fears are sometimes triggered by blocks buried in the subconscious. One lady I knew lived under constant fear that her husband would cheat on her, and was terrified of snakes. Her mother had dropped her off with her grandparents, at the age of two, after kissing her goodbye, and had never returned. As a young child, she had no control of the circumstances surrounding her abandonment, but as an adult she desperately tried to prevent being “left out” again. Snakes were a symbol of deceit and betrayal in her mind, and she could not stand being around them. Being aware of patterns is useful in understanding the inner blocks that trigger our fears.

Overcoming fear is possible, and it can be done in small steps. An initial rationalization of the facts surrounding the issue is usually the first milestone. Small animals project a big shadow, and that projection is what we are afraid of. This realization enables us to gather strength and prepare for the showdown - There is no monster bigger than the one we create in our own minds.

Once we are ready to come face to face with it, it is okay to hold our breath while we gather courage, but it is important to know that we are the only ones who can ever hope to defeat the monster. And we can do it, regardless of its size.