Waking Up into a New Earth

“I cannot be awake, for nothing looks to me as it did before, or else I am awake for the first time, and all before has been a mean sleep.” ~ Walt Whitman

I couldn’t sleep last night. The events of the past month left me unsettled, my mind racing for answers, hoping to find some sense of agreement, harmony, or dignity.

I woke at 1:17 a.m., feeling a familiar ache that reminded me of how I felt eleven years ago. Too tired to deal with it, I moved to the couch and watched something mindless, something I could choose and control, without commercials.

When I went back to bed around 4:30, I finally fell asleep. Five hours later, I woke up tense and uneasy, my jaw clenched with a radiating pain around my eyes and ears. The dream was vivid:

I arrived for a babysitting job. Someone opened the door for me. I put my keys and computer on the table, hoping the children would go to bed early so I could have some time to write.

Two parents I didn’t know came out, thanked me, and said they’d be back after dinner. That’s when I noticed three children playing an imaginary game. “I don’t remember agreeing to watch three,” I thought. As I introduced myself, two more children showed up, then two more. There were seven in all. I felt a flash of irritation. Had their friends just joined in while the parents left?

"Whatever," I thought, and stepped forward to gather them.

One boy, about six years old with striking green eyes, looked at me and said something unkind. I couldn’t hear exactly what he said, but I could feel the contempt. I felt something fierce rise up in me that caused me to move up close to his face and say, "What did you call me?"

He froze as fear spread across his face, and I stepped back immediately. I hated the feeling of scaring a child, no matter what he had said. That’s when something inside softened, and I asked, "What do you see?"

He began describing my features in a way that made me feel like a strange insect. It caught me off guard, and I instinctively pulled back.

Just then, the door opened, and adults poured into the house. The children scattered.

Panic rose inside me. I needed to protect the children. But the house had turned into a maze, with rooms within rooms. In one room, people were selling real estate. In another, they were making laws; in yet another, they were buying stocks. In a large theater, a crowd watched a movie I had never heard of. Everywhere I looked, there was business, distraction, and spectacle, but I couldn’t find the children anywhere.

By the time I reached the front hall, servers were serving caviar and champagne. But before I could ask about the parents, the guests started leaving, putting on their coats, grabbing party favors, and exchanging polite thank-yous. The servers began cleaning up, removing any evidence that a party had ever taken place.

I decided it was time to leave, but I couldn’t find my keys or my computer. I couldn’t even find the table where I had left them.

As I wandered into the main bedroom, I found the hostess asleep. I asked her about my things. She turned toward me with dull eyes, full of indifference, then rolled over and went back to sleep.

I stood there speechless, unpaid, lost, and unable to leave. Then I woke up to the headlines that the U.S. had bombed Iran.

Children are the Seeds of Hope

Children are the dream of our future, aspects of ourselves reflecting the collective innocence of a culture still forming. The way we protect them from hatred is to prevent it from taking root within ourselves, knowing well that fear precedes cruelty.

The unexpected number of children in my dream, seven instead of a few, highlights feeling overwhelmed. I know you feel this too: how challenges multiply, outpacing our expectations, as our nervous system gets hijacked just when we think we can breathe.

The green-eyed boy with contempt is especially significant, and it’s clear who he represents. He doesn’t just insult me — he perceives me as “other.” He describes me as foreign, almost insect-like, dehumanized.

In a polarized political climate, dehumanization is a key psychological tool that causes people to stop seeing each other as human, making all reasons for hate seem justified.

But this fire I felt when I confronted the green-eyed boy was powerful, and when I saw fear in him, something inside pulled me back. Acting on this feeling of vengeance would only strengthen the roots of contempt.

Power, Distraction, and Spectacle

As the house transforms into a maze of commerce and entertainment, I am confronted with the spectacle of our culture—one centered on profit and image, political theater, media distractions, consumerism, and greed, all of which overshadow our moral values.

The parents (authority figures) are absent. The hostess is drunk with apathy. No one is accountable; I am unpaid and cannot find my keys (my agency, mobility, freedom) or my computer (my voice or authorship).

My ability to act and my agency to write are lost inside a system of indulgence and indifference - my soul feels shrouded by the psychological torment.

Loss of Moral Anchor

The most important emotional moment isn’t the insult; it is when the children scatter, and I can’t find them. I feel this growing fear for the next generation being shaped by forces of division, this anxiety about who is guiding their cultural development, and the sense that this spectacle is replacing stewardship.

Whether one views current political leadership as corrupt, divisive, or destabilizing, most Americans across the spectrum share this anxiety: institutions feel unstable, trust feels eroded, and public discourse feels harsh, hateful, indifferent and unloving.

There is undoubtedly a fear of misdirection and misappropriation of nurture—while we watch the theater, something formative is happening elsewhere, as attention is diverted to spectacle and structural wounds remain unaddressed.

And I also understand that much of this is personal, as a writer, a teacher, a parent, as someone who feels a responsibility for the words that I speak into the world. But the words are not enough, for it is the feelings, emotions, and thoughts that come together and the story that they tell that has the greatest power.

The way irritation and frustration snapped at Bill this very moment above me for vacuuming as I write. I tried to be polite, but when I felt unheard, frustration struck like the fire that challenged the green-eyed boy.

How can I protect this child within me without losing my grace, my voice?

I cannot save the house by abandoning my writing; my voice is my instrument, and it will be lost in the distrust of what my body demands, redirected by the chaos of erupting emotions, lost in the misallocation of energy.

If only I could step into the power of Love on demand -  hold the sacred space within, stand strong to reveal the absolute truth as fear is unveiled and love is restored.

If only I could wake up from this dream and step into a New Earth.

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My understanding of dreams is that they are not visions, but our mind’s way of making sense of the thoughts, feelings, and emotions that come from life experiences. When we can't process them in the moment, they stay in the body until the mind can relax enough to let them go, so the soul can help us understand.

Without understanding, fear, worry, and ignorance build up, spill over into the next day, and influence our words, actions, and world.