The dream voice, female, had the timbre of computer-generated speech. There was but one word: “Solaris.” I recognized the word as the Latin adjective meaning “related to the sun.” As simple as the dream was, it impacted me with a force that was breathtaking. I sensed this was a follow-on dream to “The Red Sun” (see February 2 post) and “FireWire” (see May 25 post) as well as related to the increased size of the “red spot” on the cover of Dreams, Bones & the Future: Queries & Speculations. For a good while, I was caught up in an intensity of portent in which I recalled that Solaris was the title of Stanislaw Lem’s novel (1961), one of the true masterpieces of science fiction, as well as the two film adaptations of it by Andrei Tarkovsky (972) and Steven Soderbergh (2002).
I have always taken voice dreams (auditory only, no images) as tasks, literally as something I must do regardless of my conscious intentions. Such dreams have an “authority,” as if some other and deeper intentionality was speaking that cannot be ignored. The word authority comes from the Latin auctor meaning “creator.” So, I experience these voices as coming from the source of creative urgency. Most of the works I have authored have had their origin in such voice dreams.
What, then, am I to do in response to “Solaris.”
This dream comes as Paco and I are working on the third and final volume of Dreams, Bones & the Future. The subtitle is Endingsand we are trying to face squarely the implications of the Sixth Extinction and what it means for humans. At the very least, I believe the dream is telling me that Solaris belongs to these considerations of the possible extinction of humans. So, my first step in doing is to watch the two films again (it’s been a while since I have seen them) and to re-read Lem’s novel with these issues in mind.
I will report on my experiences in doing these things soon.
In the dream, I am witness to a vast undulating field of plasma, the fourth type of matter in addition to solids, liquids and gases and likely the most common form of matter in the universe (unless this is superseded by "dark" matter). Above this field of intense heat is a writhing, twisting wire. Both aspects felt "alive" to me and by this, I mean something beyond the metaphoric or allusionary. As I woke, I heard myself saying aloud, "FireWire." After brewing my coffee, I took a piece of sculpture wire and formed an image, trying to capture the sense of the wire's motion in the dream. The red plasma field I created with computer graphics until the image was close to what I saw, though not moving and not "alive" in the same way.
This image felt related to the "Red Sun" image described earlier as well as he "Red Dot" images on the covers of the Dreams, Bones and the Future volumes. The sun is a plasma field. Something is being conveyed here which I'm still wrestling with and that is this odd sense of "aliveness." I'll have more to say about my reflections on this soon.
They told me not to worry
That it was only a myth.
As if I had not heard, they
Repeated: it’s only a myth.
Then shouting, once again,
It’s only a myth!
Little did they know That three times is the trigger As the earth opened up and Gobbled them whole. And as eartthmouth closed, I shouted, It’s only a myth!
Careful not to repeat it.
Take heed of the rule of three.
And be wary on those who
Shout, “It’s only a dream.”
One day, John Fowles, the author, was out for a stroll. He came to a yard that had "gone to seed," and was quite in contrast to the immaculate perfection of the neighboring yards. Turns out the man's wife had died and he just let the yard go. But what Fowles saw in the now untended spot was England's rarest bird.
I keep looking in the rubble as things collapse, looking to see the unexpected and the rare that only letting go makes possible.
I think there will be plenty of opportunity for such sightings as the days unfold out future.
Paco and I are pleased to announce the publication of Dreams, Bones & the Future: Queries & Speculations.
This is the second volume of a trilogy and continues the remarkable dialogue between Russell Lockhart and Paco Mitchell begun in Dreams, Bones & the Future: A Dialogue. It further explores dreams as a natural treasure that becomes a personal resource against the rapacious complexes of the controlling powers, be they military, industrial, corporate, educational, political—or any others hidden from view. The authors prepare the foundations for the final volume of the series, Dreams, Bones & the Future: Endings, which will face—unflinchingly—the prospects of humanity’s end as a result of irreversible, human-induced, life-ending catastrophes of the Sixth Extinction.
All the love that had tied us, as if it was of wax, was breaking and crumbling down. Ai, tragic Spring how I wish, how I wish that we had died on that day And I was comdemd to so much to live with my crying to live, to live, and without you Living, however without forgetting the enchantment that I lost that day hard bread of loliness that’s all we get that’s all we are given to eat What does the heart matter, whatever it says, yes or no, if it keeps on living All love that had tied us, was breaking and crumbling down, was turning into dread No one should talk to about Spring how I wish, how I wish that we had died on that day.
Forty-five years now since Jackson Browne penned his visionary song, Before the Deluge. Year after year it becomes more piercing, more trenchant, more a lament for our time.
Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future
With the energy of the innocent
They were gathering the tools
They would need to make their journey back to nature
While the sand slipped through the opening
And their hands reached for the golden ring
With their hearts they turned to each other's hearts for refuge
In the troubled years that came before the deluge
Some of them knew pleasure
And some of them knew pain
And for some of them it was only the moment that mattered
And on the brave and crazy wings of youth
They went flying around in the rain
And their feathers, once so fine, grew torn and tattered
And in the end they traded their tired wings
For the resignation that living brings
And exchanged love's bright and fragile glow
For the glitter and the rouge
And in a moment they were swept before the deluge
Let the music keep our spirits high
Let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by, by and by
When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky
Some of them were angry
At the way the earth was abused
By the men who learned how to forge her beauty into power
And they struggled to protect her from them
Only to be confused
By the magnitude of her fury in the final hour
And when the sand was gone and the time arrived
In the naked dawn only a few survived
And in attempts to understand a thing so simple and so huge
Believed that they were meant to live after the deluge
Let the music keep our spirits high
Let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal it's secrets by and by, by and by
When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky
