Thought for the Day
Wednesday, May 7, 2025

The dream that is the impetus for “thought for the day,” referred to the present world situation as a conflagration. The intensity of the word in the dream was striking and I must not ignore it. The word comes from the Latin word conflagratio. The con here is meant to intensify the word flagratio which means “to burn,” “to blaze,” “to glow.” So, the word itself carries the feeling of intensity that I felt in the dream. My sense is that intensity not only describes the degree of the inferno we are facing, but argues I believe for the urgency of attention this requires.

Of course, what we are seeing is literal conflagrations at work in climate change, but it may be imagined that the degree of denial that is being exhibited may itself be a form of destructive fire. When so much of reality and truth is subject to denial, then everything becomes fuel for the fires. Everything losses stability. All values become subject to the flames.

One thing that seems to escape the ravages of the fires is dreams. Dreams seem to have a kind of “immunity” from being destroyed. Part of this may be the simple fact that so little attention is ever given to dreams in the halls of power or anywhere else for that matter. So, what do dreams have to say about the conflagration? Some dreams seem to be so personal in nature that they are likely to be about one’s conscious and unconscious relation to what is happing in the world. But other dreams have little to do with the personal. These dreams come from a dream source I call “the other.” These dreams in particular have to do with the future and they have little to do with one’s conscious or unconscious intentions. It is these dreams that we learn what the creative other is proposing in relation to the conflagration. These dreams are a source for what cannot be derived either from history or from conscious and rational states. These dreams will convey not ready mades that we understand and can explain, but highly original forms that we may not understand at all.

What I am seeing in my own dreams and those of others, is the advent of something “new” and “unique.” These dreams will strike the dreamer as “odd” and “strange.” For example, I recently had a dream that featured only a word. It was not a voice dream, nor was there any image. I simply felt the “presence” of this word and it was striking. I could not deny the importance of this and it was most certainly way beyond anything personal. The word was olmelleon. This word will not be found in any dictionary or in any language. It carries the sense of “new” an “unique” I mentioned earlier. It stumps AI. However, AI adds an interesting observation: “words without literal meaning that come in dreams can be very important, if for no other reason than the mystery they embody.” The word carries a sense of mystery for sure and one are “stumped” trying to “figure it out.” The deep sense of the meaning of mystery is “seeing with the eyes closed.” So that is how this word must be approached.

Next Wednesday, I’ll describe my work in seeing olmelleon with my eyes closed and what this has to do with the conflagration sweeping the world.

Russ

Thought for the Day
Sunday, May 4, 2025

A dream has prompted me to post a “thought for the day” concerning dreams and the current “conflagration” of the world. In the dream, the world conflagration was intense and could not be doubted. From the perspective of the dream source (which I call “the Other”), the world is on fire and dreams have something to say about this. According to the dream, these posts are to be made on Wednesday mornings. So, come Wednesday, May 7, 2025, watch for the first of these dream-directed posts.

Russ

Saturday Memory
May 3, 2025

I was on a hunting trip with my dad. It was my first. He had bought me a .22 rifle. I think I was about 10 years old. Nothing much happened for quite a while as we tramped around looking for things to shoot. Then, on the path in front of me, I spotted a rabbit. It was sitting upright and seemed frozen to the spot. My dad said to go for it. I looked through the scope and yep, the rabbit was quite still. So, I aimed, pulled the trigger and shot at the rabbit. As I looked at the scope, I could see I had shot the rabbit through the ear. It was still frozen in place. But I was stunned by what I had done. I handed the rifle to my dad and said, “I can’t do this.” When I looked again down the path, the rabbit was gone. My shooting days were over.

Saturday Memory
April 26, 2025

After dropping Michael off at Sorley’s sister, I went to Sorley’s home. He greeted me with a single single-malt, and we sat down in his study together, tasting the treat with eyes closed. “What’s your favorite poem?” he asked. “The Raven,” I replied. “It’s because I memorized it in 8th grade and it’s in my bones.” “Memory is the best home for poems,” was his response. The meeting started at eight and went on well past midnight. I asked him if his dreams played any part in the making of his poems. “Oh, yes, many, yes, many. Dreams are the best source.” He continued: “sometimes, it’s just a word in a dream that catches me. Sometimes, a phrase, Sometimes, even a whole line. And, once in a while, several lines, perhaps even a whole poem. How about you?” “The same, I said. I always experience these as gifts.” “Oh, yes, gifts indeed. That’s why the only response that meets the occasion is to put one’s heart into the making. The heart is the thing. Having the full poem in memory, by heart.” The conversation was like this the whole time, and it was unforgettable.

That night, I dreamed of a basement workshop. In it was an old hand press. In the dream I understood it was to be mine and I was to print a book called Moonstone.

I never did print that book. It is one of my deep regrets. But I did acquire a Washinton hand press. It was from the Cincinnati Museum of Science and Industry. It had been slightly damaged in a fire and I was able to get it at a reasonable cost. My wife and I hand printed three books on it using handset type and handmade paper and hand binding. Our first book won the Letterpress Prize for the Best Handmade Book printed in the Pacific Northwest in 1982. [My apologies; my trip to Scotland when I met with Sorley was in 1980, not 1992.]

Saturday Memory
April 19, 2025

On a trip to Scotland in 1992, I had arranged to meet one evening with the great Gaelic poet, Sorley MacLean. My son Michael was with me, and I was trying to find someone to sit him while I met with Sorley. The person in charge of where we were staying recommended someone and gave me the address. I took Michael there and had a brief conversation with the woman I I was referred to. In the course of the conversation, she asked me where I would be and I told her I would be meeting with Sorley MacLean. I reached for my notebook to give her his phone number, and she said, “Oh, no need, Russell. Sorley is my brother.”

I have learned over the years that such synchronicities are often the “portals” to important experiences. This was certainly that. Next Saturday, I will tell of my experience with Sorley MacLean, one of the most important experiences of my life.

Saturday Memory
April 12, 2025

I was staying at Dunvegan Castle, on the Isle of Skye. It was July 1992. I was the representative of the United States at the Dunvegan Arts Festival. What I am remembering today, is a dream I had one night. In the dream, I was in the great hall. On the walls were huge tapestries and, in the center, an enormous rectangular table. As I looked intently at one of the tapestries, I could see it contained historical images of battles and events of importance. Then the figures began to move and as I watched, the whole tapestry zoomed in and what I saw was enormous heads of various figures, some seeming like Vikings. As I focused on each head as it rotated into view, I could tell it was speaking, if not shouting, but I could hear nothing. When I woke from those images, I was still asleep, but I found myself standing looking out at the bedroom window, looking down at the field where the Highland Cows were. The window was open. I could barely make out the cows sleeping as it was still dark. I was telling them about what I had seen as I came fully awake.

Dartmouth researchers have published the results of the first-ever clinical trial of a generative AI-powered therapy chatbot. The software resulted in significant improvement in participants’ symptoms – people in the study reported they could trust and communicate with the system to a degree that is comparable to working with a mental health professional. The study showed that AI has the potential to provide real-time support for the many people who lack regular or immediate access to a mental health professional. While there is no replacement for in-person care, there are nowhere near enough providers available – generative AI could help the huge number of people outside of the in-person care system.

SATURDAY MEMORY

March 22, 2025

Many years ago, I was having lunch with Laurens van der Post during his visit to Los Angeles. We were at the Santa Monica Hotel in Santa Monica, California. I do not remember the year, but it was before he was knighted. We talked of many things during that lunch, but one thing stood out in my memory this week. I had asked him what was the most important thing he learned from the Kalahari Bushmen. He thought for a good while and then said, “to tend to the small.”

I asked him what he meant and for an example. He said, “Well, if you are crouching down and looking for the lion, you are likely to become lunch. You must tend to what the plants are doing, what the bugs on the ground are doing, and changes in the air. That will protect you and guide you.”

A powerful lesson that I have spent many years trying to learn.

SATURDAY MEMORY

March 8, 2025

It was 1943, and it was the day before my fifth birthday. My Mom said that Patsy, one of our cats, might have kittens for my birthday. That night, I woke up around midnight. Patsy was on the bed with me, the top bunk. She was having kittens and I watched this with total fascination. She had four kittens and I named each one at once: Popper, Topper, Hopper and Flopper. I chose names that could be for both male and female kittens. I didn’t know how one knew whether they were males or females. This very potent experience may have had something to do with the genesis of my first publication, which was a limerick I wrote in the third grade:

I once had a cow named Madie

She looked like my old wife Sadie

To give milk she wouldn’t

I found out she couldn’t

For Madie was not a lady

Later, when I was 10 times older, I watched our cow, Cathy, give birth to a calf around midnight. Total fascination.