Oh Baby Mine!

Still haunted by that dream but the bright, adoring eyes of that baby and her eager arms reaching out for me has begun to override the overwhelming sense of shame and guilt and the patina of abject failure. I sense the unconditional love and the innocent expectation that it is reciprocated and the unfathomable well of forgiveness which is her heart. I don’t claim any expertise in dream interpretation but it doesn’t much imagination to see a baby in a dream as a symbol of creativity, regeneration, self-expression, self-renewal….. There is probably much more depth to plumb but that is enough to work with for now.

I believe that among other things, this dream baby was alerting me to a major pitfall before I actually stumbled into it. She was reminding me that I have been neglecting the very thing that I know from repeated experience has been the solution or at least the source of solutions to every crisis I’ve encountered in my life. In one word: Story. Writing is therapeutic and journaling and blogging have legitimate roles but they can only go so far. It is the activation of archetypes, symbols and metaphors encouraged by Story that has the most potential for healing.

Thinking along these lines, I remembered that I had just received the announcement email from NaNoWriMo that the 2005 contest was upon us and it was time to reactivate our accounts if we wished to participate this year. When I saw that the other day, my first reaction had been: I can’t do it this year. Not with everything that is going on right now. But after contemplating that dream for a few days, I took a second look at that assumption. What better way to work through raw grief than to transform it by Story.

So, as you can see in the sidebar, I’ve become an official participant of the 2005 NaNoWriMo contest. Not a contest really so much as a challenge and a community of support from fellow travelers on a quest to churn out a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. What better way to focus all this raw emotion and the swarm of agitated memories than the discipline and play of Story?