THE VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE
August, 2004
Jean Campbell
Making Book
It
would be hard to find a group more creative than the dreamers of
the World Dreams Peace Bridge, which counts among its members
several published authors and poets, graphic artists and
musicians. This may say something about the value of dream
work, and it may say something about the relationship between
dreaming and creativity, but one thing it definitely speaks about
is the constant creative impulse among members of the Peace
Bridge. This month, it was a book--among other things.
You may remember that during the first year of the Peace Bridge
(and we're nearing the end of our third year now), Valley Reed
from Dallas, Texas created a dance from a book she had written
with her little girl, a dream book. Valley, who has recently
come back to the Bridge, and her little girl often create books
from their dreams. The story of "The Crow and the
Phoenix" came from a dream, and was danced at the 2002
Regional ASD conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Photos of this
dance can be seen at http://asdreams.org/conferences/2002cincinnati/crow_and_phoenix.htm
).
Since those days, the idea of writing books has come up regularly
on the Bridge, either through the individual works of members or
through the impulse to write a book together, to fund some of the
growing number of Peace Bridge projects.
This month, George Gillespie, who is still working on his book
describing various visual phenomena associated with dreams,
forwarded one of his early short stories (based on a dream)
"The Gold Bottle" to be put up on the World Dreams web
site at http://worlddreamspeacebridge.org/georgestory.htm
.
May Tung, who recently finished her memoir about life in China and
other parts of the world, has offered encouragement to other
writers on the Bridge, including Donna Stein, whose editorial work
has brought to life the journal Tiferet (http://www.tiferetjournal.com/
); Jeremy Seligson, who read from his most recent book of poetry
(accompanied in dance and reading by daughter Eloisa); and Jean
Campbell, who finished the first Dream Scouts Adventure book,
*Under the Crystal Tree* this year ( www.imageproject.org/scouts
).
All in all, a pretty verbal bunch.
During August though, Ralf began a conversation about dreaming
monsters. And I (having had considerable experience with
monsters) quoted the man who taught me Energetic Metatherapy, a
form of bioenergetic therapy, Hector Kuri-Cano, Ph.D., from
Guadalajara, Mexico. "Our monsters hold our
energy," Hector would say. "We need to get
acquainted with our monsters, learn to love our monsters."
I recounted the story of how, after having encountered a
particularly frightening monster during a period of awake sleep
paralysis, I got acquainted with this aspect of myself by taking
my monster for a walk in the park.
This is not quite so absurd as it sounds, when you consider that I
actually walk each morning in a park near my house. Since it
is daybreak when I walk, and there are very few people around, I
felt comfortable to act out my monster while walking, kicking
plastic trash cans and making claws of my hands.
This story brought a response from Victoria Quinton in Australia,
who sent a link to a photo of a dream drawing her daughter Emily
had done at age six. In the drawing, a little girl walks a
dragon on a chain. The dragon is floating higher than the
house.
In turn, Emily's drawing sparked the fire of creativity in Kathy
Turner, who promptly wrote a story for a children's picture book,
*The Little Dragon Walker.*
"Wouldn't it' be great," Kathy said, "if the book
could find a publisher and be sold with benefits going to the Aid
for Traumatized Children Project? (See the story of this
project and current World dreams work in Baghdad at http://worlddreamspeacebridge.org/aidforchildren.htm
).
And that question set off a flurry of activity. People began
sending links to their favorite publishers, talked abut the best
way to approach a publishing house, and wondered about how to
illustrate such a manuscript.
Then another delightful thin happened. Joy Fatooh, who works
as a wildlife biologist but is also a wonderfully talented
illustrator, volunteered to provide the illustrations. (See
samples of Joy's work at http://fatooh.org/art/
).
It appears that, in matters of creativity as well as in matters of
dreams, the synergy of group process can lead everyone involved to
greater levels of productivity--not to mention exuberant
enjoyment.
Should anyone who reads this, know of a publisher who might be
interested in *The Little Dragon Walker* or other dream-related
stories, we hope you will let us know. You can write to me
directly, at jccampb@aol.com, or you can send an email from the
"contact us" section of the web site at http://www.worlddreamspeacebridge.org/
To subscribe to the World Dreams discussion group at:
worlddreams-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
