BEFORE THE DREAM

In January 2008 I met the friend of a friend and really opened up to her. I confessed I was having emotional difficulties with the choices, actions and attitudes of some of my family.

She said "The truest form of love is to let the ones you love make their own choices." Of course, we've all heard that one before! Yet she framed it in an intriguing way: "It's especially hard for intuitive people--they can sense impending disaster, and get frustrated that a loved one is heading for self-inflicted pain or even destruction. Since we love them so much, we often try to rush in and save them. Of course, this is risky; if we over-extend ourselves to support others, we may lose our own footing as well." She concluded "So the truest expression of love is to let the one you love choose; even jump off a cliff and die, if that's their choice for this lifetime."

THAT NIGHT

I dreamed that I was living a "past-life" (at least I felt it was REAL, not just in my own mind) on a technologically advanced alien planet. Many different life-forms inhabited this world, including humans, though they lived only in one industrial city.

Early in the dream, I was fascinated by this society's technology. Gigantic disks hovered in the sky; flying "cars" approached them only to shoot off at right angles, at supersonic speed. The disks seemed to steer and power these cars--engine and control tower, all in one.

Then I began to explore a little more. I had a strange talent--I could walk among the inhabited areas, invisibly, without my physical body--just my "soul body." And I could temporarily take on anyone's viewpoint, by looking straight into their eyes with empathy and compassion. This cohabitation of two souls in one body was not to control or influence the other person, but simply to support them, to give them an emotional boost as they faced a challenge.

And the world I was walking through was ripe with challenges, for a war was raging in the streets. I didn't care about the cause of the war, its justifications, or its sides; I cared only what it had done to these people.

On the edge of the human zone, I slipped inside a huge warehouse. Curious industrial-scale machines loomed over me. Two groups hid in their shadows: some people who were ready to fight, and some hostages they had taken. Things were tense. Suddenly a small faction of the hostages slipped out the back side of the warehouse!

I followed them out.

It was a risky escape, since here the city gave way abruptly to a green wall of jungle. It had a grim reputation--it was said that no human who ventured in came back alive. Yet one woman among the escapees said "Once I went a very short distance in. I found some dead bodies and turned back, but I did get out alive." Since she knew more of the jungle than anyone else, the escapees named her their guide.

I entered her perspective. I wanted to support her, but was curious, too; how does an unambitious person find the fortitude to lead in a crisis?

As we neared the edge of the forest, we could see gigantic clumps of jelly (like Vaseline) clinging to all the vines and branches. We saw a queen insect of frightening size, a good six feet long, depositing more. Even the new-hatched young of this species were over six inches long! The adults had long wasplike stingers, and they flew around in tight family groups. A single such squadron could easily kill us all.

Our guide walked up to the jungle's edge, reached up to a branch and scooped off some slime. She said "The only way to safely enter the wilderness is to cover every inch of your body with jelly, so the insects won't see you as foreign. The down side is that many juvenile insects will follow you, thinking you're a new queen trying to found a new colony. But at least they won't attack, and they'll defend you from dangers. Dangerous protection, but protection!"

I had supported her while she decided to accept a leader's role, but now I knew how brave she was. She really didn't need me. Also, as she applied that cold, sticky slime to "my" face, I realized this wasn't my cup of tea at all! So I bid her goodbye and told her "I'll check in with you later," and went back into the warehouse.

Inside, I noticed that while most of the hostages were adults, there was a young mother with her two children. What were they doing here? The warehouse was about to be stormed! She had to do something soon, or the coming mayhem would likely take her children's lives. She was facing a terrible challenge.

I entered her perspective.

She was a loving mother, determined to save her children no matter what. While I was with her, she decided to take her children up into the attic. She sat her young son down on a box in the corner and whispered "Don't make a single sound." She breastfed her infant so the baby would fall asleep, and then placed the sleeping child on the ground, tightly swaddled, behind the box.

She looked into her son's eyes and said "I'll always love you."

Instantly I entered his perspective, and fell into confusion. What was going on? I was now a young boy in the middle of a war, and "my" perspective was (like his) incapable of adult rationalizations. I was just bewildered.

Our mother walked over to a window in the roof and began shouting "Please stop! There are children inside!"

Below, preparing for attack, the fighters paid no attention. Did they even hear?

She made a split-second decision. She climbed on the windowsill and jumped.

Screaming at the top of his lungs, the boy jumped up and ran to the window. Through his eyes, I saw our mother face down on the edge of the curb in a pool of her own blood. In unbearable pain he shrieked and howled, on and on, overwhelmed.

His screams got their attention. The fighters paused in confusion. The boy climbed down and ran out to our mother, and no one stopped him. I was still with him as he turned our mother's lifeless body over.

In the background, people were saying she likely would have lived (though surely injured) if she had not landed on the edge of the curb. When she hit that uneven surface, her legs gave out and her face hit the pavement.

And then--as suddenly as his torment began, it was over. He stopped crying. His pain was gone. He, or I, was able to realize from within the innocent perspective of a child that though her death made no logical sense, she had made her choice out of pure love, and it was out of pure love that she was allowed to make that choice. Whether she thought she could jump and live and then catch her children when they jumped, or she thought that by jumping her children would have a better chance of survival as they'd be found not in the presence of an "enemy" adult, or she thought that by getting the fighters' attention her jump might make them notice and spare her children--she did it out of love.

But her son, who should have been forever protected by her, knew in his soul that she did it out of love. And it's love that gave her the freedom to choose--to act on her love.

IN THE MORNING

For me the meaning seems clear: no matter who you empathize with (especially in family dynamics) you must always compassionately allow those you love to choose, even if the consequences are painful. If allowed, pain itself can pass; and what can remain is quite simply the essence of love.

--Ms. Mira--

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