The Subtle Task of Helping Dreamers
Can you let someone else solve their own riddle, while you remind them of its words?
Can you play a bumbling mirror, reflecting as best you can what you see and hear?
Can you set your curiosity far away, and let its distant song, carried on the wind, lead you without overwhelming you?
Can you study at someone else’s knee, learning their magic as their dreaming world teaches it?
Can you comport yourself as a guest, in a strange land that doesn’t need you for purpose, meaning, or solutions?
I don’t even know if I can do that. But I do my best.
March 16th, 2008 at 11:42 am
For your first two questions Willem, these are the goals of practicing the listening skills that are taught to people who are studying to be counsellors. These skills are very enlightening to practice. I found out how poor at listening I sometimes am.
I’m still thinking about the third question.
I strive to do what the fourth question suggests.
Hmmm this last question, at first I would say yes I’ve done that and do that. A lot of my life I have been places where I was an outsider. I enjoy “strange lands”
Then again sometimes I wonder how/why I ended up there if my presence is so superfluous. The presence of a guest can provide or enhance meaning or purpose.
March 16th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I of course, meant these as questions for a person supporting Dreamers in their work, but you’ve seemed to have interpreted them in a more intriguing and general way. Cool!
As for the last question, it points to the need to make yourself obsolete, to support the other’s self-sufficiency, from a skill point of view.
Offering this kind of mentoring and support of course only strengthens interdependence, but I have seen far too many teachers who won’t let go of the teacher-student relationship when the time comes, who in fact handicap their students to keep them always needing more ‘wisdom’.
The ol’ guru complex.
Of course, in few places does this guru complex manifest itself as powerfully as in the interpretation of another person’s private Dreamworld. Grrr. Rather than the support of guiding elders, we have gurus ‘telling you what your dream means’.
Ick.
March 16th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Sorry, I was on my own track there wasn’t I.
March 16th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Hey. I enjoyed it.