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UPDATED Saturday morning to include an attempt at dream interpretation – see below.

I am cleaning out my pocketbook. This in itself doesn’t seem so unusual: in this dream, it appears that I have always carried around a large, black pocketbook just like my mother’s, though when I think about it later, I wonder if perhaps it wasn’t really an old-fashioned doctor’s bag.

What triggers disbelief in my watcher-mind – the part of my consciousness that is always observing things from a safe distance, whether I’m asleep or awake – is the vast quantity of stuff I pull out of it. In short order I remove roughly four times what the bag appears capable of holding, get frightened and stop. Most of the contents consist of food and drink items. There’s a fifth of whiskey in soft plastic, an unopened half-gallon container of orange juice, and a sizable stack of Tupperware containers full of lunch and dinner leftovers, none of which I remember stowing away. I hand the food and the orange juice to a hungry friend, who conveniently appears at my elbow. I keep the whiskey “for emergencies,” nestling it down among the keys and coins and tissues at the bottom of the pocketbook. “Look how much lighter it is now,” I say to myself, giving the black bag an exploratory swing.

*

I’m descending a steep, grassy hillside when an enormous bird of prey kites past. It catches sight of me and banks sharply, circling in for a closer look. I note the white head and tail feathers: bald eagle! And I immediately regret leaving my camera back in the storage locker. The eagle and I size each other up from about fifty feet away. The more I look at him, the more he resembles an old, old man with feathers all over his body. His face registers deep anger and disgust. He pivots in the brisk wind and sails back up the hillside, disappearing behind the far side of the ridge.

*

Those were the two dreams that stuck with me this morning after I awoke. As regular readers know, I spin dreams into blog posts often enough. But I had been inspired to take a renewed interest in my dreaming by the new blog talkingdream, which I just came across yesterday evening, following a link from Velveteen Rabbi. Talkingdream is dedicated to the notion that “Dreams have the power to reveal us to ourselves, and they are too important to ignore.” It’s the work of none other than Rodger Kamenetz, author of The Jew in the Lotus and Stalking Elijah – two of my favorite popular works on religion. I was very excited that a writer of his insight and ability would be taking dreams so seriously; he says he’s recorded over 800 pages in dream journals over the course of four years. Best of all, Kamenetz has posted a draft of the first chapter of his new book on dreams, and invites comments and suggestions. Do go look.

*

In a comment responding to the first version of this post, Brenda notes that the dreams I describe “seem to be ‘medicine man’ dreams, and I suspect you are drawn towards the shaman… are already on that path.” This is a bit more charitable than the interpretations I had come up with.

Much as I might protest against Freud, I’m a product of my culture: I have a hard time seeing dreams as anything more than reflections of my anxieties and neuroses. And since I tend to be fairly self-critical anyway, naturally, a reductionist interpretation is going to occur to me long before an expansive or prophetic one.

In the first dream, it’s not surprising that I conflate pocketbook with refrigerator, both things I associate with my mother and with abundance. The magical capacity of the bag to yield more than it contains may have been influenced by a magic show put on by my niece on the evening of New Year’s Day. That’s a much more likely direct source than, say, the New Testament story about the loaves and fishes. I don’t think I have a Christ complex!

The true subject of the dream, it seems to me, was my blogging, which is, after all, the activity that currently dominates my free time. Since my mother is also a writer (and since I am also a cook), it’s not surprising that I would associate inspiration with her pocketbook – a mystery wrapped inside an enigma wrapped inside black vinyl, as a storyteller on NPR once described his own mother’s bag of tricks. My dream protagonist’s apprehension about the unlimited contents of the bag/subconscious mind probably echoes my anxiety about my tendency to say too much, to not know when to stop. His willingness to give everything away to a single friend seems to reflect my general contentment with the status quo, in which I feel fortunate in being able to share my output with just a few readers, many of whom have become friends.

What about the whiskey? In real life, I don’t drink whiskey more than once in a blue moon, and don’t generally enjoy anything stronger than a glass of wine. But if I’m correct in thinking that the pocketbook represents the source of my inspiration, then it’s natural that it would have enough room for something so symbolic of the high produced by immersion in writing or photography.

The second dream is an easier nut to crack, I think. The direct source for the eagle imagery was undoubtedly the blog Dharma Bums, which frequently features stunning photographs of bald eagles. I’m pretty sure my dream eagle symbolizes wild America, and the anger and disgust that it directed toward me undoubtedly arises from my feelings of guilt that I am not doing enough as an environmental activist.

Does that mean that the figure in my dream could not have been a messenger of some sort? No, I think it can easily work both ways. As I implied in my post on Creationism the other day, the only God that makes sense to me is one that works through natural phenomena, such as the operation of guilt upon the unconscious mind.

But I am suspicious of efforts to treat dreams as omens, personal or otherwise. There’s a kind of egotism about omen reading that’s very seductive: one gains an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance, just as in a paranoid fantasy. That’s why, even as I acknowledge the possibility that dreams are in some sense messages from Whatever, I generally prefer turning them into lyrical paragraphs or poems rather than trying to subject them to interpretation. As literary art, they remain alive and open to multiple readings. I guess it’s no secret that I have very mixed feelings about the value of literary criticism – the dream interpretation of our age. I always prefer watching butterflies on the wing to seeing them pinned and mounted under glass. And when it comes right down to it, as Zhuangzi long ago observed, who can say whether any of us are more than fleeting protagonists in a butterfly’s dream?

New camera, taken with the old camera.

Old camera, taken with the new camera.

The old camera is a Kodak DC220; the new camera is a FujiFilm S5200. Digital cameras made by film companies: does this make sense?

One of the many new settings on the Mode dial of the new camera is Manual. I was initially excited by this, until I discovered that it did not mean that I could search the owner’s manual in the LCD window, and thus avoid actually reading it.

I haven’t figured out some of the icons yet. For example, one of the settings uses the symbol of Islam – a crescent moon with a star. I’m guessing that this is for night-time shots, but I’m almost afraid to try it. Another shows a head and upper torso with two ripples on either side of it – the way they depict fear or cold in the cartoons. Clearly, this is an instrument to be approached with some caution.

For a few days after Christmas, I had my brother Steve’s best friend Sam and two of his kids staying with me, because there was no room at the inn. Sam is a professional entomologist and Steve an advanced amateur, and they are joint custodians of an insect collection that fills nine large cabinets and includes over 100,000 specimens that they’ve collected all over the world. One evening, Steve and Sam waxed philosophic about the differences between insects and people. We had just been discussing the problems and ramifications of excess flatulence – that is, telling fart jokes.

“People are so gross!” Steve said. “I mean, we’re just disgusting! The human body might look good from a distance, but close up, forget it. I mean, we’re always exuding mucous, sweat, body odor… Insects are clean.”

“Are you saying you actually find insects more attractive than human beings?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah! I mean, insects have this bright, shiny armor surrounding their bodies, and all these cool-looking appendages…”

“What about bombardier beetles, shooting scalding acid out their butts?” Sam asked. “That’s a little gross, wouldn’t you say?” A brief discussion of bombardier beetles ensued.

“I know what you mean, though,” Sam admitted. “I’ll be studying an insect under the magnifying glass for a long time, then suddenly look at my thumb and go, wow. Ewww.”

*

Two bright, shiny new blogs caught my attention this past week, and both feature very familiar voices. “Nomen est Numen” has molted and emerged in an adult form as autobiology, where, the author says, “I’m writing because I want to be more accountable to myself.” Meanwhile, someone calling himself teju cole has launched a blog with a life expectancy of just one month. “Mostly, you can expect words and images related to a journey I made to Nigeria in December 2005,” he says, “though from time to time I may stray from that brief.”

Brief is right! Get it while it’s fresh, as the blowfly said to the carrion beetle.

*

The New Year’s Eve installment of the invertebrate blog carnival Circus of the Spineless is due out later today at bootstrap analysis, a great blog in its own right. Billed as the “chronicles and musings of an urban field ecologist,” it’s full of great stuff such as book and journal reviews and the low-down on neon-blue rabbit piss. It will make you look at the urban environment in a whole new light.

*

Your average “year in review” story describes 2005 as a year of unprecedented natural disasters. But man-made disasters are always more appalling to me – and in many cases, of course, the former grade into the latter, when you consider factors such as ravaged coastal wetlands or shoddily built public schools in earthquake zones.

Worst of all are disasters perpetrated by outworn and dangerous ideologies, such as the gospel of economic growth. Here’s one of the creepiest things I’ve read all year.

*

If you’re looking for something to keep you occupied while waiting for the ball to drop, check out The Infinite Teen Slang Dictionary. It’s, like, totally wharf.

The 13th edition of I and the Bird is up at Woodsong, and it’s brimming over with more holiday spirit than a mug of eggnog. Note that this is a blog carnival for all bird lovers, not just birders, so my ivorybill posts don’t seem too out-of-place. (Thanks, Cindy!) Do go visit.

The first post for qarrtsiluni’s December theme, “Finding Home,” is up, and it’s excellent. Dale of mole is an astonishingly good writer when he wants to be.

“Home,” ever since, has been loose in its socket. An undependable word. Or maybe — as I have more recently come to think of it — a little opening, a window, through which a wider, richer, more dangerous world can be glimpsed.

I believe there’s still time to submit original writing or artwork for this month’s theme. See the qarrtsiluni sidebar for contact information and guidelines.

This lengthy article from the NY Times is a must-read for anyone interested in Tibet, the Dalai Lama, and/or liberation struggles and the politics of nonviolence. The debate between the older generation of monks and the younger Tibetan activists, turning on fundamental questions about the relationship between means and ends, reminds me of some of the more memorable discussions from this corner of the blog world over the past couple of years.

“Our ultimate goal,” Samdhong Rinpoche told me, “is not just political freedom but the preservation of Tibetan culture. What will we gain if we win political freedom but lose what gives value to our lives? It is why we reject the option of violence. For respect for life is an inseparable aspect of the Tibetan culture we are fighting for.”

Tsundue, however, remained unconvinced when I reported Samdhong Rinpoche’s views to him. We were in a small bookshop owned by a friend of his, browsing through the collection of Tibet-related books. Tsundue immediately said that he could not identify Tibetan culture exclusively with Buddhism and that the preference for nonviolent politics could also become an excuse for passivity and inaction. “Our leaders quote Gandhi,” Tsundue said. “But Gandhi saw British rule in India as an act of violence and said that resistance to it was a duty. I see the Chinese railway to Lhasa as a similar act of violence. What’s wrong with blowing up a few bridges? How can such resistance be termed wrong and immoral?”

Many young Tibetans speak with admiration of the Khampa warriors of eastern Tibet, who fought against the invading Chinese Army in 1950 and, in 1959, initiated the bloody revolt against Chinese rule, effectively forcing the Dalai Lama to choose between a subservient status in Tibet and exile in India. An account of the Khampas, published by the acclaimed Tibetan novelist Jamyang Norbu in 1987, inspired many Tibetans of Tsundue’s generation to consider more militant solutions to their problem. As Norbu, who now lives in the United States, told a filmmaker producing a documentary for PBS in 1997, “Some people don’t want to be enlightened, at least not immediately.” Norbu went on to say: “We are ordinary Tibetans. We drink; we eat; we feel passion; we love our wives and kids. If someone sort of messes around with them, even if they’re an army, you pick up your rifle.” Tibetans, he added, have an “affinity to their place they live in. And they don’t want the Chinese there. And his Holiness cannot understand this.”

In the end, I tend to side with H.H. and Samdhong Rinpoche about nonviolence and nationalism, the need to include all ethnicities in any future Tibetan state or autonomous region, etc. But I don’t understand why, if they truly accept the possibility of a generations-long exile as they say, they continue to scale back their demands for sovereignty. They seem to be intent on proving that they are good reservation Indians – which, it occurs to me, may be part of the reason for the Dalai Lama’s popularity in the U.S. We Americans love that figure of the noble savage who declares that “The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth”, or “I will fight no more forever”: wise, eloquent and best of all, accepting of defeat.

Facing west, the direction of the Blessed Lands both in northern Europe and in many parts of native North America. The place where the light goes each autumn, threatening to stay unless we can lure it back.

7:33 a.m.

7:34 a.m.

3:50 p.m.

3:51 p.m.

1) Republican “leaders” in the House of “Representatives” giving up, at least temporarily, on their latest attempt to deface and destroy the Arctic wilderness.

2) The good people of Dover, Pennsylvania voting in a new slate of school board candidates who have promised to restore natural causation to the science curriculum – and incidentally restore religion to its rightful position as an outside counter-weight to scientific hubris. (If only Kansas voters were less credulous about arguments that denature and attempt to second-guess Creation!)

3) The impossibility of discerning what is most likely to be true apart from considerations of what appears to be the most beautiful (or, as scientists like to say, elegant). As the New Yorker’s exposé on “intelligent design” points out, “to scientists, a good theory is one that inspires new experiments and provides unexpected insights into familiar phenomena.” Over the past century or more since the general acceptance of Darwin and Wallace’s theory of evolution by natural selection, some of those insights have included the astonishingly beautiful ideas of coevolution, convergent evolution, and cladistics. I.D., by contrast, “has inspired no nontrivial experiments and has provided no surprising insights into biology. As the years pass, intelligent design looks less and less like the science it claimed to be and more and more like an extended exercise in polemics.” And what could be uglier than that?

4) The fact that, thanks to evolution, one can think compassionately and synergistically, comprehending the world as numinous Creation – or givenness, as a philosopher might say. One corollary of this is that one can appreciate – and, with luck, communicate – the beauty of scientific theories without fully understanding the complex math, chemistry or physics upon which they are based, thus keeping one’s head from hurting too much.

5) The presence of readers who are co-creators, and writers who co-evolve and sometimes converge – in the blogosphere and beyond.

6) The fact that the beauty- and symmetry-obsessed Navajos, well in advance of J. B. S. Haldane, gave primacy in their creation story to the Air-Spirit People – insects. Long before anything else stirred,

Yellow beetles lived there. Hard beetles lived there. Stone-carrier beetles lived there. Black beetles lived there. Coyote-dung beetles lived there. … Whitefaced beetles made their homes there…

7) The pear tree behind my house, which this year turned a wondrous shade of orange instead of its usual dingy yellow.

With beauty before me, I walk.
With beauty behind me, I walk.
With beauty above me, I walk.
With beauty below me, I walk.
With beauty all around me, I walk.
It is finished in beauty.
It is finished in beauty.

(Navajo chantway refrain)

I’m excited by the theme for qarrtsiluni this month, “science as poetry.” This was the choice of the brand-new editors, Alison Kent and Maria Benet; I was pleased to be able to step aside and leave the blog in such capable hands. (Though I couldn’t resist a final, spur-of-the-moment post for the October theme on the death of Rosa Parks.)

Potential contributors having a hard time thinking of a topic need look no farther than the recent news that laboratory mice can sing (click on the link to hear recordings of the songs).

Scientists have known for decades that female lab mice or their pheromones cause male lab mice to make ultrasonic vocalizations. But a new paper from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis establishes for the first time that the utterances of the male mice are songs.

This finding, to be published Nov. 1 online by the journal Public Library of Science Biology, adds mice to the roster of creatures that croon in the presence of the opposite sex, including songbirds, whales and some insects.

“In the literature, there’s a hierarchy of different definitions for what qualifies as a song, but there are usually two main properties,” says lead author Timothy E. Holy, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurobiology and anatomy. “One is that there should be some syllabic diversity–recognizably distinct categories of sound, instead of just one sound repeated over and over. And there should be some temporal regularity–motifs and themes that recur from time to time, like the melodic hook in a catchy tune.”

The new study shows that mouse song has both qualities, although Holy notes that the ability of lab mice to craft motifs and themes isn’t quite on a par with that of master songsmiths like birds.

“Perhaps the best analogy for mouse song would be the song of juvenile birds, who put forth what you might call proto-motifs and themes,” he explains. “It’s not yet clear whether singing conveys an advantage to male mice during courtship, as it appears to do in birds.” …

“Studying this kind of response in mice lets us model higher-level tasks such as pattern recognition and learning in a brain where the neuroanatomy is much simpler than it is in humans,” he explains. “The idea is to help us lay a foundation on which we can eventually construct a very concrete understanding of how these tasks are accomplished in the human brain.”

Will science someday be able to explain what poets and musicians cannot: the source of inspiration? I’m not holding my breath.

At any rate, I already have a different idea in mind for this theme, so I offer the above story al que quiere. See the qarrtsiluni sidebar for the slightly expanded submission guidelines.