Seasonal Dreams

Shifting sands move under our feet as we find ourselves back on the beach. The scene sharpens and we talk through the landscape of a gathering evening. The sea and sky sparkle with silvery grey and a land of beckoning mystery emerges. With no further thought I drift away over the horizon.

I walk through the echoes of our summer life, a form all in shadows amidst moving moments of change. Travel and teachings spin all around me; I’m spellbound as a Buddhist master speaks. Reality ripples. An instant of scalpel-sharp clarity slices the detritus of countless fantasies clean off the bone.

I flash in and out, following traces of family visions. Clinking glasses and conversation conjure restaurant meals and hotel-room evenings spread out against the sky. Amidst a sudden burst of heat, magical French minutes shyly step forth and I look within, deep into the stillness of a countryside retreat.

Later, somehow, I’m sitting on a plane fantastically high up in a seamless sky of baffling blue. For an endless second, time’s elastic stretches and I fall off the edge into an unseen world.

I lose myself and reappear in the midst of our Californian illusions. Fall breathes its gentle glow into the air and The Manjushri School’s doors open. I step through and we’re walking the hound. The music of J Alfred’s love song soars and Michelangelo smiles.

Deep in the works and days of hands, we chant Latin declensions and conjugations. I float past a classroom, grin at Galileo throwing his Maths book and land alongside the hound once again. This time we’re beneath a neon sky painted with an evening palette of lavender pink.

Tall cacti from a garden across the way salute, opening the door to a desert dream but I’ve already gone the distance and I raise my eyes to the tune of a mist-shrouded morning. The beach has drifted away along with the evening and the unwritten promise of an unborn day hovers.