The City in the Sky

last night i had a dream that i was in the mountains at a spiritual school of some sort. there were monks teaching kids staring into bowls, the whole place was high up in the mountains with only the peaks poking through the clouds floating in the valley. i was passing through an open hallway and noticed that one mountain across the fog had a giant sculpture carved into it, of a man and a woman or of some gesture of love and protection.

wow, that's cool, i thought, i never noticed that before, and as i reached for my camera i remembered that it had been stolen and then i thought, dang! 

in the dream i had been coming to this place on an airplane and had gotten up to go to the bathroom and when i came back to my seat, a necklace i left there was gone. i thought it was the monk next to me but said nothing. then later, i was in the classroom of another monk- talking after class, when that same young monk came to ask a question. as he was leaving, the older teacher asked him to give back the things he had stolen from the classroom in the short time he was there- so the young monk started pulling stuff out of his pockets- an apple, keys, a pencil, and he tossed them back to the professor. apparently he was a klepto- monk and this was a regular occurance. 

the older monk remained dispassionate about it and only put the stuff back on his desk, but i, realizing that this must be the guy who had stolen all my stuff in mexico, ran and jumped on him and we tumbled down some stairs and around the corner and then i was really beating the crap out of him- crying and yelling at him in a rage that he had taken things from me that were given to me by my family and by my deceased father, my deceased abuela! as i said 'dead father' there was a short pause while i realized that there might not be very much relation between the necklaces my father had given me (and which were actually stolen in mexico) and my father and the memories that i have of him. but i still wanted to make the monk feel bad, really really bad, for taking them so i yelled, 'you took the camera which held photos of people i care about!' and he was still smiling, almost laughing- oh really? and we both knew- what do those photos have to do with your friends? 

it also occurred to me that it was kind of hypocritical- here i was really beating this guy up- in a moral rage over the wrong he had done. to me. that's the kicker, isn't it?

still, i just wanted to make him hurt like i had hurt, and he was only laughing- so i clocked him one right in the head and then it disappeared and i was shocked but i saw he had only bent his neck back and his head was still there. he brought it back, smiling, and i was looking at him still filled with rage, and then i woke up.

at first i thought, how awful to have a dream like that and wake up feeling like this- engulfed in all the rage i have for the thieves. but now, as the day has moved on i see what the dream was telling me. what i am telling myself over and over about why i hate the thieves and why they deserve to suffer- might not even be true. i could tell when i yelled at the monk that my reasons didn't feel true in my own heart- that i didn't believe them. 

it was a really really sucky experience, losing these things that were very precious to me- gifts from friends and family, and man, i am very sorry to have lost them, but in a way, having this lesson, that things are not human experience and love, is more valuable. 

basically, you can't take any object here with you when you go, and the things that might seem to represent those who have gone to us still here, actually don't - you cant keep them here on earth.