Winter Dreams

It's 3:30am and I am awake.

It seems that with the inactivity of winter and sickness comes vivid dreams- like the ice on the branches- a dream's logic is frozen, encased and unable to move- yet undeniable in its accuracy and believability- until consciousness makes you say, WHAT THE BLOODY HELL WAS THAT ABOUT??

Case in point: I just dreamt that George Bush and Dick Cheney tried to sell me an investment plan in oil. It was in the lobby of a hotel I had stayed at last year, Montreal I think. Very chic and modern.

Dick and George were all twitchy and nervous as they pitched me their plan, which was a strange combination of not only oil, but sugar interests as well. But the kicker was that it was vegetable oil, canola oil I think, not crude.

You know, the stuff you make cakes out of.

I have never understood the commodities markets, so I listened patiently.

In the sales literature, inbetween the company profile and the financial information, they showed a section on their human interests- chairties, etc. They showed that they put on puppet shows of Mary Poppins for hospital kids with some of the profits.

But because it was a dream, the puppets came to life on the page. They spoke in Cockney slang, like "Ya know, Mate!" and "Luv ya Guv!"

Then they started whispering to me, telling me not to buy the plan, because they were being held captive at Gitmo- being forced to do this play, over and over again- in some sort of Groundhog Day of endless repetitiveness.

The "Bert" puppet (the Dick Van Dyke character) said in a low tone, "I can't stand it guv, they pull my strings, they pull them harrrd! It makes me cry at night."

At that point Cheney quickly closed the brochure and snatched it out of my hands.

Sheepish and uncomfortably silent, Dick and George sat there looking at their shoes for a moment.

I thanked them for their time- then moved on in my dream.

What is interesting, (and of course I see the irony of the dream)- is that I think the people at Gitmo probably deserve to be there. They are bad people. But unlike a lot of people, I also see the war as a necessary action to protect our oil interests and keep our economy stable.

The war isn't good or evil, it is just a necessary cog in this huge consumeristic engine that is called, the Western ecomony. If we choose to drive minivans, buy billions of dollars worth of inexpensive goods from China and fly all over the world with this monsterously wasteful technology (that I am all too willing a participant of-) then peoples lives are going to be effected- economically, physically and spirtuality. I have to accept the guilt/responsibility of my actions with full consciousness. It is my dollar which is causing this pain in the world- Yet it is that same dollar that keeps my family fed and clothed- Where does Solomon's sword stop?

My family is my small tribe and I am their elder. When I strip away all the convienances of the modern world, there is nothing left but instinct and love for them.

By the way, I also don't hate Bush or Cheney- but I guess I after tonight, I wouldn't buy the ingredients of a cake from them.