i feel so good.

the grass around me vibrates with the greenness of life. The sun shines from within each blade, the secret truth that reveals itself only most perfectly in dreams: all life carries the sun. my head lays on her belly, and in perfect comfort we share words, sometimes with me turning over to look fondly on her kidding face, revealing the dazzle that lives in my eyes between us, only in this most perfect of worlds, the comfort of a dream fulfilled.

how can it be so perfect? yes - first, it is the absence of restlessness. anxiety has abandoned my body so that a long, dwelling summer afternoon can be inhaled without intrusion by the stray, unformed thought and body sense, of something to be done. Comfort and peace. I can feel them here wtih her. It must mean that my body yearns not for attention, for I attend daily to it, throughout the day; care for my body lives as my way of life. I inhale the imagined memory of having worked out in energy-circulaitng martial arts that morning; and of walking to this spot with her feelilng my energy in my body and, by feeling it, circulating it consciously through the walk and the breath - a consciousness present but not distracting from each perfect moment with this hill, these draping leaves from trees, with her. I am alive and present, aware of a total absence of imbalance.

how can it be so perfect? Where is the devaluation of this sort of down-time, where is the nagging sense of more important work i am neglecting? Yes, it must mean I am actively engaged in this throughout the week - and that global warming is on its way to being solved, and people being healed, that processes are running their course even as I indulge in this beauty of life on Earth, the cause of it all, processes set in motion through partnerships and actions taken the week before. My life is being lived well, and this moment purely adorned by the beauty of nature and my love's heart is cradled in the confidence that this kind of life, and all life, will go on.

but where is my discomfort sharing intimacy with another? How does all this external beauty and personal contentment also allay the anxiety I usually have sharing my heart with another? how can it be so perfect? I feel and search, and discover, yes, we have come to an understanding, through long unfolding of ourselves to each other, through a history of assuring smiles just when fears threatened to invite themselves back in, through healed mistakes enough to plant the knowledge that our hearts cherish and protect each other, even when our actions occasionally forget to. It means I am happy with her, I have not settled, but rather climbed up into the dream hung on that sweet southern accent always knowing the right thing to say. It means, more importantly, that she is happy with me, too, and with her life, and that I trust that.

Somehow even money anxiety dissolves in this world. This does mean, doesn't it, that the work my heart has called me to of leading the saving of the Earth has been recognized and duly appreciated. It means I have not sold myself short, that my path has led me to heal and claim the balance of what I give. The actions of my heart pour into the world, and I no longer shy from the influx of the tide returning. the perfection of this moment is built on the peace I have made with this balance; energy out, energy in. So the beauty outside is able to reproduce within me, and the harmony of nature meets my mind free from worry, unattached to passing thoughts, as light as clouds floating by.

Perhaps in the way of the long, slow caress that the summer breeze waves over the long grass, we make love. And it is without hurry, and without the fear of scarcity that so many drained slumbers have instilled. Perhaps I have found a new way to move my energy, or perhaps the perfection of this cultivated life has created abundance in me, and wisdom of choice, and preference for actions that always grow the energy in my lower center. It must mean also that the disease has escaped from my bones into my past, and that strong blood courses fully through me now once again. For when we complete this act of connection, I am standing, and feeling my body for what it wants next, and that is a cool plunge into a deep, nearby stream. descending in the pool, I am at once cleansed and released, from the beauty of a summer afternoon, back into the beauty of my soul quiet, at peace. From the purity of this restored state, I notice her plunge in next to me. We play with the innocence of young children.

As our bodies run back home to nourish themselves with clean food and relax into evening, I enter the dream again. All is the same this time, but now the eyes that dazzle from deep in our two brains tickled by existence turn to meet the young ones, one boy and a younger girl, both of them brown-haired, though we both are blond. Their shrill committments to joy turn to giggles as they enter arms that sweep them to flight. Sensing the perfect, my brain shuffles through images of children tossed high in the air and back down into caring arms, but passes on this uncertain excitement. Instead, my two hands cradle my child, one on her belly and one on her back, as she darts and turns, accelerates and swoops, experiencing all the thrill of freedom in the universe without leaving the warmth of loving hands.

The home we return to is perfect, the office I sit at to record a dream has windows clear as crystal, and clean lines of sight to the valley and foliage beyond. Something of this is my picture of perfection, but something of it is also cold, despite my warm partner and fabulous children - reminding me of a cold from my youth.

This is not the world - of isolation, in a large, cavernous house, a voice nags me - that can be considered perfect in the future. Where is the life, the community, the face-to-face and human touch of the lives with whom we interweave, and are not separate from? Suddenly, the halls teem with bodies, voices, movement, smiles; flash-bulbs of light flutter in my brain as it transitions to a shared community of family, friends, collaborators on a project larger and yet singular in all our hearts. And then I find peace. This is the home to return to. We are making this perfection together.

Afterword;

A dream and a picture, chosen from a healed body, found as perfect for the first time this night, instead of stress from thoughts of obligated next steps which may have been prolonging my weakness. I dedicated my hour long healing and my twenty-minute dream to my Sangha, who sat twenty minutes away across Cambridge, whom utter exhaustion and throbbing temples upon rising had kept me from joining in body. Yet, I remembered the philosophy that healing was not only for oneself, but also the benefit of the sangha, and felt the connection to their circle as I sat, observing the final ten minutes of class, in meditation.

Why had a dream never been so perfect before? I considered our readings on internalized oppression, on 12-step programs and my own workaholism, and saw a deep manifestation of my own loneliness, in a mind that had never been comfortable dreaming of perfection. If I can not dream it, how can it be? In such a matter-of-fact way, I could see the ways that many of my problems were contained within me.

"...I can slow down a bit. It means that I can do only what I can do, one day at a time. It means that this is good and that it is enough. There will always be others in this and other generations to carry the load with me, or for me, if I can do no more." On this day, ironically, when I could not join the sangha, when the need for healing confined me to my home, it was my connection to the sangha, to the intentional gathering around processes of healing, that helped me define my own healing space and time in my home. The fact that they had gathered for this purpose gave me the strength and intention to more directly pursue healing within my time of reduced health than I had been doing otherwise. Though my problem may be "one of isolation, or disconnection from right relation," the spirit has been feeding me - through enticing promises of relationships more balanced than I have found so far, in life or in dreams - an appreciation that "healing will be with one another, in community and connection."

*quotes by Carter Heyward, 1992

*sangha = members of a class led by Kwok Pui-Lan, Episcopal Divinity School, Spring 07.

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Andrew Varyu