Dreams

 "A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities" Nathaniel Hawthorne

May 20th is World Bee Day which was decided by the UN. The date was chosen as it was the birthday of the famous beekeeper, Anton Jansa, who wanted to draw the world's attention to the importance of bees to the survival of humanity. It was believed crucial to make others aware that bees are considered to be the most instrumental in pollination which ensures the supply of food, keeps agriculture thriving, and biodiverse. He wanted the world to know that bees also play a role in lessening the effects of climate change and conserving the environment. Then this would lay grounds for the care and protection of bees over the long term and aid in the solution of reducing poverty and hunger as well as sustaining a thriving environment that is biodiverse.  This may have been the dream of Anton Jansa and probably the dream of those who began this initiative of the UN. 

In the past couple of weeks, I have been learning so many new things about bees and being reminded of others I had forgotten, in preparation for sharing with my kindergarteners. Some that I found so interesting were that bees can count and understand zero, they dance to communicate with others about where to find food, and one of the most interesting that I discovered this time was that they may even dream. The research suggests that because of all the work their brains do, rest is of great importance, and they sleep five to eight hours a day. Their antennae have been observed moving in distinct patterns as they sleep which indicates dreaming. If this is the case, it is believed they could be storing memories as we do when we dream as well as allowing their bodies to rest, repair, and rejuvenate. 

I know it is important not to anthropomorphize other living creatures, but I wonder if science shows us that they follow the same dream process in sleep that humans do, could they also have dreams in their waking hours? It was an interesting thought and discussion with five-year-olds this week to think of bees having cherished aspirations, ambitions, or ideals. Do they daydream about becoming the queen bee as they fight others to the death to attain this role?  Are they working in collaboration with nature to fulfill the dream of ending world hunger?  

I had a friend in high school that had a world map on his wall with push pins decorating it.  He told me these were the places he wanted to go when he finished school. This was his dream. I am not sure how he arrived at this dream. He was reading a lot of books by Edmund Hillary, who also happened to be a beekeeper,  about his climbing Mt. Everest and his other adventures, and this resonated with him.  He wanted to see these places for himself. He also had thought he may want to be a beekeeper one day too but I digress.  I didn't realize that all through his university days, he was working and saving money to pay for his higher education as well as trying to save to bring this dream to life when his degree was complete. After four years, he packed a very minimalist backpack and headed off.  On this trip, he would visit, Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji. Then the money ran out as well as the fuel for his dream and he returned home. It was not long after his return that he began plotting his next adventure. This time he would cover most of Europe, and Asia in the year away. He traveled with a friend for this year and although much of their travel unfolded spontaneously, there was a pull to Mt. Everest that kept him moving in this direction. The day arrived finally and the two hiked for twenty-three days to the base camp of Everest while tenting along the way. He told me later that even though his travels didn't quite end at the base camp when he reached that point a feeling came over him that he couldn't quite explain but knew that he was ready to go home. He was ready to dream a new dream. This friend, adventurer, and dreamer later became my husband and life partner.   His dreams have continued to change over the years but the thread that has woven through his reality is that he continues to dream.   

I recently heard Arthur Brooks, a Harvard professor talking about the key to having happiness sprinkled throughout our lives was to be able to have aspirations and desires, in other words, dreams throughout our entire lives and not to rely on the fulfillment of those dreams we had in our first half of life to sustain us for our whole lives. There are so many dreams to dream when we are young, dreaming of love, home, career, children, and travel which really translate to our dreams of making a life. These are the traditional dreams with so many other unique ones that take us on varying paths as we listen to our own hearts along the way but he was saying how important it is to have the dreams for the second half of our lives as well. This is not to say that we are carrying over, holding on to or ruminating over the dreams that we didn't fulfill from those years. It is about being honest with ourselves and our longings, passions, and desires and finding new ways to dream.  

Just as without bees humanity will not exist, we as humans can become dead inside without our dreams. Dreams represent our aliveness. They are our promise to ourselves that there is a tomorrow and that we can indeed be fully alive at all stages of life.  A few years ago I was teaching a yoga class to a group of teachers and I believe the theme of the class was about being fully present and I referenced that life was not a dress rehearsal. A couple of weeks later, one of the teachers came up to me and said that what I had said had really spoken to her and that she had gone home and talked to her husband about it. She said that they had always wanted to learn to ballroom dance so she had enrolled them in a class and they were really enjoying it. I was happy for her that she was acting on a dream. We ended up in different schools so our yoga sessions ended and when I heard of her a couple of years later, I learned that her husband had died unexpectedly. My first thought beyond the tragedy and grief was of the two of them dancing together hand in hand. There are so many others we come in contact with that are living with agitation or numbness and are not even sure why.  They seem to have given up on the concept of dreams for themselves or the world around them.  Somewhere along the way, they got the message that dreams were for the young or the self-absorbed. They believed that it was too late for the dream they had or they weren't interested in the traditional dreams that others had projected onto them. I think many of us are using life-giving energy to deny our dreams and keep them hidden and in this way, they are not able to come to light. I think that when we don't share our dreams and continue to believe in the possibility or steps we can take towards them or the creation of new ones, we may be dying a little inside and we are burdening those around us or in our care with that knowledge whether spoken or unspoken. We are sending the message to our families and friends that dreaming is not important and that it is also unrealistic.

Right now my husband and I are dreaming of creating a small flower garden to nourish both ourselves and the bees. A small dream but one we share together. We are also holding close to our dream of living in a world where being safe applies to all living beings and creatures. Where people are allowed to have sovereignty over themselves and their bodies, Where children come first and adults do whatever it takes to ensure their well-being. The beauty of these kinds of dreams is that they allow all of us collectively to live in our world as it exists, with the perseverance to continue to dream and take the steps that we are able to bring dreams to life that collectively create the world we all want to live in.