Water water everywhere.

Please let me stop dreaming of floods.

Inability to communicate.

I think our whole society tries to stabilize itself by starting out to destroy sensitivity to incoherence starting with very young children. If people could see the vast incoherence that is going on in society they would be disturbed and they would feel the need to do something. If you're not sensitive to it you don't feel disturned and you don't feel you need to do anything.
I remember an instance, a daughter was telling her mother, "this school is terrible, the teacher is terrible, very inconsistent, doing all sorts of crazy things," and so on. Finally the mother was saying, "You'd better stop this--in this house the teacher is always right." Now she understood that the teacher was wrong obviously, but the message was, it was no use. Even the message may have been right in some sense, but still it illustrates that the predicament is that in order to avoid this sort of trouble, starting with very young children, we are trained to become insensitive to incoherence. If there is incoherence in our own behavior, we thereby also become insensitive to it.
--David Bohm

I had the most peculiar dream last night.

I received a card from someone, even in the dream I wasn't sure who. Inside the card was a parable that was written in an old style, more like an Aesop's fable than a bible story. I wish I could remember the exact wording, but it told of two peasants who were foraging in the woods when it began to rain. Seeking shelter, they started towards a cave but when they got closer they saw that a lion was resting there. They quickly hid themselves in the brush. Knowing they had come very close to the lion they reasoned that the rain had masked their presence, as if the rain had created a cage for the lion. Feeling slightly relieved they peered through the brush at the lion. The lion's powerful gaze met their own and they were filled with awe. The lion knew they were there and yet showed them such mercy. In that moment the peasant's hearts were filled with purpose, to live life with pride, honor, dignity and mercy. This life is not in vain, this is what it means to be lionhearted.

Preface

Child of the pure unclouded brow
And dreaming eyes of wonder!
Though time be fleet, and I and thou
Are half a life asunder,
Thy loving smile will surely hail
The love-gift of a fairy-tale.

I have not seen thy sunny face,
Nor heard thy silver laughter;
No thought of me shall find a place
In thy young life's hereafter--
Enough that now thou wilt not fail
To listen to my fairy-tale.

A tale begun in other days,
When summer suns were glowing--
A simple chime, that served to time
The rhythm of our rowing--
Whose echoes live in memory yet,
Though envious years would say "forget."

Come, hearken then, ere voice of dread,
With bitter tidings laden,
Shall summon to unwelcome bed
A melancholy maiden!
We are but older children, dear,
Who fret to find our bedtime near.

Without, the frost, the blinding snow,
The storm-wind's moody madness--
Within, the firelight's ruddy glow
And childhood's nest of gladness.
The magic words shall hold thee fast:
Thou shalt not heed the raving blast.

And though the shadow of a sigh
May tremble through the story,
For "happy summer days" gone by,
And vanish'd summer glory--
It shall not touch with breath of bale
The pleasance of our fairy-tale.

--Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass