July Dream Prompt

Dear Dreamer,

Two years ago, O‘ahu citizens were still urgently calling for the U.S. Navy to effectively clean up the massive jet fuel spill that had recently polluted one of our largest underground aquifers, displacing many military families out of their homes where the taps were running fuel instead of water, and into hotel rooms. Concurrently and audaciously, the U.S.-hosted, bi-annual Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) brought military from some 29 nations (more than 25,000 personnel) to O‘ahu to train together for war.

And I had just completed the first year of my dream studies.

And the ocean was showing up in a lot of my dreams.

And I wondered how much of the jet fuel the navy’s tanks spilled into the groundwater was trickling out into the ocean.

Inspired by my studies in dream tending, I was curious about how the Ocean felt, what she would say if she could speak to me. What they would ask of me, considering everything they were enduring.

Since the RIMPAC “War Games” lasted 6 weeks, as soon as it ended I began a 6-week sitting practice of my own design: for anywhere between 15-45 minutes each day for 6 weeks, I sat with the ocean.

I was in observation mode, not only of the physical things I could notice like the waves and the color of the water, but also of the unseen–imagining into how Ocean himself was feeling.

Most of the time I did not go into the water, but sat on the sand or in my car on the road and just watched them. I was really trying to decenter my desires in our relationship, and prioritize listening to hers. The Ocean gives us so much all the time, it feels impossible to ever reciprocate, and I certainly didn’t want this practice to become extractive.

Though now I could easily imagine myself being convinced, by some argument about the politics of pleasure, to soften this rule. And indeed, sometimes I felt that he was inviting me in; he was pleased to find me pleased by his playful waves, so long as our relationship held this kind of mutual reverence.

I kept a journal of my noticings. Sometimes Ocean was fiery. Sometimes they were quiet and calm, plotting a secret resistance. Sometimes she longed to be more flourishing, more treasured. Many times he was tired.

RIMPAC is coming back again this summer, starting out in San Diego and ending in Hawai‘i from June 27-August 1st. Audaciously as always, while Gaza burns.

This year I plan to sit with the land each day for 6 weeks. Some days that may find me with Ocean again. But to save a bit on the carbon emissions of daily drives to the beach, I think most days I will find myself in my backyard, where a military-owned road crosses just beyond the bounds of our property.

It’s tragically funny, too, how easily we mistake more urban places as not being in nature. The erasure of the land that holds up the apartment building. What would it be like to listen to that land? Maybe I’m not brave enough for that yet.

I’m not sure what “action” will come out of this practice. I feel like the practice itself is the action. While many nations will be training for war together, I’ll be doing this other kind of training–maybe we could call it peace training, maybe something else.

I invite you to join me in this peace training/”field study”/sitting practice, and I invite you to do it in your own way. In your own places, in your own timing, for your own reasons, and with the love in your own heart for our one precious more-than-human world.

Jot some notes or doodles or voice memos, snap a pic or a vid along the way. I’d love to hear how it goes for you.

Love,

Tsuyuno

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