Soul Songs

 

Dream Images

“I’ll be seeing you

In all the old, familiar places

That this heart of mine embraces

All day through.

In that small café

In the park across the way,

The children’s carousel,

The chestnut tree, the wishing well.

I’ll be seeing you

In every lovely summer’s day

In everything that’s bright and gay

I’ll always think of you that way

I’ll find you in the morning sun

And when the night is new

I’ll be looking at the moon,

But I’ll be seeing you.”

(written by Irving Kahal and Sammy Fain)

          This is the song I woke with this morning—singing in my head, in a woman’s voice. If you are old enough, you remember it was a song about loneliness during World War II, first sung by Billie Holiday, and, a little later, by Frank Sinatra backed up by Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra. It was one of my parents’ favorite songs. They were music lovers, who, even when we didn’t have two dimes to rub together, managed to have music in the house almost all the time. Their first love was big bands, of course, since that was the music of their era. My dad introduced us to Elvis Presley in 1956, when he brought home a 45 record of “Love Me Tender.” Mother and Daddy sometimes danced in the living room. Mother mostly put up with Daddy’s bouncing boogies, telling me (secretly) that Uncle Jerry, his brother, was a better dancer. Mother was the queen of jitterbug back in the days before life’s low doorways took the starch out of her sails.

          I’m curious about why I would dream this song, though. It was written in 1938, and first recorded in 1945—all before I was born. Am I missing someone? Or is someone missing me? Dreams, we Jungians believe, come from the Self, aka the God-spark within. Just as they were in Biblical times, dreams are messages from our higher Self, spoken in symbolic language to convey something important from our soul. Maybe my soul is missing me! Certainly, the dream used a song with some of my favorite images—small café, park across the way, chestnut tree, wishing well, sun, moon, bright summer’s day. The dream-maker pays attention to our thoughts and uses them to convey its messages. (And sometimes, it just makes stuff up!)

          I wonder whether you pay attention to your dreams. More and more, mine come in the form of songs, or at least, lyrics. One of my sons dreams poems—full blown and complete, and often, rhyming; and one of them sometimes becomes a large predatory bird in his dreams. The scary part of it is, he loves it! Flying and swooping! That’s the best!

What are your dreams about? Do you take them seriously? If you thought God was whispering something in your ear, wouldn’t you want to hear it? Well, using the vehicle of dream, God is. So, listen up!

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane