Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More




Holding Hands In A Dream

Cowboy Cottage, East Napa, California, USA

November 16, 2007



You held my hand in a dream. You reached over and took it. And held it. Just like that.

All the people standing around saw you do it. They wondered why. They wondered about the connection. They didn't get it. They thought it inappropriate.

Yet you don't let go.

When you hold my hand I swim, cleansed by the yes  of real love. I calm down. The frantic  melts. Then dreaming on, I breathe relaxing into comfortable sighing.

You hold my love in the palm of your hand as I hold yours, your hand and mine, walls of a cathedral, a sanctuary, our fingers its steeple.

In the sanctuary of You, deep in prayer and inquiry, I distinguish my life bizarrely keyed  to what others don't  get. My compass  points to what others think  oftentimes more than to who they really are. It's insidious. God! I'm thrown  to suppress my true nature in order to be nice, in order to satisfy others. Yet that simply cedes unwarranted power to others who manipulate further by never being satisfied.

It's pernicious. It bends my prayer. It skews my inquiry. Even in my dreaming.

Your hand in mine is the richest gift, getting still richer as it stays way longer than I silently plead for it to stay. I'm the other wall  of the cathedral, your co-architect. This space is worthy of the dignity and the magnanimity of all visitors. I'm ecstatic, joyed, honored, and humbled by the privilege. Neither Frank Lloyd Wright nor I.M. Pei would be unimpressed.

For the time being at least, that's a good view of things. There's dignity and honor in it. Then slowly, imperceptibly at first, it begins to shift, to change, to morph. After a while I see comparing you with the other wall isn't accurate after all. I like the equality  of looking at it that way. I like the equalness  of it. And yet even as an analogy, I see it's no longer accurate, no longer useful. It's just plain misleading.

Dreaming on, I'm a wall but you're not the other wall. If, even for a moment, you show up that way for me, it's you generously not correcting my naïveté, leaving my interpretation intact. When I've had time to enjoy then set aside interimly being a co-wall  with you, I see what's behind it. You're not the other wall. You're the foundation. You're a brick. But you're not just any  brick. You're the brick for all walls. You're the foundation for all bricks. The brick you are grants all bricks their brickness. The foundation you are grants all walls their wallness. Really.

So we're sitting here in my dream holding hands, and you're not a wall anymore. You've morphed into a brick, into the foundation of the cathedral. I ask myself if you and I are equal. I mean I really  delve into the inquiry. The first answers coming up say we're equal. Then I notice they have a cardboard rote  undistinguished blandness to them which arouses my skepticism of my own pretentiousness.

Giving up what I'm conditioned to say about all human beings being equal, giving up what sounds right  ie giving up the right thing to say  I blurt out "I AM YOU but I'm not you!", liberated by the sheer delight of finally getting to what's so. I haven't done what you've done. No, it's more than that, actually. Except in the realms of "maybe" and "someday", it's unlikely I'll ever  do what you've done ...  That's the god-damned  truth!

When you're holding my hand I have it we're equal. But it's not true. No sense lying about it. Yes it's 99% true we're equal. But it's who you are supports me. It's 1% true who you are supports me. Yet the 1% who you are supports me is bigger than the 99% we're equal. By far. Even in my dreaming.

Please don't let go. Ever.



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