Saturday, Memorial Day weekend.  This is a strange beginning to summer, a season feeling “out of time,” something unlike any beginning of summer that I’ve experienced.  This is the aftermath of the self quarantine-social-distancing for the past two months or so that has been necessary to slow the advance of the covid-19 virus.  The effort has been “successful” to a degree, lives have been saved, development of a vaccine is pressing ahead.  However uncertainty remains, as the virus, a life-form opportunistically driven to reproduce itself will spread due to the relaxed attitude and behaviors of quarantine weary people.  Human life is drained of emotional energy, abstracted of fulfillment if we cannot see facial expressions of others, and upon occasion benefit from the ritual of shaking hands.  A mere mechanical exchange of information, to place an order on Amazon, or to have a meal delivered by Grubb Hub is not as satisfying as making a purchase in the old way, or sitting down to a meal at your favorite local Mexican restaurant.

The dissonance that I feel arises from the fact, that it is the mind that fashions reality, “the real” is a construction of my mind, of your mind.  We live within the reality that is a product of our mind’s desire, and sometimes we die, a direct result of living inside of that “reality.”  This is a time of plague, and the old routines have been changed indefinitely.

I was dismayed to hear that our President declared that houses of worship were “essential,” as crucial to well-being as are grocery stores or pharmacies.  This allows the President to countermand a Governor’s direction that churches remain closed until incidences of covid-19 illness fall below the level set by the CDC.  Of course, believe whatever you’d like, if you gather with a large crowd, the odds are, many are going to become ill and some will die.  The President understands this.  However pandering to the religionists, and the true believers who will vote for him on November 11, is more important than a few thousand extra deaths.  The mind conjures up what the mind desires…… 

With a note of sadness I offer this wonderful tune composed by Gary Wright in 1975.  The lyrics were written in response to John Lennon’s comment that he was the dream weaver of the 1960s breaking away from the old dogmas and influences.  There is a given note of tragedy to the human condition, that can be found as far back as the plays of  Sophocles.  The song is a prayer, an appeal to a unnamed “god” for a pathway, a unforeseen, heretofore unimagined course through the darkness to the coming light.  Erin Hamilton lends her angelic voice to this rendition of Dream Weaver.

We may part with a dogma that is threadbare, ill suited to our generation.  But we may be certain that something will arise to take its place.

Dream Weaver

by Gary Wright

I’ve just closed my eyes again
Climbed aboard the dream weaver train
Driver, take away my worries of today
And leave tomorrow behind

Ooh, dream weaver
I believe you can get me through the night
Ooh, dream weaver
I believe we can reach the morning light

Fly me high through the starry skies
Maybe to an astral plane
Cross the highways of fantasy
Help me to forget today’s pain

Ooh, dream weaver
I believe you can get me through the night
Ooh, dream weaver
I believe we can reach the morning light

Though the dawn may be coming soon
There still may be some time
Fly me away to the bright side of the moon
And meet me on the other side

Ooh, dream weaver
I believe you can get me through the night
Ooh, dream weaver
I believe we can reach the morning light
Dream weaver
Dream weaver