A " Contact " dream

Last night I had an unusual dream - vivid, pleasant, and

    lucid. It may have been inspired by a rather sad newspaper story

    about the " last farm in Rhode Island " or images of my brother

    Steve' recent visit to sunny Italy or the Carl Sagan movie " Contact "

    where space traveler Jodie Foster  finds herself in an alien

    " golden country " controlled by semi-divine beings .

             In my dream I found myself back on an old New England

    farm at harvest time, in late August or early September. I was

    ecstatic by the abundance and variety  and the beauty of the

    farm produce all around me - a scene right out of the Roman

    poet Virgil's " Georgics ".

           I remember thinking this thought : there must have

    been a time  in the history of humanity - the agricultural

    revolution ? - when seeing what the good earth - " the mother

    of all things " could grow , with the creative help of mankind

    - stimulated the human mind and heart just as much as any

    gadgets we have around the house today. But here you had

    the glory of living things !

             That world is now dead to ninety percent of

    humanity. Yet unconsciously we long to again make

    " contact " with it , the living land - the closest

    we can ever get to the divine !


           One recalled incident in my dream : A fat, friendly

    pig comes through a wooden fence gate - right up to me.

     He is so intelligent and eager for my attention . I learn

    that this pig is the farm family's pet - not to be

    slaughtered . Then I woke up in less than idyllic Warwick,

    Rhode Island .