Diamonds in the Desert

The artwork is provided by Isabella Baker

2020, November 15,

This dream told the story of an African king that was very wealthy; however, the people in his domain were destitute. Feeling pity for his subjects, the king took the entirety of his wealth, in the form of diamonds, and had it buried in a desert. So vast was his wealth that the entire nation was able to live without fear for a year on whatever they were able to dig up. The following year, fewer people returned to the desert, where much of the king's riches remained buried beneath the sand.

A documentary crew followed the story of a people who continued to sift the desert sands for diamonds and thus could make a living for themselves. However, their search was not limited to the desert; anywhere they went became a place worth checking for the valuable lumps of carbon. In this way, I learned a valuable lesson. So true is the old adage, "If you give a man a fish, you feed a man for a day; if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime." This quote comes from a book called Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu.

The reality, however, is a bit more complex. One man that learns to fish may fish for a day, whereas another man who learns to fish may fish for a lifetime. Both received the same lesson. One is satisfied with a life of fishing; one is not. One is satisfied with a life of digging; one is not. Thus the king's generosity is not waisted for the one that keeps digging, and it is available for the one that stops. Neither is wrong, and there are consequences for both.

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter and the glory of kings to search it out, Proverbs 25:2. How rich is the wilderness that we find ourselves in? What lies beneath the surface of these shifting sands? Are we satisfied with what we have uncovered? For the one who is not satisfied, the wilderness is far from empty.

Photo by Patrick Schneider on Unsplash

Comments

Afro-American Zeitgeist

Photo by Ali Hajian on Unsplash The Afro-American Zeitgeist : A Summary of Unconscious Thoughts on Race (Part 1) July 30th, Passionless Bliss : "I am not afraid of death because death is invisible. If I can't see where it's going or what it is doing, is it doing anything at all? However, I am afraid of empty buildings because they confirm the reality of death's existence." Or, in simpler terms, Ignorance is bliss until reality hits. My dreams began by directly addressing my unwillingness to look into the deaths of African-Americans across the country. Despite my lack of knowledge, I became seriously opinionated about the nature of the incidents themselves, almost refusing to consider blackness as a factor. However, after the first dream, I began an investigation to prove blackness had nothing to do with these deaths. In the following paragraphs, I will take you through the sequence of dreams, which forced me to come to the conclusions, or at least my current stan...

Rocky Road, Vanilla Expectations

February 16, 2022 In this dream, my family and I visited my grandparents in Alabama. When we arrived, my grandfather greeted us with a smile. Seeing him was like seeing home after a long trip. Shortly after our arrival, my dad and I began exploring the back room with a blacklight. My grandparent's house was haunted, and we were going to look for evidence of the supernatural. My father had a UV light, and I brought along flashlights, one for me and the other for him. We explored my grandparent's bedroom and bathroom as they had the most significant activity. The bedroom itself seemed quiet, but the master bathroom was not. Using the blacklight, we could see fingerprints all along the walls of the master bath, definitely not those of my grandparents. A growing sense of dread and anticipation filled the pit of my stomach. Concurrently, the door started to swing close behind us. Something sinister was making itself known. However, we managed to push through the door just before i...

Iron Egress: Beyond the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

Photo by I.am_nah on Unsplash March 29th, 2022 Afro-Latina; in this dream, I only remember that I had been discussing this kind of ethnic heritage with someone, but I’m not sure of the context. During the conversation, I even remember seeing the visage of an Afro-Latina woman with honey-colored skin and a big curly afro. The dream changed tones quite dramatically from here when a disembodied voice said, “research the white slaves of Egypt, Asia, and other countries.” In the waking world, I decided to research the white slave trade in Egypt and found it fascinating indeed. The articles I've read speak of the Circassian slaves of Egypt from Georgia and the Barbary slave trade that involved peoples from Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy, Iceland, Southwest Britain, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Both of these were said by some to have lasted hundreds of years. As I continued my search, I only found more information on human trafficking that I didn't know I didn't know. Among...

Hypnonautics

Search This Blog