I am no Freud or native shaman,
experts in dream interpretation,
but the other night I had a dream
of my dear departed daddy.
We were lying on the bed together
and he told me how I had hurt him.
He almost whimpered his disappointment.
This man who was a paragon of strength in my life!
How precious it was to feel his warmth, vulnerability
and humanity in this close encounter.
Even now my eyes grow misty
as I remember the way he was in that dream.

I wonder if in my dreaming
I hugged the Father of the Universe
and felt the frailty of nature
the sadness of it for what we have done to it.

Maybe we need to feel this intimate connection,
this union of our humanness with a powerful love
to grasp the enormity of our responsibility
in this relationship.