Form is a farm

I haven't been able to turn this dream up again in my journal.  I saw it again a few days ago and thought about posting it then, but put it off.  Wouldn't you know it?  Now I can't find it..

It was a very short experience, which I'm not even sure I should call a dream.  I was waking, and I clearly heard a voice in my ear, but in the way that you hear things when you are having a hypnagogic hallucination.  I knew I wasn't totally awake, but in that other "space" and as I became aware of it, I perked up in anticipation that something would happen because something always happens there.

This time, a strange voice said, simply, "Form is a farm."  The word "form" had the sense of all form, all material existence.

I can't find the quote right now, but it seems to me that Fort once said something pretty similar when he was on one of his "I think we are property" rants.

But it also reminds me of a seemingly very different dream.  In that one, it was my task to ferry some cargo containers that looked like old time Steamer Trunks.

I had quite a few loaded up on my ship, but I looked back at the dock and I could see that there were many, many more.

In the dream I was complaining that I didn't get to do the things that I wanted to do.  And the sense of the dream was, "If you'll just get those trunks safely to port, then you can go do what you want to do."  But what I wanted to do was depicted as a frozen city.  When I saw it in the dream, I didn't want to go there anymore.  I looked wistfully at the giant pile of trunks on the dock and wondered if I should pull another voyage?  Or maybe a lot more voyages?  The trunks were people, and I knew it.  I had my own kids on my ship, and maybe some more people.  I accepted then that this was my responsibility.  I had to get them to port.  Then I wondered why my responsibility should end there?

Form as farm, bodily form as container..

I usually resist attempting a strictly Christian reading on the things I discuss here, but here I can't help but see an echo of what Jesus said about the what God was up to here in our world.  For instance, the Parable of the Sower seems to have something like this in mind -- though there is no mention of the farmer's role in making sure the seeds grow:

"A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown"

Then there is the Parable of Wheat and Tares:

"The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. The owner's servants came to him and said, `Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?' 

" `An enemy did this,' he replied. The servants asked him, `Do you want us to go and pull them up?' `No,' he answered, `because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.' " 

 These parables, both from Matthew 13, use farmed plants to stand in for people, and resonate with the words "form is a farm".  Mark also uses similar language:

"This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come" (Mark 4:26-29).

The sense of the farmer not taking a direct role in the growing of the seeds seems to mean something here -- not exactly what you'd expect Jesus to say about a personified and all perfect, all knowing God.

OK, souls = growing plants that need to be tended is well represented in biblical literature.  But what about trunks that contain spirits?

The idea that the human body might be a container for spirits, and not just your spirit, goes way back.  In Christianity there is the idea of possession by evil spirits, but also the idea that our bodies are used as a dwelling place for God Himself.

The Christian Mystic Teresa of Avilla had this to say:

The soul of the just man is but a paradise, in which, God tells us, He takes His delight. What do you imagine, must that dwelling be in which a King so mighty, so wise, and so pure, containing in Himself all good, can delight to rest? Nothing can be compared to the great beauty and capabilities of a soul; however keen our intellects may be, they are as unable to comprehend them as to comprehend God..

But it isn't only in religion that one finds a resonance with the idea that humans are spirits inside containers -- you also find this idea in some very strange literature..  new age thought, especially that which is from a channeled source, uses the idea of human bodies as containers, and this has been taken over by certain factions of the UFO movement.  John Lear has said, "The purpose of the grays is to take care of the containers...us. We are containers of souls."

The mixing of religion and UFO cultism might seem an absurdity -- even sacrilegious to some -- but look at the ethos that Lear espouses:

. . . relax and enjoy life while you are here and try and live you[r] life with integrity; and without envy, hate or greed. If you are having difficulty in life and things just aren't going your way these are merely challenges to see how you handle yourself. Every day a new challenge presents [it]self and these challenges should be met with integrity; and without envy, hate or greed. NO challenge is by accident. It is carefully planned. Each person's soul matures at a different rate. 

If you are broke, short of cash, going through a divorce, lost your job, and/or have a physical infirmity these are just challenges. Sometime in a previous life you did something that make these challenges necessary to teach you something. 

When you die you will be shown all the good and bad things you did in your life and believe me they don't miss a thing. Your deepest darkest secret will be in plain view for you to see. There will be no judgment or no sentence other than being sent back to earth for another try at it. Sometimes you get a chance to choose the family you will grow up in. Sometimes not. 

So remember, the only thing that matters in life is your ability to live it with integrity and without envy, hate or greed.

New agey, sure, but also as simple and timeless as the golden rule.

The world as a school, form as a farm, and the body as container.  It's all rather jumbled in different mythic contexts but there's a thread here..

LATE EDIT: I found the dream.  It's pretty unremarkable as an entry in the journal:

April 6, 2001 

As I woke I clearly heard a voice tell me “form is a farm.”

This is from just a few days after the birth of my twins.