When we do something, even small things, it is important to the world and others. Our words and actions call out to the world and others. We invoke the world to respond and share something important with us.
William Stafford wrote about being a person. Who we are is what calls to us and our response to it. The call gives us purpose and voice. In our dreams and imagination, we find that calling, that sense of purpose.
Perhaps, it is about becoming the person who we are, and not just being the person who stands in this spot and moment. We are always becoming a person that we cannot fully imagine and anticipate in advance, but somehow that person resembles who we were just a moment ago.
Paulo Coehlo said that “It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” In dreaming, we are always becoming a new person and the uncertainty of that makes life interesting for us and others.
Be a person here. Stand by the river, invoke
the owls. Invoke winter, then spring.
Let any season that wants to come here make its own
call. After that sound goes away, wait.
A slow bubble rises through the earth
and begins to include sky, stars, all space,
even the outracing, expanding thought.
Come back and hear the little sound again.
Suddenly this dream you are having matches
everyone’s dream, and the result is the world.
If a different call came there wouldn’t be any
world, or you, or the river, or the owls calling.
How you stand here is important. How you
listen for the next things to happen. How you breathe.