When I was younger, one of my favorite literary characters was Don Quixote. I was captivated by his vision for his own world, one he could imagine into being. Because I was young and idealistic, the notion of tilting at windmills, fighting impossible battles was honorable, romantic. In this worldview, life is to be challenged--current reality does not have to be accepted. I think. sometimes, this still holds true for me though I have aged many decades since I first read of Quixote's quest. I have dreamed many impossible dreams and sometimes, the dreams have become the reality.
Recently, a friend said to me that her Great Pyrenees roams their yard at night, barking at the wind. This notion of barking at the wind, like Quixote's fighting of imagined enemies, resonated with me so completely that I haven't been able to get it out of my mind. It seems so primal, to take our deepest hopes and even fears and scream them into the night air. Who hears? What difference could it make? Can the way we dream the world become true if only the wind hears it? I believe that it can.
Sometimes what we yearn for is so far from what others tell us is possible. We know there is war though we wish for peace. We know there is inhumanity where we hope for justice.
And yet, as the saying goes, 'all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream'. Barking at the wind, tilting at windmills keeps hope alive that what we see can be the dream we dream.
I am not suggesting we live in an alternate reality, that we ignore facts of life around us. But I do think that joining together, we can bark at the wind for kindness, humanity, fairness. You and I can challenge the reality that puts money ahead of people, that says peace is impossible. We may look foolish to some, as Don Quixote did, but I think the universe will hear us. It's time to change reality!
