Eyescape Dreamscape

"You got time to kill, ain't yer?", he said. A fair accusation I thought. Precisely why we're here and not there. Time to kill. Time to talk. Time to listen. Time to be. With friends. Alone. Time to imagine. And that peeps is where we are headed today. Imagination.

Lets start with a wee perception shifter that took place here this week. River and I went for a walk one day to the opposite side of the little valley on the north side of our house. We've been here 3 years now and never walked it. Mainly cos we didn't know it was there til a bulldozer went down it in the summer (as part of the biannual road cleaning they do here for ensuring fire engine access in the forest).

Now 3 years is a fair bit of time to spend in the forest. We walk a lot. Found many paths. Beaten a few clean only to be scratched to pieces by newly grown brambles on return the following year. Investigated. Stopped. Stared. Marvelled. Gave thanks. In many many places across the land. A thousand different vistas. Up down round. Thought we had a pretty good idea where we lived. Until this week. Until that path. Until a single view from 250 metres away blew us away.

We have spent all our days for almost 2 years gazing west and south. Never seen a sunrise over the horizon, only over the hill mid morning. We've consumed every single sunset down cascading far away valleys. But we've never looked from over there back up. Back east. Like this.

As you can see from the pic, our house is situated half way up, what is actually, a perfect hillock. After a series of other equally revealing views from along the 500m path, River and I had our breath taken away and simply sat on the edge of the path for a very long time feasting at the wonder of the eyescape that was laid out before us in every direction. Hearts and spirits wide wide  open in absolute surrender to the majesty of this place, in awesome thankfulness for it all, and total utter gobsmacked surprise that we had no flipping clue for all that time where we had been living. We live here? We live here.

A return to the house for a cuppa and a quick look on google translate for the name of our houses, Cabeço. Always thought it was some kind of derivative of Cabeça which means head. But no, in fact it has one very specific meaning. It translates as "Knoll". I must have seen this translation at some point but ignored it cos it failed to resonate as a description. So seeing that we do in fact live on a splendid knoll, was a tremendous treasure to discover after all this time.

What was so outstanding for us about this little revelatory walk of ours, was that no matter how aware we think we are, no matter how well we think we are doing in understanding the context of who we are and where we are, a trip to another viewpoint, another perspective, even one that is very very close to where we have always been, can immediately reveal we never really had a clue! Truly a type of revolutionary perspective shifter. Now that one name, Cabeço, the name of our house, will always be for us inextricably linked to this wake up call that there is far more beauty in this world than we have yet seen. All we need to do to see more is change our point of view.

In the context of our new found  titillating eyescapes, we have also been reflecting much recently on dreams. Our own dreams, those we are sub consciously experiencing while asleep and more interestingly those visions that we are consciously pondering in our daydreams. Night and day, day and night, these movies running in our minds eye somewhere, are our dreamscape. We commonly accept that dreams can often, particularly the lucid ones, feel extremely real. We touch, we smell, we see, we talk, we hear, we fear, we love. We reflect on the past, we try to resolve the present, we glimpse the future. But where are we doing all those things? In our dreamscape, of course. It's not real. It's just dreaming in it?

But what if our dreamscape is real. As real as the phenomenon known as the material world. What if? What might that mean? Could it mean we can actually imagine the future into being. Visionaries often do don't they. And artists. And writers.  They imagine what is not there in the material world. They imagine it in the dreamscape. Then seek to bring that reality of their vision, into the real physical world. If the dreamscape is real, then I have a feeling I have absolutely no idea how to navigate my way in it. We just might have an extrordinarily powerful tool as human beings. Way more powerful than we have ever imagined to date. Our Imagination.

If that's true, then what a time we are in folks, to imagine our way through the coming days. Let's do it. Let's ignite a revolution. Let's imagine, seriously imagine, a more beautiful world for ourselves and those around us and for those further afield who really need to be able to escape their own physical realities right now.  I know this sounds all so familiar. But again I say, what if it were possible? Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions and all that.

Anyhow, there's some perspective shifting going on around these parts. And I think it has something to do with all the wonderful friends we have been sharing time with this last month. John and Caroline obviously, with their elegant artistry with the brush and the camara, have both inspired with their enthusiasm and their work. (Their exhibition is on in town next week by the way and trust me, they will be putting on quite a show. Do check out their blogs - great photos, great paintings, great haikus.)

Also been hanging out with Ian and Merle and their tribe, Anna, Oliver, Jonny. Went up to the Serra da Estrella with them last week. Such outstanding beauty all the way on the winding roads through vale and ridge and villages and paddling in river beaches in hot sunshine, until you arrive at the summit, the highest peak in portugal at 2km above sea level, with snow all over the place and crystal clear views for eternity.

The light, the rocks, the moss, the colour, the magnificence. Almost felt like we were on another planet. And again, not very far, only hour and half. Took Moses and Perry for a walk into the snow. They rolled, they jumped, they frolicked and ate way too many snowballs. The dogs, just like me, were in heaven.

It's Autumn. It's breathtaking. It's where we live. It's been full of lunches and dinners and fires and music and conversation and games and laughter. So much laughter. And of course pumpkins. Lots and lots of pumpkins. Relishing the eyescapes that are our nearest and dearest. Taking note of what is passing through our dreamscapes. Waiting for the rains to pass.

Peace and love. Dream a little. Imagine.

Memphis.