My little boy sees a woman in his room at night, a phantom, an apparition.
She’s old and she scares him, though she sits there in stillness, watching him. I will not ask her to leave. I want to help my son know her better, to have the courtesy of thanking her for stopping by. We lie there in the darkness, wondering, the three of us.
This woman has come from another world. A dream. The unconscious. The spirit world. Whatever name we put on it proves too small to encompass it. It’s a world that is full of surprises, instruction and bewilderment. It’s a world of magic and mystery.
As a culture, we’ve tried to close the door to that world again and again for centuries. What good has come of it? Look at us now, spellbound by ourselves and aghast at what we’re doing to this earth, our home.
The doors to the other world are still open to our children, but they need guidance through its passages, lest the doors close for them too.