I woke up this morning with a terrible amygdala ache. When I awoke I was frightened, but at the same time really, really wanting to kick someone's ass.
However, I did not want to choose a person larger than myself so as to minimize the chances of my being injured in my aggression.
What to do? After a few moments, my mind cleared and I recalled my angst originated with the news coverage of the terrible events in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and soon Iran and Israel.
I took a Tylenol, a piss, and crawled back into bed and pulled the covers over my bald head to keep the chill off the noggin and drifted into a fitful sleep.
The dream: I am on a mountain over looking a beautiful valley with fertile fields of wheat and pastures filled with cattle. Men and boys were busy in the fields as the younger children and the women and older girls tended to the washing and the smaller animals. A river cut through the valley in the lazy pattern taken by water when there is plenty of time for that water to make it from point A to point B and the elevation drop across the valley is gradual.
An eagle is soaring overhead, its shadow skipping first over the wheat, then the river and next over the village, and back to the wheat again. The villagers below are unaware of the eagle, but the eagle, the eagle has his piercing yellow eyes focused on the village.
I cry out in a futile attempt to warn the villagers of the danger but my voice is lost in the winds.
In the center of the village I see a man dragged in shackles, he is blond, in good condition, but does not resist his captors as he is forced to kneel on the ground. A crowd has gathered around and three or four men, the village elders and leaders confront the man. The elders then step away and the crowd begin to throw stones at the man who bravely kneels with his head held high looking his executioners in the eye until a softball sized stone strikes him from behind and he is then down. Then the crowd rushes in for up close stoning to finish him.
The eagle glides casting his shadow over the village and when it crosses the man who is beaten and dead from the stones a hot white flash fills my head and I am awake.
My amygdala no longer aches and the river no longer flows past the village and wheat fields and pastures of this once idyllic place.
What happened?
Jackson Delano Maybolt, President, Urban Poverty Law Center
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