My Nocturnal Visit with Amanda Gorman
Robin B. Zeiger, Ph.D.
When day comes, we ask ourselves, where we can find light in this never-ending shade?
The Hill We Climb, Amanda Gorman
Sometimes I imagine visiting with a personal heroine or hero. I would truly love to invite Amanda Gorman to sit with me on my terrace and have coffee. I am sure I would be blessed by her passion, wisdom, vision and personal story.
Sometimes when our soul longs for something we are surprised by a gift. My gift emerged from the darkness of the night. I am a prolific dreamer with many dreams filled with details, images, and inspiration. But in the plentitude, sometimes important moments can become lost like a needle in a haystack.
A few days ago, I awoke with a puzzling dream. A young girl named Amanda showed up unannounced at my home, seemingly to receive some form of psychotherapy from me. Yet, I was unprepared, in my pajamas, with unmade beds. At first, I had no idea what the dream was about. I could not for the life of me think why the dream character was named Amanda. Good dreams are like meaningful poems and deep plays. They are symbolic and often very deep in meaning. One must contemplate and savor the words and the scenes again and again.
Suddenly it came to me: my dream Amanda must be connected to my new heroine. Like the unexpected early morning guest, Amanda’s poem and presence took me by surprise. Recently I had watched President Biden’s speech. It was important and I was happy to meet the moment. Amanda’s presence took my breath away. She spoke with compassion and wisdom. Her words were even more colorful than her beautiful yellow outfit.
What was most important?
Where did Amanda’s soul meet mine? I think is in my hope and optimism for a better future. I have always been blessed with the belief in the half-full glass.
As a Jungian psychoanalyst, I work hard to help impart hope when the night is dark and long.
Amanda recited the words:
We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one.
Amanda’s image helped me to hope again for a restored America. I could hope for a homeland that brings healing and connection. But most of all, I could hope for the dreams of each and every human being. We all must find meaning in our lives.
My parents suffered through the Great Depression and they dared to hope and dream. I remembered my childhood dreams, many of which came to fruition.
Yet, perhaps most of all, I remembered a young African American girl I worked with in therapy as President Obama ran for his first term. She secretly confessed to me that schoolmates made fun of her for believing a black man could become president. I am white and she was black, yet I bled with her. I had been bullied some as a child. I understood what it felt like to be made fun of for a belief. I hoped and most of all, I believed. And when it happened, I returned to this little girl with a big smile on my face. I was overjoyed that our shared world became wider and freer.
Hillary Clinton tweets that she looks forward to Ms. Gorman becoming President Gorman in 2036. And once again, our world becomes wider.
But why, the mess in my dream house? Dreams create colorful and symbolic stories, sometimes of hope and wonder, and sometimes of pain, gore, and despair. Our dream psyche tries to “catch” us, so we pay attention to that which hides underground in the darkness of our soul.
When I first woke up, I did not initially connect the two Amandas. Yet, something nagged at me. My life is in flux. I just moved into a new house that is truly my new home. In my second half of life, I am reaching more for the stars. I am blessed with the richness of my life experiences as a psychoanalyst, wife, mother, and grandmother. And I find myself driven to reach out and write more. COVID-19 has emblazoned on my soul how interconnected our world is right now. I find myself more political.
COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, political unrest, the plight of immigrants, etc. all speak to me in a different way. I have a longing to become a part of the universal world that is open to us. My dream points to an “internal house” that is a state of disarray. Perhaps I cannot remain in my pajamas anymore.
This little dream Amanda is not the well-polished articulate Amanda Gorman who stood in front of the world and delivered her message via a poem. My little Amanda is perhaps the wounded and lost children of the world. And perhaps she is the wounded child that sits inside all of our souls. Wounds are painful. They make us suffer. Like Chiron, the wounded healer, our wounds propel us onward and help us to meet the suffering of others. It is the shade and darkness that helps us appreciate the light even more.
I also must believe that my dream Amanda is also the child of hope that shines in the world.
When I listened to the CNN interview of Amanda Gorman, I learned two additional things about this articulate 22-year-old. First, she suffered from a speech impediment and worked hard to master this wound. And secondly, Amanda has a mantra she repeats to herself before she speaks:
“I am the daughter of Black writers. We are descended from freedom fighters who broke through chains and changed the world. They call.’”
Nature is framed in darkness, shade and bright light. Sometimes we need the shade and sometimes we have no choice but to weather the darkness. Amanda’s ending words are particularly powerful. Interestingly, I learned in her CNN interview, she wasn’t so sure if this is the way she wanted to end the poem.
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it.
I am glad she did!
And if you liked this article, I invite you to red, Finding Our Voice & Breath: Dr. Fanny Brewster Speaks to Me on George Floyd’s Last Breath.
or
The White Paper is Black Within: Meeting the Shadows with Ethiopian Artist Tigist Yoseph Ron
Robin B. Zeiger is a practicing Jungian psychoanalyst and a free-lance writer.
She is a member of the:
International Association of Analytical Psychology and the Israel Institute of Jungian Psychology. She can be reached at rbzeiger@yahoo.com.
