Prisons of our Own Making

For 10 years I was a volunteer in the prisons.  Ever since for some 20 years, I have had dreams where I am in prison.  This is not in a bad way.  I have not ever, to my recollection, dreamed I was incarcerated.  I simply dream that I am back in the prison, volunteering again.  Mostly these are pleasant dreams, unlike the reoccurring bad dream that I'm back in my High School.  (Now admit it, that would be a nightmare, would it not?)   My High School occupied one city block and was 4 stories high, passing period was 10 minutes because it really could take that long to get between classes.  It was easy to be lost in the labyrith of that building.  But those bad dreams usually combine some combination of being late to class because of being lost, realizing an assignment is due I have not done, or that I am horribly behind in school and may not graduate.   These HS dreams are dreams of inadequacy.

Carrie Newcomber, a song writer I love, has a line in a song...."most of our prisoners are of our own making".  I certainly agree with that idea and think therefore of these reoccurring dreams where I am in prison.  Most people think of prison as a bad place and yet in these dreams I am volunteering, I have come to do something good, I have come to a place where I experienced community and even love.  What if we could all recognize that we are volunteers to our own prisons?  That we can leave them or convert them whenever we want to places of love and community?  When my dreams tell me that I am in a time of inadequacy - when the HS dreams start again - could I see that it is a prison of my own making?  Could I break out of those old feelings, out of the illusion of inadequacy?