Crystallize

Ideas and thoughts are wonderful things and both can be important change agents. But when a dream fuses from stirrings and fog and crystallizes into form and direction watch out. John Prine said it wonderfully in the lyrics of his song Angel From Montgomery - "If dreams were lightning / and thunder were desire / this old house would have burned down / a long time ago."

"If your dreams don't scare you...they aren't big enough."

"Au Sable Alone" Photo by Wayne Snyder

I am intrigued with the inner stirrings of those seemingly everyday folks that achieve things that are deemed unachievable. And what were the origins of those stirrings? I'm reminded that there is a great deal of serendipity here, or "fortunate happenstance", I won't call it luck. But, still, it required the dreamer in the first place. To solidify do dreams need thunder and lightning? A mentor? Or simply solitude?

Imagine the crystallization of dream-thought in the mind of a gangly New Zealand bee farmer turned mountaineer who became the first person to summit the world's tallest mountain, Mount Everest, in 1953. His name was Edmund Hillary. Or the evolution of the decisions and desires of a young man in his early twenties as he dreamed of being THE pilot of the first successful non-stop solo flight made between New York City and Paris. His name was Charles Lindbergh and he flew the single-engine Spirit of St. Louis across the Atlantic in 1927. And what are the moods and feelings of today's child that will crystallize into the actions needed to be the first human to stand on the moon's south pole? Or Mars?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said it succinctly - "If your dreams don't scare you...they aren't big enough". If you dream it – do it. And never mind living on the edge. Eagles do it all the time. - WES:::

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