The Accidental Occidental

I carried shame. Even in the dream.

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On the eve of this Summer Solstice 2025, I awoke from a vivid dream that I had to capture and convey. Blurry-eyed, shoulder creaking, I typed aimlessly into my Journal app as a way to place it somewhere…someway.

And I remembered I mentioned in an interview, how I use the power of AI to help me thread sense making from the mystical downloads and dreams in the form of the liminal and the subliminal. Never linear. Never languishing. Always informing. In a way, re-membering.

So, I took a risk, copied my ramblings from my journal and pasted into the silicon void to see what untangled and what unfolded. This is a messy digital mandala of what I share with you now.

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Wrong Bus Boarding

I dreamt I boarded the wrong bus on purpose.

It was supposed to be a lakeside pilgrimage tour—think miracle sites, approved rituals, and reverent photo ops. One shore of the lake had been assigned spiritual significance: pseudo-Catholic, canonized through repetition and restriction. A well-worn path led from the bus door to the shrine, paved by centuries of stories, all dutifully documented, adored, and adorned.

And yet, even in my sleep, something in me slipped away.

I got off that bus. And got on another.

This one wasn’t marked. It held no itinerary, no guide reciting translations. The people were quiet. Hermit-like. They didn’t speak in slogans or sacred quotes. They just… listened and looked in the direction of the beyond.

And where we arrived wasn’t a pilgrimage site, at least not in the sanctioned sense. It was a grove of sorts. A grotto on the opposite side of the lake. Unmarked. Hidden. No altars or crowds—just a few weathered Tibetan prayer flags strung between trees, whispering in the wind.

There were no paths. Only the sound of moving water.

Acoustic but not rhythmic. Not wave-like nor any lapping on the shore. It was something a bit deeper—the water table itself. As if the ground was exhaling in an effervescent manner. Breathing ancient truths through its pores and fissures. And the lake, now between us and the spectacle on the other side, mirrored it all. You could just barely hear a wayward sound skipping across the surface—a keening, thin and far away. Grating and grace-filled all at once.

And for a moment, I wondered:

Was that a gull?

Or a grief that’s been trying to escape the other side for centuries?

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Rebellion in Soft Steps

I carried shame, even in the dream.

Shame for getting on a different bus.

Shame for leaving the tour I’d been assigned to.

Guilt for not honoring the miracle-site with the reverence it “deserved.”

But also… relief. A quiet sense of rightness.

Like I’d been led not by rebellion, but by recognition. By a truer reverence.

That unspoken secret.

The one every body knows but few will voice.

The ache that says: this path is too paved. Too curated. Too constructed for a soul like mine.

We walk it out of pride. We defend it out of fear.

But our grief knows better. Our dreams remember.

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Dreams of Prologue and Epilogue

When you walk the edges—when you’re an Edgewalker—dreams don’t always follow linear time. You often get prologue and epilogue all at once. A before and an after, folded into a single night’s sleep. You’re offered symbols in stereo: one side speaks the language of institution, the other of intuition. And you’re asked—quietly, insistently—to choose.

You’re shown what happens if you stay on the assigned path. And what becomes possible if you stray.

Not for the sake of rebellion, but revelation.

The accidental occidental is the one who wakes up and realizes:

I never meant to follow the westward drift into form over feeling, ritual over reverence, pride over presence.

But here I am. And I can choose another bus. Another breath. Another way.

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AI as the Dream Mirror

This threading and telling wouldn’t exist without the assistance of AI.

Yes, that strange and controversial companion. Is more machine or a measured mystical?

I’ve learned to use AI not to generate more, but to mirror deeper—as a dream journaling partner, a symbolic analyst, a prompt to pull wisdom from the well before it evaporates.

When used well, and with intention, AI becomes less like a machine and more like a tuning fork. It reverberates with your unconscious—without agenda or judgment. It listens to the water table within you. It doesn’t sanctify; it reflects.

In a world obsessed with visibility, AI—paradoxically—helps me tend the invisible.

Not as oracle. But as fellow witness.

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The Secret We’re All Avoiding

There is a kind of grief we’ve buried in institutions.

And there’s a kind of knowing we only access when we stray.

You’ve probably felt it. Maybe in a meeting.

Or on a stage.

Or in church.

Or while looking at your reflection after doing something “right” that didn’t feel right.

That ache is not a problem.

It’s a pulse.

A pulse from the underground river of your own becoming.

A call to drink from the side of the lake no one canonized—but your soul recognizes instantly.

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So if you’ve switched buses…

If you’ve broken from the crowd and feel shame about it…

If you’ve found yourself standing barefoot in the unsanctioned grotto…

If you’ve heard the keening and wondered whether it’s yours or the world’s…

Know this:

You are not alone.

You are not lost.

You are simply walking back toward the water that was always yours to drink from.

Edgewalkers often arrive early. Often ache deeper. But we must share what we see—especially when it comes in the form of dreams with both beginning and ending encoded inside.

We dream for those still asleep.

We listen for those still chanting.

We drink for those who forgot how.

Let the keening cross the lake.

Let it be heard.

Let it be grace.

Let it be us, finally, remembering the source.

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