A Cup Full of Humble Fragrance

In Dreams

         Life always filled me with its beauty. When I was a child, I sensed the spirit of the river, felt the stirring of the soil under my feet, and heard the wind whispering through the trees. I mean this, not in a poetic sense but, as my reality. Our home was situated next to the woods, through which a river flowed. I don’t know when I first started sensing nature, but I did sense it; fearing the reaction of the adults, I did not speak of it.

         At some point in my early years when I was around seven, the dreams started, probably with this one.


          I was hovering over my mother in the air, while all the family were in the living room. Suddenly I took off and went up over the earth, through the star systems into the cloudy edges of the universe.

                   “You mustn’t go too far away,” a familiar voice said. “You know the mother isn’t strong enough. She may have difficulty holding on to you. You know what happened with the other baby.”
I listened and I was suddenly with my mother.


         After I woke up from this dream, I asked my mother, “Did you have difficulty holding on to me before I was born?”

         She was surprised, “Not so much with you,” she said, “But I had another daughter before you who was stillborn.”

         A while after that, I started feeling the approach of death when somebody was about to die. Not only that, my body acted as if I was the one dying. Later I started to feel accidents happening just before they did. I kept all these things to myself for I had a good reason. My family was religious. Anything else that wasn’t in the scriptures was deemed devil’s work and I certainly didn’t want to be associated with the devil.

         In some ways my sensitivities were helpful. Sneaky though it was, I stopped mischief just before someone found out about it. Because of that I gained the fame of being the good kid in the family, which sometimes didn’t help me with peers and cousins. Still, through sensing their feelings, I got around other children and won my way into their good graces. I also knew when I was in danger because my body reacted in a strange way with my midriff opening and closing like a clam. I didn’t understand  these unusual things and I didn’t utter a word to anyone about them. As I grew older, I learned to live with them and even use them to my advantage.

         Around the time I was about to hand in my thesis in the University, I had another one of my memorable dreams.


         “I was in a beautiful jungle, with gorgeous tropical birds, multi-colored joyous flowers, and a rainforest of tall trees webbed in lianas. In a wink, the sky darkened and rain started. Something flashed in front of me through the swirling raindrops. From inside this bolt of lightning and thunder a dark figure stepped out, pointing toward the sky. I looked up and saw the word –love- written on the dark rain clouds. I woke up with the phrase –Irian Jaya- going around in circles inside my head.”

         For days I thought of that dream, but nothing came out of it. Maybe it didn’t mean much. Maybe it was a figment of my imagination. So I put it aside, and didn’t think of it until I met Ryan.

         I remembered that dream at the exact moment when Ryan looked at me for the first time. His glance slid past me and then came back and rested on my face. He had a look of recognition on his face. Now as I write this, I recall that we were getting ready to hear a guest speaker on Australian wildlife in the conference hall, and Ryan was setting up the slide-projector and other equipment. Under his gaze I felt my cheeks glow and my knees shake. Then Ryan casually asked me if there were other electrical outlets in the room. That’s how we started to talk to each other.

         At that time I had thought that Ryan wasn’t much older than twenty-five or so. He had a boyish look with short-cropped chestnut hair and sky-blue eyes. Later as we dated, I started noticing the fine lines near his eyes and the slightly loosened skin to the back of his jaw line. I felt there was a connection between Ryan and my dream, which I couldn’t put my finger on.


         One afternoon after the examinations, in front of the Environmental Studies department I bumped into Ryan.

         “So, you’ve done it,” Ryan took my hand. “One thing is for sure. The one with the education is always ahead.”

         What he said sounded great coming from his lips. It made me feel good that I put so much effort in my schoolwork. We walked in silence.

         “I have a confession to make,” Ryan said suddenly. “I didn’t come here for post-graduate work. I am already in research but I didn’t want to advertise it because it could scare some away, while it could cause others to approach me for the wrong reasons.”

         “So why are you here?”

         In a split second the vision of the rain forest had come back. To me, under the drizzling rain, Ryan looked like the dark figure in my dream.

         “I came here to visit my family and to get equipment for my research. When I saw you, I felt close to you. Then I got to know you better and thought that you were the one for me in every sense of the word, not only because of your major either. My research is in Indonesia. I want you to come with me.”

         I don’t know how it happened, but “Irian Jaya!” just spilled out of my lips.

         “So you knew it!” Ryan said, startled.

         “I don’t exactly know what it means,” I said. “I don’t know what made me say it.”

         “Were you asking around about me?”

         “No, Ryan. Honest. You’ll think I’m nuts but I saw it in a dream.”

         “Irian Jaya is where rainforests are home to incredible fauna and flora, most of which remain to be identified.  My research is there. Did you say you had a dream?”

         “Yes, Ryan. Sometimes I see things in dreams.”

         I told him my dream. Then risking it all, I told him about my sensitivities and other dreams that had come true...

         “I know you well enough not to doubt you,” he said.  “As modern men, we have shut our awareness. The aborigines who have lived in total isolation are more in touch with their senses. They would understand you and you would understand them. Please come with me.”


         It’s been several months that I’m here, and I’m still in awe of Irian Jaya. White sands of its beaches stir gently under my toes, the dark blue Pacific Ocean surrounds its lofty mountains, and thousands of murmuring rivers crisscross its jungles bustling in greens. Here the winds whisper of creation’s secrets and the beauty of our earth. Ryan has shown me edible and poisonous plants, bats, parrots, and lemurs. He introduced me to an aborigine medicine man who had visions of my arrival years ago. I found these natives to be closer to me than my family has ever been. They understand me, for they too listen and work with the spirit and the beauty of nature in this amazing section of our magnificent planet. But, the best thing that ever happened to me was that I could tell my husband Ryan, the spiritual man of my dreams, what I had never told anybody else.