Afraid to Dream Big

“What if your fears and dreams existed in the same place?
What if to get to Heaven, you had to brave Hell?
What if everything you ever wanted cost you everything you ever achieved?
Would you still go there?”

The source of these questions is attributed to Anonymous, one of my favorite people to quote. I used the first and last lines (in the form of a Tim Holtz Stamper's Anonymous stamp) to finish my journal page for week four. Well, it’s actually more of an insert than a whole page.

   

 

Here is the brief progression of this particular project. I started out by covering a small insert with red, yellow, and green cardstock. It’s a companion piece to the journal page opposite it, which is a tribute to my little sister, who really likes Bob Marley/Rasta and rainbows. (The other half of this two page spread, as well as the other side of this insert, deal with rainbow colors, spectrums, etc. Some thoughts on Autism. You’ll get to see more of that in future I’m sure.)

The top left is the original insert. The top right is my response to the first week four prompt, “big,” with a colored photo of Bob Marley and some lyrics from one of his songs. I believe it’s called “Wake Up And Live”. This quote says:  “Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you’re riding through the ruts don’t complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don’t bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake up and live!”

The bottom left photo is my response to the second week four prompt, “dreams,” that I wrote about yesterday. I used a photo of Martin Luther King, Jr., and an excerpt from his famous “I Have A Dream” speech:  “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed:  ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’” I was going to stop here, but then I came across the quote on the stamp.

The bottom right is obviously the finished page. I don’t know that I’ll add any of my own journaling; I wanted it to have a message all its own, to provoke thought and cause whoever reads it to pause for a moment. Just glancing at the images, if you know who the men are, should warrant a double take. It almost seems wrong in a way to have Dr. King next to someone who has become to so many a symbol for getting high. I don’t know much about Bob Marley, but I did take some time to research the Rasta colors when Anne first mentioned them to me; I used that knowledge to create the art journal page that follows this insert:



Whether or not what I found is completely accurate doesn’t really matter to me; I loved what it said, and I wanted it (and her) to be part of this art journal process. I found references to the countries of Africa and their culture:  that red represents the blood of the slaves taken against their will; yellow represents gold and the wealth of the people; green represents the prosperity of the land; and black represents the skin of the people, a marker of their culture and heritage.

Bob Marley wrote that song about freedom from the complications and drama that always accompany “hate, mischief, and jealousy.” Dr. King literally gave his life in the fight to have equal rights for all men, despite how they looked or where they placed their family roots. Though each man found self-expression in different ways, both had big dreams for a better world. And those dreams really did exist in the same place as their fears – the place of the unknown – the future.

I can’t help but see a connection to my post earlier today called I AM, and it’s in that message that I find my answer to the question “Would you still go there?” I can dream about the future, and I can be afraid of the unknown it holds, but I choose to live with I AM; He is here in this moment, and it is not hard.