No Potato

I woke up this morning with this revelation, spoken out loud: 

 

There’s no potato!

 

So today’s post is a shout-out to that grand mystery, the human mind. Especially the subconscious one, that knows so much about what’s needed. Like the fact that teaching a new variation on an old course in a new place next week will require some thought and preparation. So no better place to begin than in dream and my dreams last night were vivid coming attractions of the activities I will be doing. 

 

One of them is an old game, Head and Shoulders, that parenthetically was the first game I learned in my very first Orff workshop 53 years ago. It begins with the text and motions:

 

 Head and shoulders, baby, one-two-three, 

Head and shoulders, baby, one-two-three, 

Head and shoulders, Head and shoulders, 

Head and shoulders, baby, one-two-three. 

 

The next verse is “knees and ankles” and then in my dream, teaching the game to some 60 people, I blanked out on the precise verse about potatoes. I tried “bake potatoes,” “give me potatoes,” “I want potatoes” knowing that none of them felt right and confessing as much to the group, asking for their help. But no one knew the right verse and no one had the book that it’s written in. And I was equally confused about when that verse came in. After the “head” and before the “knees” one or later? I kept starting again, the way that you do when the mind is racing through its search engine, but no result. Finally, right at the cusp of waking from the dream, I realized I could go to the computer and look up the score I had in a folder there. I was literally about to get up from bed and walk to my computer when the insight flashed:

 

“There’s no potato.”

 

Not in that game, anyway. Certainly in the “One Potato, two potato” game, but while the dream mind is endlessly mysterious in its associations, it is wholly unreliable in relaying literal truth. 

 

So now I am awake and ready to plot and plan my classes with my conscious mind, while the mysterious, deep waters below continue to churn and add their voice to the mix.