That Fall was a special time for me. For the first time ever I had some free, uncommitted time and some savings. So my mind was predisposed to attend to what this white-haired, bearded old man said to me. Besides, I knew him from two earlier dreams, years before.
The last time I'd encountered him, I was climbing a mountain trail. I'd been hiking up the wooded path a long time already in this dream. There he was, sitting on a large granite boulder along the side of the trail. I had just been weighing the possibility of heading back down the mountainside. I turned and looked up at him. I remember that the sun was behind him, turning him into a silhouette. Before I could ask his opinion, he made two gestures. First, with an arm stretched out and his hand pointing, he indicated that I was to keep going. I nodded. Just as I was ready to turn away and carry on, the old man leaned forward, his face now visible in shadow, and raised that same hand to his forehead, making the gesture of the flat hand above his eyes, as if looking into the distance. Gently his head moved left and right. He seemed to be taking in a panorama.
So I carried on up the path. In no time flat, the trees thinned out, the trail became smooth and inviting and, lo and behold, I was looking out at an amazing vista. The further I climbed, the more magnificent the view became. All tiredness vanished. I walked and walked, stopping now and then to take in more of the beauty all around me. The peak beckoned me forward. And I awoke recharged and ready to carry on.
On the October night in question, he actually spoke to me. I was in one of my increasingly vivid flying dreams. At one point when I was aimlessly zipping around, I felt a tug. It was a psychic tug. I just knew I needed to land and to listen. So I did. This time my wise guy was standing right there by my front door on Molenpad in Amsterdam. I'd landed right there in front of him. I realized he was tall, as I am and we were looking eye-to-eye. An enormous peace wrapped itself around me. With a little nod, he moved his face even closer to mine and in a soft, deep voice said, "Go to Nepal."
And that was it. Dream over. I'm sitting up in bed, going over what had just happened. I actually didn't know a thing about Nepal yet. I figured that I'd better go to the library and find out about this place. But first, I had to head out and teach a class in the south of the city.
Zipping along the canals on my bike, my peripheral vision caught sight of a large, hand-painted sign in the front window of a narrow house. I stopped. I wheeled my bike back. And yes, the sign said: Go to Nepal. Okay. That's clear. I locked my bike and went in. It turned out to be a tiny travel agency run by a couple of very nice women. I blurted, "I want to go to Nepal." The tall dark-haired half of the couple just smiled and handed me a brochure. The short blonde smiled encouragingly as I explained that I had to go teach but that I'd be back soon. "Tot ziens!" she said. "See you!"
After the class, I examined the brochure. It described a charter flight and the first and last nights of the stay being at a nice hotel in Katmandu. The rest, including how long to stay in the country, was up to the traveler. No matter that I didn't know where Nepal was. I just knew I was going. I stopped at the bank and withdrew a pile of cash. When I walked back in the door of the travel agency, it was as if they were expecting me at that very moment. With a minimum of chit-chat, I paid for the travel package, committing myself to stay in Nepal for seven weeks (why seven?) and with a light heart, I biked on home.
Thank you, wise man. That journey to Katmandu and beyond, taking me all the way to a hut in a Himalayan village by a lake, brought so much peace and beauty into my life, I was transformed. Waking up each morning, eating what the Nepalis ate, making up my days as I went, I was up among the clouds at Christmas time with picture perfect weather. Blissed out.
I may not conclude without adding this coda. While on my return, staying two final nights in Katmandu, I had another "important dream." At the time, it really did seem like my wise man, appearing with more advice. So I listened and tried to follow his suggestion. But when, the next morning, I'd sought out the tiny, dusty KLM office outside the center of town and presented myself as an aspiring flight attendant, the bewildered Nepali man behind the counter pulled a dusty KLM manual from the shelf behind him and showed me the section that informed me that I was both too tall and too old to start the training. And though I thought all the way home to Amsterdam that there must have been some mistake, I did have to consider the possibility that wise men with flowing white beards tend to know when a dreamer's leg needs a good pull.
Listen to your dreams.