The Rhino, Remembering the Dream

For nearly forty years, my dreams have been dominated by a large, earthy, gravelly-voiced rhinoceros. He may appear by himself or with his numerous friends: dung beetles, tigers, turtles, stars, and many others. Occasionally his friends come without him. He travels easily through the world. Sometimes he carries me on his back; sometimes we meet in a specified location. But wherever we traveled, I always felt there was a purpose to the trip and that I was missing the point. He seemed to be the trickster- the oracle who gives a technically correct but misleading answer to our most basic questions. I often thought he wanted me to view life as a whole, not with the limited eye of my rational self. Then he seemed symbolic of the onrushing flow of life. I finally realized he speaks for life-all life, not just human life, but for the lives of animals and plants, for the life of the earth itself. His message is that we must turn away from our arrogance and learn again to live with the rhinos, the crocodiles, with all the natural, instinctive forms of life- now, before they are all gone, leaving us alone, alienated and doomed to quick extinction. Gradually I began to understand that he wanted to reach a wider audience, to be published. This book is a partial fulfillment of that desire. - Pat Britt