Bubbles All the Way Up and Down: A Dream

 [Note: This poem, inspired by Gene Gendlin’s approach to Focusing-oriented dreamwork, is a follow-up piece to “Postscript”, which I posted here last November. It was drafted shortly after that piece, but for various reasons I put it aside at the time and have dipped back into it several times, letting it sit with me, incomplete. Recently it occurred to me that (a) “Postscript”, (b) this poem, and (c) “Seventy-five” (which I posted here in June) combine to form an emotional sequence, with this piece connecting the other two. Together, I see them as marking a “time of turning” in my life. -Robert]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1  A Dream of Fragility

 

Another night, another dream:

 

I’m running a training session,

A small group, about ten people,

In someone’s house, just as we did

In the old days of the approach.

 

And somehow I’m outside

By a busy road

Speaking into a wireless microphone,

With the signal breaking up,

So I don’t know if the people

In the training can hear me.

And then of course my phone rings.

 

So I go to a brief break in the training;

And answer the phone.

You are there, after 50 years,

Phoning at this precise moment

To make contact.

 

I tell you I can’t talk now:

I’m about to do a live demonstration:

A short session in front of all these people,

Which I always begin

By publicly imagining a bubble

Around myself and my volunteer client.

This protects the two of us

From judgement or distraction.

While the audience watches to learn.

 

It’s a good excuse.

But the truth is,

I’m surprised to find in myself

A fragility I didn’t know I had,

As if your phone call

Was the foreshock to an earthquake

Revealing a previously unknown

Fault line in my world.

 

Then phoning you back

Once the live demonstration

And the rest of the training session are done,

I feel my body begin ease

At the sound of your voice:

You are OK, it sounds like.

 

I’ve been so worried about you,

As if I couldn’t afford right now

To lose another foundational

Person in my life.

(Philip and Margaret are both dead.)

 

Then my alarm goes off,

Insistently beeping in the gathered dark,

And the dream of you vanishes

Like the soap bubble

Wish fulfilment dream

That it was.

 

Yet I’m left with:

You are still out there in the dark.

I know where you are,

But I do not know how you are

Or even who you are now.

 

And I don’t even know if this dream

Was about your fragility or mine,

Or even how to tell the difference.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2  Associations: Professional and Personal Bubbles

 

Where this dream of fragility takes me:

 

As a therapist, I’ve long focused

On other people’s fragility:

Anybody’s fragility…

As long as it’s not my own.

The therapeutic bubble,

Well boundaried and one-sided.

 

But this has always been an illusion,

An avoidance of my own fragility,

Another soap bubble fantasy

Of solidity and safety.

 

This makes me wonder about

All the different bubbles

That buoy my life,

Like a fragile raft

In the middle of large ocean,

 

My life like a brief bubble

In the sea of time,

Mostly spent

On all manner of things

Significant and insignificant.

 

The fragile feeling says:

Now there is far less

Of that life remaining

Than what has already passed;

I’m mostly done.

 

Of course, I pretend this is not the case,

I ignore the truth

That compared to most humans

Who have ever lived

I am on borrowed time,

Beyond my span.

 

I let myself forget

That my life is a debt

That can – and will –

be called in at any time.

 

My little life is like

An aneurysm about to burst,

A blood bubble in my brain,

A fragility on which

My continued existence depends.

 

Many questions bubble up in me,

Have I done enough?

Have I made a difference?

Have I lived a worthy life?

Does anyone care?

Will anyone remember me?

Does that matter?

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3  Carrying Forward: The Song of the Bubbles

 

I don’t know how

To answer these questions.

They leave me speechless

And empty-handed.

So I wait. And I wait.

 

And this is what comes:

 

All I know is to go with the bubbles,

To dance to the song of the bubbles.

 

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble,

We are all bubbles,

Our little lives and loves.

Bubble after bubble:

Bubbles emerging from

Geothermal vents

At the bottom of the ocean.

It’s bubbles all the way

Up and down.

 

Soap bubbles and soup bubbles;

Financial bubbles propelled by excitement or greed;

Bubble tea: floating tapioca beads,

The fad its own kind of bubble.

We are all bubbles,

Our little lives and loves,

Bubbles all the way

Up and down.

 

Speech bubbles evaporating

Into the next frame of my life.

Hope bubbles bursting into despair

Like broken blisters.

Despair bubbles bursting into hope,

Like geodesic domes on the moon.

Our little lives and loves,

We are all bubbles,

Bubbles all the way

Up and down.

 

My life bubble surrounded by the time

before my birth and beyond my death;

Quantum foam, constantly flickering in and out of existence,

No solidity anywhere, afloat and adrift.

We are all bubbles

In time and space,

Our little lives and loves;

Bubbles all the way

Up and down.

 

 

 

                                    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 -Pleasanton, Oct 2024 (revised,  Lodi, July 2025)

Images generated by AI using Adobe Firefly Image 4, 

using selected verses as prompts.

Tibetan Prayer Chimes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 Trainers’ Tools

 

I’ve long believed that any large EFT training

Is in need of some way of getting

People’s attention at beginnings and breaks.

 

Twenty years ago, I saw

My favorite Focusing trainer using

A Tibetan singing bowl to start a session.

 

I asked for one for my birthday,

Settling for an inexpensive model

Tuned to middle C.

 

This bowl served me well

But sounded more the dinner bell

My mother used to call

Her wayward children home.

 

This led a generous EFT colleague

To buy me a more elegant little one

With a penetrating, bell-like tone.

 

A musical instrument, it was,

But also a bit heavy

And prone to being knocked out of true

In my luggage.

 

Another EFT trainer, since passed away,

Had the solution to this problem:

A little pair of shimmering

Tibetan prayer chimes,

Tethered together by a rough bit of rope.

 

I took these two trainers’ toys

To many trainings,

And they became a fixture

At EFT conferences,

 

Helping sessions run closer to on-time,

Without yelling or shouting,

And flashing former participants back

To earlier trainings

They had done with me.

 

2  Lost Chimes

 

For my most recent trip, I packed light,

Took only my set of chimes

And used them well

For the training I ran

In Switzerland.

 

After a stop in Poland,

I arrived in Romania.

First day, EFT trainer meeting:

Loud buzz of excitement.

 

At this point, I usually pull out my chimes,

To mark the start,

To penetrate the din.

 

But when and where did I see them last?

I went through my backpack: nothing.

Upstairs, I rummaged through my suitcase:

Not there.

 

I repeated the search of backpack,

Slowly and carefully.

But they had pulled a disappearing act.

 

What happened to them?, I wondered.

Did I leave them in the training center

Or my hotel in Switzerland?, in Poland?

I grieved them. Trainer meeting and conference

Went on, noisily, behind schedule, without them.

 

 

3 What Happened Next

 

Conference ends. Singly and in small groups

People go, leaving the usual

Post-conference emptiness.

 

At the airport,

Security pulls my overstuffed,

Black backpack aside.

They take out many things,

Putting them Into another tray,

Checking, checking:

 

Phones, wallet, hard-drive,

A little metal tin of cocoa nibs,

A suspicious small notebook from Canada,

Which they bang repeatedly on the table.

 

Clearly checking for something,

They put my bag through the scanner again,

But the mystery remains:

 

Like digging deeper into a magician’s hat

(Are all EFT trainers magic workers?)

They pull still more things out of the bag:

 

Shirt, keys, masks, food;

They heft the large Granny Smith

breakfast-apple-for-the-teacher

Fervently offered to me

By an Asian EFTer.

 

Until, at last, from the darkest recesses

Of an outer pocket, unexpectedly

And to everyone’s surprise and relief,

They pull the Tibetan prayer chimes,

That so perplexed and worried them.

 

We all laugh.

“Thank you for finding them!” I exclaim,

They hand me the pile of backpack and trays.

 

No time to explain the back story

Which has taken me many hours

And thousands of miles to lay out here.

 

I go on my way,

Still laughing and shaking my head,

Full of wonder and joy

For all the small things

That make our lives magical and full.

 

                                    -5 July 2025, enroute from Bucharest to San Francisco

 

 

 

Dream: The Bicycle Cop

[Note: The poem was seeded by a dream I had in the morning before I left Romania, at the end of three weeks in Europe.]  

 

Dream: The Bicycle Cop

 

I fail my bicycle safety test.

I get my bicycle fixed;

This time, the bicycle passes

But the police officer fails me:

He’s obtained my medical records

And an x-ray of my back

Shows too much arthritis there.

 

He says my bicycle riding days are over;

It’s too damaging to my back.

 

I’m outraged, how dare he take away

My right to ride my bike?

I fear I’ve lost another bit of me.

Maybe I’ll defy the order,

Ride my bike anyway.

 

But here’s the thing:

I don’t even own a bicycle;

I gave it to a mental health

Bicycle charity in Glasgow

Before we left Scotland.

So why does my heart break

At this loss?

 

 

As I drift in and out of sleep

In the early morning

I imagine getting a bike,

To ride around Lodi

Like the unhoused folks do.

Or maybe a three-wheeler,

Like my old English teacher,

after he retired.

 

A young Romanian student

Drives me to the airport.

She has her bicycle in the boot.

She thanks me for the words I said

Proposing a role for poetry in EFT.

I read her the first section of this dream-poem.

 

We reflect on the feeling of riding a bicycle,

Scenery sliding by,

The sense of freedom;

I say, running is like that too.

She asks if I’m planning to return to Romania.

I don’t know, I say. 

 

 

The unspoken truth is this:

Although the spirit is willing,

The knees are weak;

The hills are steep,

The bicycle passed to someone else.

I don’t know how many more

Of these trips I have in me.

 

So: When will I come this way again?

Maybe never;

There are so many places, after all.

And now I walk instead of ride my bike.

 

But the words I’ve written?

I do think, some of them at least,

Will be read here, will safely cycle

Through this and many other places.

 

I want to say to her,

Here: I leave you my words,

Hoping they will help you find

Your way forward,

Even if I come no more

This way again.

 

                      -For Oana; July 2025; Bucharest-Lodi

 

For Bernadette Walter: Brave Mama Bear

 [Note: Off and on, formally and informally, Bernadette Walter has served as the Executive Officer of the Society for Psychotherapy Research for most of the past 20 years. A couple weeks ago, during SPR's annual meeting in Krakow, Poland, we celebrated her for her long service, as she stepped down from this position for a well-deserved rest.  Two friends and colleagues, Felicitas Rost and Shigeru Iwakabe, asked me to say a few words to her during the conference banquet, and the result was the following poem. -Robert Elliott]

Like me, you first came to SPR

Wide-eyed with wonder,

Like entering an enchanted forest,

And came out changed,

Part of something larger than yourself.

 

As the decades passed,

You grew up, in and with SPR,

Met people important to you,

Made life-long connections.

 

You’ve found yourself a home here,

In this forest of intersecting

Plants, paths and people,

Among the ever-branching lines of research:

Some of them are passing fads, like ferns

That rise up for a season and are gone;

Others are more like towering redwoods

That rise up out of sight and mind.

 

But I like to imagine that your favorite SPR trees

Are most like mighty oaks,

Generously branching, filling the forest

Providing shade and shelter,

Plentiful with leaves and acorns.

 

For twenty years or more, you’ve roamed

This forest like a tutelary spirit:

Watching, protecting, keeping track

Sometimes officially, sometimes unofficially,

But always there, careful and caring,

loving the forest

And its many different creatures:

Big and small,

Shy and delicate,

Careful and heedless,

Caring and self-absorbed;

You’ve loved us all.

 

Like a mother bear,

You’ve watched over us,

Recognizing and appreciating

The wise and foolish of us,

Fierce and determined to do what is right,

To deal fairly, to meet crises, losses,

Opportunities and possibilities.

 

And as you’ve done this,

You’ve grown wise, strong and brave,

And we’ve grown, too, under your watch,

Living out our potential to use

Our knowledge and skill

To make the wider world better,

To use our many gifts to help

Those suffering in mind and spirit.

 

But now after many seasons

It’s time for you to step back,

To open the way

For a new generation of guardian bears.

 

And you’ve left the forest in good shape:

The paths are there, the scary dark places

Have been thinned and opened to the light

As it slants down through the trees;

The risks and possibilities have been mapped.

 

You have made the forest ready

For whatever comes next;

For the new bears,

Who are carrying forward

Your courage, wisdom, and love.

 

And also for all of us forest animals

You’ve protected and watched over for so long.

We are grateful and carry you

In our hearts and minds.

 

                        -Krakow, June 2025