Following Dream Patterns:
Saving lives easily by making multiple connections

                                                                                          

Over 3 million people in Niger, the second poorest country on earth, are starving.   Niger, a land locked African country, has suffered drought and locust plagues, which have destroyed the livelihoods of many of the herding and subsistence farming families.   See report from Oxfam: http://www.oxfam.org/eng/pr050721_niger.htm

And the United Nations World Food Program:

http://www.wfp.org/index.asp?section=2

 

click on image for larger view of map    

 

 

See video footage of the Medicins Sans Frontieres emergency treatment facility in Niger:

http://www.msf.org.au/stories/twfeature/2005/088-twf.shtml

 

The coming months will be even harder as the food supply diminishes.   We know what is happening, it is easily preventable, but so far the response for aid has been poor.   Some of the richest countries have given very little or nothing.   As Medicins Sans Frontieres says “the response to the nutritional crisis in Niger is still vastly inadequate compared to the gravity of the situation”.

 

We can each give something to feed these children.   BUT we need to make up about a $10,000,000 aid shortfall.   How can we reach that almost impossible target?

 

This is where my dream comes in.   It was a simple dream but what struck me about it was the way it showed my dreaming mind selecting images, not in a linear pattern but in a multi-directional pattern.   I find a sandstone carved book and set it on a little reddish brown rock ledge in a rock pool by the sea.   I take a tiny stone out of the rock face and find a grotto.   Inside there are a few cone shells in yellows and browns, further back (it is much larger now than I’d thought) I see many of those lovely brownish red long cone shells.    I wonder at the little girl collecting so many and wonder too if there is something else that I will find in the grotto once I work out how to enter it.

 

What struck me about my dream was the pattern of imagery that followed a sound pattern (sandstone, sea, shells); a colour pattern (the purple red of sandstone, the brownish red of the sea rock, the brownish red of the cone shells); a meaning pattern (sandstone, sea, shells).   It intrigued me for my waking mind would have gone in a totally different but linear direction: it would have gone: sandstone carving, University of Queensland (which has original buildings made of this sandstone), student days etc).   The multi-directionality of dreaming mind’s pattern reminded me of a neuron.  

 

The image of the neuron’s multi-directions stayed with me for a whole week after my dream.   When I heard of the disaster in Niger, I wondered how to help.   The solution was there: in the pattern of the way my dreaming mind makes connections.

I thought: we can easily reach $10,000,000 if one person were to donate a small amount of $10.00, then ask 5 other people to do the same (donate just $10.00 and each to ask another five people to donate) and then each of those were to do the same.   If we did this we would reach $10,000,000 really quickly.   We would all be connected like neurons lighting up all over the world, each giving a small amount, but using the power of our connections to create an enormous amount of money and preventing a large disaster from happening.

 

In providing food, we not only keep people alive but we also create the conditions which will allow peace to flourish.

 

Can you join us in this simple easy chain of connections to help those who are most in need?  

 

If you would like to start a food dreaming chain then please donate $10.00 to one of the organizations below then send an email to (or contact in any way) five people you know and ask them to do the same.   There is an email letter below you might like to use.   Feel free to copy and paste into an email.

 

 

Dear ____________________:

 

Can we save children from starvation?   YES, easily.

 

Over 3 million people in Niger, the second poorest country on earth, are experiencing starvation now or facing it in the next few weeks.   Drought and plagues of locusts have caused this terrible disaster.   The UN has called for money to feed the people but so far the governments of the richest countries have not responded sufficiently.   Read information about the disaster in Niger and see video footage of the Medicins Sans Frontieres emergency treatment facility in Niger:

http://www.msf.org.au/stories/twfeature/2005/088-twf.shtml

 

BUT we can make all the difference in the world to these people.   IF each person were to donate just $10.00 and ask another five people to do exactly the same, and if they also donated $10.00 and asked five more to join in - then – in ten easy steps we would have produced almost $10,000,000 and helped the people of Niger.   It is so simple, so easy.  

 

Please join in this effort to produce the money needed to fund the programmes bringing food to the people of Niger:

 

1.  Donate $10.00 to one of the groups collecting money for the Niger food appeal.   Below there are links to the UK Oxfam appeal (UK tax deductible) and to the UN World Food Program (US tax deductible).  

2.  Email (or ask) 5 other people to do the same (including contacting 5 more people each)

 

Oxfam UK information and donation:

http://www.oxfam.org/eng/pr050721_niger.htm

 

 

World Food Program (and US donations)

http://www.wfp.org/how_to_help/donate_online/online.asp?section=4&sub_section=5#

 

 

Sincerely,

Your Name Here