"Awakening Into the Florida Dream" Chapter 2:

Dreams are for Exploring.

From www.growingintothemystery.net Paul Hampton Crockett

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain

multitudes.

—Walt Whitman

Above and below from Wreckers of the Florida Keys, Harper’s Magazine, 1911

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Preliminary note: the first chapter of this rambling exploration can be found in this web
log, at: http://growingintothemystery.net/2009/09/17/awakening-prelude-to-a-dream-i/

DREAMS held close in the heart, I believe, are always worth exploring. The
closer and more widely held, the greater the import and essential the inquiry.
It might be said of Humanity: we dream, therefore we are.

"Til Human Voices Wake Us, and We Drown." Above and below, remains.

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James Deering's vision of a winter residence taking shape: the Villa Vizcaya. The guided
tours now given at the great place speak of Deering’s global search for a site with an ideal
winter climate, and other unspecified prerequisites, leading him to the unlikely choice of
the far-off and little known “outpost” of Miami. Below, the completed house 3 years old,
1919.

That picture may be accurate, in part, but is at best also incomplete. The man’s family
ties to the area were very strong. His older half-brother Charles, with whom he seemed
to share a deep and abiding fraternal relationship, chose also to build in the true
wilderness of the area, but further away. His home, now also a Miami-Dade County
museum, sits many miles south in the Old Cutler/ Palmetto Bay area. Also, their father
William had actually moved to Cocoanut Grove, and there took his last breath on a
beautiful winter day in December, 1913.

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 Below, the patriarch enjoying a visit from Charles and his family (young Marion in her
mother’s lap) at his home in the Grove.

The dreams we collectively share are of utmost power and dynamic beyond
measure. In contemplative moments we might recognize the dreams
carried within our hearts, and perhaps imagine such images as a
scrapbook, but in greater truth it is the dreams that carry us along, on
currents of a depth and force not given us to understand.

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 Veranda, Royal Palm Hotel, 1910’s.

Even the most vivid tales captured in the flipping pages of a book, or
passed along by voice beside flickering campfire, have a beginning and end,
are contained within the boundaries of either page or accepted form, and
stand fixed in time in relationship to whenever might be the now.

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 Primal Art, and strikingly modern: an ancient copper breastplate worked by the skilled
hands of some native, centuries ago. Uncovered in a burial mound.

They speak the language of the deeper heart, and bear always precious
clues as to that to which we aspire, that which we fear, and all in between.
Or, perhaps, in sum, who we might think we are.

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“Where there were mangroves, now there is only mud.” Note the worker in the
lower right corner. Definitely a lousy job.

A drivable roadway in 1916 Miami was big news. The road surface seen here is not
asphalt pavement, but the crushed limestone that hardened so beautifully when laid out
upon a roadway. It was also blindingly white, carrying the sun’s full glare into the
squinting eyes of those driving or walking upon it.

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TO venture with any real depth into the Florida dream, the sole
requirement is an open mind. Not as easy as it sounds; in our “branded”
culture of commodity, where absolute conformity is pursued as a relentless
ideal, it’s no wonder that people presume to know today, exactly where
they are to be, tomorrow. And, there’s an app for that.

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The singer Sade: It is a possibility, the more we know the less we see

The Late Great Tropicaire Drive-In Theater

It’s a shabby and unfortunate business indeed when travelers keep

themselves mentally occupied solely by proving to themselves (or worse,
imposing upon others) whatever notions or beliefs they might have
brought with them in the first place.

In such cases, when agenda replaces awareness, it is not difficult to miss

completely how very wide and open is the horizon surrounding us on all
sides, and the skies above!

Everglades, 1880’s

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 Scientific Map of Miami, 1933

THE Dream itself is not to be found on any map. It requires no place, for it
is woven of many. Dreams are more like stars than planets, and closer to
galaxies than stars, because they are vast, and are larger than all of it, yet
somehow at the same time themselves interwoven into a grand tapestry.

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EVEN a young child can point out the distinctive outlines of the State on a
map (usually the one embellished with the alligators, oranges, and/or
bikini-clad beach babes under the umbrellas), and even touch the map with
her little fingers, but will only shrug when asked about the location of the
Dream.

"Brickell Avenue, leading past the Deering Estate."

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 James Deering in Residence, Vizcaya.

Florida has always seemed, and in fact been, a sort of perpetual frontier. A
last frontier, always.

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 All too often, Man faces his fears by killing. Above, family of black bear, below,
Florida panther. For the sake of the innocent, I pray that we be given mercy, and
not justice.

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Even still, the Everglades remains the epicenter of mysterious, frightening, and
awe-inspiring things.

Crocodile.

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 Alligators John Singer Sargent

WITH this Dream, the real challenge is in trying to figure out what in the
devil is going on. Or for that matter, even beginning to make heads or tails
out of any of it!

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“Looking for dry land to light the camp-fire.” Climbing a tree in the flat, flat Everglades.

A visitor to our backyard. The various animals seem to love it here. We are happy to have
them.

An intrepid little turtle braves the coral reef.

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Why be a schmuck in Peoria or Oshkosh?

Everybody loved Flipper

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A Classic Marx Brothers film playing upon the easy target of Florida’s great land
boom of the 1920’s. That crazed hour (in which my grandfather played a part, as
street-selling “binder boy”), stands as singular among the popular delusions of
crowds in recent history.

A great photo, capturing in a casual moment of the truly extraordinary booms of

recent history. The people pictured here are lounging about at the beach, tracking
the meteoric rise of the stock market. And indeed, as long as one is to grow

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obscenely rich without effort or industry (at least on paper, and for a while) then
why shouldn't he or she enjoy the beach in the meantime?

I think it quite possible that the Almighty herself might have stumbled across this
photograph, rolled her divine eyes, and felt it as good a time as any to "pull the
plug." The Great Depression was on its way.

OF course, it’s worth noting that a Dream is specifically not a Puzzle. Or

might it be exactly that, sometimes?

However one frames the question, it remains so that of all the treasures
that we might from time-to-time set out to hunt, meaning can remain the
most elusive.

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A picture is worth a thousand words, easily, and sometimes more than any
number. Maybe 100 images carefully collected and joined together as part
of one chronicle tell a thousand stories.

If I asked "What is the Florida dream, to you?," and you stopped to think
about it, you would probably see: pictures.

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"Winter Visitors to Cocoanut Grove, 1886-87"

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“Camping in Miami Beach, 1924.”

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A decorative flourish that sat in the window of the garage workshop at the home
of my Crockett grandparents in the Roads section of Miami.

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 Biscayne Holiday Eugene Savage

THAT is also the way that we dream.

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The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street ___Giorgio de Chirico

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 Vizcaya, “North Gate to the Woods” Under Construction.

Paul Chalfin, perhaps (second only to Deering himself) the unifying creative genius
behind the Vizcaya project. Obviously more carefree than Deering; he wasn't the one
paying!

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 Above and below: the fabulous, long-gone boathouse at Vizcaya. (Note Deering’s yacht
nesting comfortably alongside. I suspect the place was utterly obliterated by the monster
storm of 1926. Deering himself had died the year before, God rest his soul. No one else
ever dared think, imagine, or spend—on such a heroic scale.

All we are left with of the boathouse is the idea of it. Remembrances of dim
remembrances. Yet for that, I am grateful. The boathouse may be the building pictured
in the foreground, below.

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Site of present-day downtown Miami

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And, how we remember. (Although smell and music seem also to share that
quality of putting us right on that train back to memory, leaving logic or
rational thought distantly behind at the station, scratching its head.)

It is a profound question that knows no bottom, the power of the image.

They soothe and delight us, they horrify and deeply disturb us, they inspire
or manipulate us.

Sometimes images have a power all their own, and sometimes the message
is in the juxtaposition. Here is one of the numerous photographs from
Florida’s history evidencing man’s wanton treatment of the environment,
and especially the other animals. I count this image within that category
only because the Whip Ray has never been considered edible in the

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Western Hemisphere. So it has been killed for sport, for cheap thrills, or for
no reason at all.

Is it not a beautiful creature?

Almost as soon as I saw it, another image flashed into my mind. Maybe
that is why images are so powerful a thing. Like music (for example,
“cheesy” but catchy advertising jingles), they require no formal invitation
to take up residence in your head. Once something has been seen, it cannot
be unseen, even if (perhaps especially if) you really wish that it could.

Without further commentary, here is the other image:

IT occurs to me that the great philosopher Plato dismissed the image

(paintings, in his days), as a mere “shadow of a shadow.” Yet his quest was

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different than ours, and since his days, or even within the last 20 years, the
world has undergone a sea change. We live out our lives in an abounding
and limitless world of images (made possible, for example, by the Internet
and the computer you now sit pondering) far beyond the imagination of
even that most brilliant of men.

To him, the “idea of a tree” was under no circumstances to be mistaken for

the tree itself. We understand that, I believe, and have gone one step
further.

It is indeed true that, say, a photograph of a Polar bear running along with
two of its cubs is not to be mistaken for the animals themselves. Yet therein
lies its very power—in the idea itself. We know that if we put the photo to
our noses, we will smell no scent of bear. And its surface is smooth to the
touch, not wooly and frosted with ice.

And yet if the animal is to be saved—if such redemption remains possible—

it will be the image much more than the bear itself that makes it happen.
Part of us knows that if we do not apply our attention to its plight, and
quickly, the image will be all that we have left. And that, for only so long as
we might have left.

We have already lost so much; the thought is unbearable.

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An Edwardian-era case display of preserved passenger pigeons. Two hundred years ago
the world’s most abundant bird, numbering in the billions. The last known wild pigeon
was shot in 1900. Martha, the heartbroken last of her species, died at the Cincinnati Zoo
on September 1, 1914.

The photograph may remain, but the world it documents will itself have
been diminished. The Mama and baby bears scampering along on the ice,
the bears in the picture, and any descendants that might have followed
them, will no longer leave paw prints upon the ice. The subtext of the
image will be transformed from excitement and majesty to sorrow.

Even the little guy in the box of animal crackers would remind us. He never
seemed lonely before despite his lack of a mate, but then again, we knew
that they were out there.

Stereopticon, Polar Bear Family with Seal, Chicago Museum of Natural History

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And our children’s children will have to explain to theirs, “No, that’s not
make-believe. There really were bears that were all white, once. The snow
and the ice were their home. They were fierce on land, but you should’ve
seen how they could dive and swim.”
“Yes, they were beautiful. They really were.”

WITH images, as with our attention and perception, the power is all in the
editing. When used as a medium for genuine communication, the power of
the image is without parallel. Words are clunky in comparison, able to
carry only a fraction of the “freight” of meaning as might an image, and in
the process tending to invite further misunderstanding and greater
divisiveness.

There is a quality of the Human heart that will continue turn intuitively to
an image, with a sense of Hope, when all words have become forever frozen
in a hard, thick layer of mistrust. Words are hard and sharp, and can be
seen coming a mile away. In contrast, people only rarely approach an
image anticipating any kind of attack. Thus the raw power of propaganda.

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The most direct means of approach to the deeper tale always unfolding in
the Florida Dream, in all of its breathtaking audacity and brazen
shamelessness, it seems to me…

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…is in the bounty of images it has always seemed to generate.

It must surely rank among the most documented of Great Dreams. That’s
not the problem; this is not that kind of puzzle.

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Florida Dreams of Itself

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Alligator Released to custody of town taxidermist. (Note in the background what must be
one of Florida’s “shell stores.”)

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YET something calls out out to us from this distant realm. Though it be far
beyond our ken, it promises something that will complete us.

Raising in my mind this question, intriguing, huge, and much more than
simply poetic:

What is the relationship between dream… and prayer?

Those fortunate enough to have somehow found their way there and to
taste of it, have often returned home bearing some knowledge that
matters.They come back enriched by a new understanding, that might yield
a single golden fruit: Hope.

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Along the Way___ P. Crockett

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It is the only harvest of its kind, and quite miraculous: simply dreaming of
it, awaiting with whatever patience one might muster the hour of its
glorious arrival, brings it forth. One small seed, held in the palm of your
hand, is as golden and valuable as the entire crop of any great grove.

(And may there come a day, and soon, when the people remember that
when one of us is lifted, it does not pull any of us down, or hurt the rest of
us. But when any of us fall, we are all diminished.

We tend to get that one backwards. And many more of us are falling, than
rising.)

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Maybe we can try compassion. We seem so ready to punish.

I am quite certain that the best place to practice compassion, ounce for
ounce, is also its (far and away) most difficult, elusive and somehow distant
target: ourselves.

The face looking back at yours, curiously, in the mirror.

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SOME journeys are not for measuring in miles. As apparently suits its
purposes, the path on which this journey has led me remains completely
unbound by time, distance, or even reason. The way has been anything but
linear, in fact, with neither map nor compass of any real use, and only
instinct and intuition to guide. In this realm, I am not experienced.

Or maybe I am. I once wrote in my journal, in which I made note of my

dreams, “By noon, the dream is forgotten.”

A stone lion, faithful and steadfast in purpose, stands vigilant guard over a grand family
home long since erased, and its sprawling grounds. Never mock him, for he is proud,
and no fool. Can you find compassion in your heart for one who knows to do only that
for which he was created, though that dream has sadly faded before he?

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Paradox thrives in its heady atmosphere as does, say saw grass in its
Everglades home. It is everywhere!

Words are useful only to a degree in presuming to report upon a Mystery

more infinite and vast by far than their architecture was ever intended to
sustain.

Rescue Winslow Homer

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 Crop, 1900’s

IT is undeniably so that any exploration of a land that contains oranges and

alligators, saw grass and key lime pie, lurid flamingos and chocolate-
covered coconut patties that outlast Human lives, by its very nature, cannot
omit whimsy. I mean, come on, consider the sunsets!

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Carmen Miranda (The Morning After) ___P. Crockett

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 Deco Dreams Marty Kreloff __ http://martinkreloff.com//

Poster art for the annual art deco event hosted by the Miami Design Preservation
League, bringing to mind an era that now seems long, long ago and far, far away. Marty
is a friend of mine. Although his notable art career has led him to L.A. for the past
several years now, he will always carry Florida with him, in his heart and on his palette.
Cannot help it.

Bathers

He has absolutely no idea of it, but Marty played an important role in my own
artistic journey. Back in 1990, I brought to this real, established professional
artist, a bit nervously, only the fourth or fifth painting I’d ever done for critique:

Scott and Daviea ____P Crockett

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He said,"Keep it up." At that time and in that place, he made a positive difference in my
life. Thank you, Marty.

Miami leaves even the most beloved dreams of yesterday behind. It is only a matter of
time before all evidence has been destroyed.

Henry Flagler’s Royal Palm Hotel

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Only a wall remains. Not a high wall, nor one promising of security, yet for all of that as
stubborn and dignified as the day it was gloriously new.

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Lost Lake Tourist Attraction, Miami, itself now “lost.” Check out http://www.lostparks.com/

“Tropical Wonderland”

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 Biscayne Night_____ P. Crockett

I HAVE undertaken research of a scope and depth of intensity that can only
bespeak true passion (You know how it’s so easy to learn everything you
can about the things you really love?), as if something of the utmost
importance depended upon it.

I have labored with the intensity of an archivist handed the finest and most
very precious volumes of Knowledge, inscribed in disappearing ink.

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The rarest of the rare: the breed of visionary who can not only see the whimsical elegance
of the Venetian Pool where others see only a sharp-edged, gaping rock pit, but can then
proceed to bring his vision into being, for all to see and enjoy and experience. We all owe
him. George Edgar Merrick, Founder of Coral Gables.

Miami as Venetian Dream (Above) & (Below) Advertisement in Miami Senior High
School Year Book, 1922

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Advertisement for “the City Beautiful,” 1926. Few have either packaged or sold dreams
better than did Merrick and his cast. One truth that can be spoken of the omnipresent
and elusive Florida Dream: it is not accidental.

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Never without a good fight!

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Road to Cocoanut Grove. Below, interestingly, Drive to Cocoanut Grove.

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 Vizcaya, aerial view.

Spanish Moss ____John Singer Sargent

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And yet it hasn’t really felt like work, at all.

I have gathered countless images of Florida and its history, and

photographs and documents spanning several generations of my family. I
have interviewed older family members, uncovered contemporary
chronicles, and voraciously consumed historical accounts.

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 The Dade County Courthouse, rising directly over the old courthouse, 1920’s

I have hit countless dead-ends, yet found also unexpected portals where I
might have expected only a hard, flat brick wall.

I have at last given up on the completion of certain puzzles, only to see

them (almost as if by happenstance) come together with pieces fallen from
one completely different.

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Much to my surprise: more like watching petals fall softly upon the grass,
presumably from some flower above, than taking to the hot forge again
with hammer and anvil, determined to make it fit.

Morningside by the Bay___ P. Crockett

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Tamiami Trail newly laid down. Loop Road.

Garden Oasis _____P. Crockett

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Photograph taken out on the Loop Road in the Everglades, by E. Katy Raits

THE animals can hear it better and more clearly than we. And in their very
being, despite everything, they pray it.

How could we possibly imagine any real Florida dream without them?

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 Benjamin Disraeli famously observed that there are three kinds of lies: “lies, damned
lies, and statistics.” This is a damned lie, and bizarre, to boot. The event “reported” never
happened, and neither was anything like it at all likely. Florida Panthers are among the
most diminutive of the “big cats,” and are by temperament shy and reclusive. Possibly a
Victorian-era morality tale, teaching that perhaps it is better to stick with “the beast that
you know”—and require no “pursuit for a kiss,” than to take your chances in the greater
“jungle out there” of the World. Only one possible interpretation, of many. Whatever the
intended lesson, however, it had absolutely no proper business involving the innocent
panther.

Any such fine points as to “subtext” were lost completely on Florida’s settlers, who
learned to shoot to kill, on sight.

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Panther cubs need love, too.

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 “First fox caught in South Florida.” I wonder if any remain.

“Gathering Turtle Eggs, Florida”

The ancient, magnificent sea turtles never really had a chance, being both slow and
cumbersome on land, and delicious.

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 Popular Mechanics Magazine, 1928 .

IT really cannot all be put into words. Count me a fool for even trying. And
yet, none have ever heard even a minor strain of this Great Song without
breaking down in tears, for the sheer joy of it.

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The Artist’s Home at Night ___P. Crockett

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 Welcome to the Peacock Inn ____P. Crockett

The story of this painting has been told on this web log, at
http://growingintothemystery.net/2008/12/06/capturing-history-before-its-gone-2/

Christmas 1887

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 Love Never Dies, II ____P. Crockett

AND so, as I embark upon what I have come to recognize at last as a

journey of the Heart, I move forward with a singular hope and intention.

As I move freely in and out of the Magical, and dive beneath that river well
known to us to swim deep and free within the currents more ancient and
vast running always just beneath,

from Wreckers of the Florida Keys, Harper’s Magazine, 1911

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as I venture further into a realm of pure possibility unbound by time,
distance, or even reason,

I cast my strongest hope in somehow touching that chord within your

Heart that knows and understands, even if we both might have in part
forgotten.

Afternoon Tea, Peacock Inn 1887

WHO knows when a tiny spark of recognition might take flight and burst
into a living golden flame that warms and lights at last an inner hearth long
grown a little cold, and dark?

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There is something great and good that we share, though you might well
know it by any other name. It is the heart of your Home and the Home of
your Heart, and you can seek out its exact center by taking the time to stop
for a moment, and to feel where your love is.

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 Sailboats, Cocoanut Grove, 1880’s

You see, the truly wondrous thing about this Great Dream in which I find
myself awakening is, that I am not alone in it, and neither is it my Dream
alone. And neither is it foreign to you, not in the least.

YET neither is our journey together any indulgence in pure whimsy, or

entirely fanciful. We are here at the same time in our respective places, and
you are now reading these words, for a reason.

And we need not know exactly what it is, perhaps are not meant to, or it
will not serve us. But is it not in our nature to inquire?

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Night Garden ____P. Crockett

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 Imagine. Your train will either pull into the station waiting, or disappear instantly and
forever.

It remains fully mysterious, and yet this I know. It is not only welcoming of
all, it partakes of all, as the sun and silver moon shine their light upon all
equally, without regard to qualification or virtue.

It might be seen as something larger than any of us but leaving out not one
of us. We are all of us part of it, and are as a matter of common course
blessed and enriched by the works and vision of those we will never know,
or might choose to have nothing to do with, if we did.

It is as an ocean, that refuses no rivers.

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NONE may lay claim to it with any flag, though mighty kingdoms have
certainly tried, and neither can its geography be reduced to points upon a
one-dimensional map. We all are home together there, perhaps held too
close to see within its warm embrace.

The heart even now beating within your breast, together with all of your
hopes, fears, and dreams large and small, is an indispensable part of it. Its
very heart beats along with yours, and mine.

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And words fade away at last to Light! having served their purpose and
fulfilled their commission.

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