The Donkey and Serpent!

August 6, 2002

I had a dream back in early 2000 before the outcome of the presidential primaries had been settled. President Clinton was still president and the election was beginning to heat up.

What is unusual is I never sleep in the early afternoon and especially on a Sunday when I never nap due to family activities or chores.

I laid down expecting forty winks but entered a deep sleep. It was so real and I rarely remember my dreams when I awake but this was so real and vivid it stuck with me.

I looked down upon a vast desert in a place I could not recognize. I was above the sand but it felt real and the sun was hot. Suddenly, a donkey appeared below me, trudging through the sand with no master. Instantly I wondered why a donkey would be in the middle of a desert alone without a human to guide it. It walked going somewhere as if secretly knowing its way up a sand dune unguided. In a blink, a great serpent appeared out of the sand, laying in wait.

I did not see it; neither did the donkey. Hidden in the sand, it thrust itself upward grasping the donkey and encirling it with its powerful constricting body. It wrapped itself several times around the donkey squeezing the air and life out of the struggling animal. Like the serpent of old, striking only at a time we least expect it. It was the strangest feeling I had when I awoke. I placed it at the back of my mind and tried to forget it.

Later that year Bush defeated Gore for the presidency. The symbol for the republican party of course is the donkey. At the time I didn't know Bush would win the election. 

I didn't understand the dream it until after the election was over. A slow realization came to my mind, knowing Desert Storm would not be the last our men and women would see in another conflict. If we are to go to the Middle East again we may be ensnared,  trapped like the donkey, helpless in the sand. I pray our armed forces return safely but a foreboding feeling comes over me when I think of my dream. I wish I could forget this dream but it's stayed with me ever since.

NOTE: the ELEPHANT is the symbol of the Republican Party and the DONKEY is the symbol of the Democrat party.