sadly, it is time to say farewell to our concept intern, stacey, who is leaving us to go to college. please enjoy one last post from her!
I feel as if everywhere I turn I see dreamcatchers. Suspended from rearview mirrors, splashed across blogs, discreetly tucked into editorial images, they are difficult to ignore…not that I would want to. While a trend beloved by too many tires easily, its ubiquity stripping away the element of novelty too soon, the recent overwhelming amount of dreamcatchers has yet to repel me; it just leaves me wanting to know more. It is easy to lose the story in a profusion of images so I looked for it in the legend. These words from Core Designs convince me that a dreamcatcher definitely warrants a warm place above my pillow—
“The dreamcatcher legend originated from the Ojibway and Lakota Elders. They tell us that dreams do hold great power and drift about at night before coming to the sleeping ones. To keep the dreamer safe, the Old Ones created a special web, The Dreamcatcher, to hang above their sleeping places. The ancient story told by the Native Elders is that the Dreamcatcher’s hoop, with the intricate webbing at it’s center, ensures a sleep undisturbed by bad dreams. The good dreams would take the path of the web with great ease to its center and would float gently down the trail of beads, and like the feather, drift down into the minds of the sleepers below.
The bad dreams would struggle with the web and become entangled as the night would pass, leaving them to perish in the rays of the new day sun in the morning.”
The word “dreams” itself is so airy — wispy and elfin when written and rolls cheerfully off the tongue when spoken. The “d” stretches wildly in a yawn before guiding the remaining letters into a calm lethargy. Just hearing and reading and speaking the word throws my imagination into overdrive. Admiring the word and its shape-shifting quality got me thinking about the other meaning of dreams, the even less tangible one that consumes the mind long after the sun has risen and the darkness melted away. A recent dream of mine came true this summer and comes to a close today and I can’t help but feel a melancholy, like I am groping in vain at a fleeting something that has came and passed and can no longer be recovered. I recognize that interning at Free People this summer has been a gift in many forms. Meeting so many wonderful people and being able to observe them and learn from them has enriched not only my understanding of how a corporate setting works, but educated me in the intricate way that a group of creative and hard-working people come together to create something that makes people feel good about themselves. I am very lucky to have had this experience and would not trade this summer for any other.
Thank you, Free People, for having me. :)
in case you missed any of her lovely posts, click on these links:
through our concept intern’s eyes…
be kind to animals and birds, and read all you can
thank you stacey, keep in touch!
I’m going to miss Stacey’s posts :( Best of luck with the semester! I start this week.
I made a dream catcher necklace last week. I was given one by my grandpa as a child and always kept it in my room. Last year I made it into a necklace. Last week, I thought it would be fun to make one from scratch, so i did.
Katie, I agree. Dreamcatchers, when used in such novel ways, can easily trivialize a culture.
Stacey, have fun at college! Freshman year r00lz
Yes Katie! Finally someone who understands my annoyance with the hippy chic culture and their fascination with dreamcatchers. I am Ojibway myself, but we aren’t really a dying culture, at least in Canada, our population is consistently on the rise… but more importantly, people choose to associate dreamcatchers as a “symbol” for a people, but really dreamcatchers were created to sell to the first settlers, and weren’t made before hand. The design is an adaptation from the snow shoe. So in a sense I guess it is still working as a survival tool to make ends meat. :)