Dreaming Our Lives Awake
An 8 Week Dream Tending Circle
Online with Anahata Giri
Dreams are the guiding words of the soul.
Carl Jung
There is something powerfully honest and authentic about our dreams. Stripped of the conscious ego, our dreams can bring raw, unfiltered messages, straight from the unconscious depths of our psyche, permeated with soul’s wisdom.
The challenge is to stay with the language that dreams speak. We slow down…even slower…so we can embody, inhabit and enact the experiential, felt, imaginal, intuitive, symbolic dream images and narratives.
We avoid the simplistic short-cut of interpretation and analysis, that misses the rich meaning that saturates our dreams. Through dream embodiment, enactment and active imagination, we attune to the dreaming of the dream. Then deeply felt meaning-making arises organically, exquisitely attuned to our soul’s becoming.
We will:
practise foundational dream tending skills that are also soul tending and life tending skills
explore beautiful and anchoring principles of dream tending,
inhabit our dreaming by stepping through gateways of perception: awareness, deep feeling, sensing, active imagination and intuition
practise based on the map of the 5 keys to dream tending from Toko-Pa Turner & the wild mind map and 4 windows of knowing from Bill Plotkin
deepen the art of embodied listening, sacred space holding, mirroring and relational care as we tend each others dreams
experiment with ways to embody and enact the sacred medicine of dreaming in our waking lives
Our Circle
Our circle holds with reverence the sacred sovereignty of each dreamer and each dream. We will learn and practise skills of deep embodied listening, holding sacred space, mirroring and relational care, as we attune to the dreamer’s felt experience, stay close to the dream images and trust the dreaming way.
Each participant will have the opportunity to share one or more dreams. Initially I will lead the dream tending, but over the course, as we explore the micro-skills of dream tending, the group will practise dream tending with each other, with my support. This is an intimate circle, a temporary village, where we will witness and be witnessed by each other. Dreams will be explored with a soul-centred frame (not a therapeutic model - this is not a dream therapy group).
Frequently Asked Questions
-
It is fine to attend, even if you are in a phase of not remembering your dreams as it is fine to share no dreams in the circle. If you have one dream in 8 weeks you can share that. You can also share a dream from the past as long as it feel fresh, resonant and alive in some way. There will be suggestions on ways to remember your dreams. And who knows, possibly gathering with other dreamers will prompt something in you to remember more dreams...
-
There is no obligation to share your dreams in this circle. You will learn beautiful ways to embody and commune with your dreams that you can then put into practice in your own time. Once you meet the other dreamers, and experience the supportive reverence offered to dreams, you may feel comfortable to share, but that is your choice.
-
Definitely no. Our group will make a commitment to not offer interpretation or analysis to our dreams. Dreams are like friends: they prefer us to hang out with them, get to know them and put aside the head-driven, extractive desire to 'work out' what there is to know about our dream-friend. Instead, we draw on other ways of perceiving: listening, attuning, sensing, embodying, feeling, intuiting and entering into the imaginal realm to keep dreaming the dream. We work with dreams in a way that is profoundly in service to your own individual meaning-making as you deepen your relationship with a dream, over days, over weeks, even longer.
-
You will be able to share about 3-4 dreams over the circle, if you want to. There is no obligation to share a dream.
-
I offer a soul-centred approach to dream work that emphasises respect and reverence for embodiment, the imaginal, creative expression, our emotional life and the wild and liminal ways of the soul itself. I am influenced by the work of Soul Guide Bill Plotkin whose understanding of soul is ecological, where soul is the unique eco-niche of the individual and is innately in service to the web of life. I believe dreams can give us potent wisdom about who we are becoming in relationship with the world. I offer the Five Portals of Perception framework as a guide for working with dreams, alongside beautiful dream questions from Toko-pa Turner, as described in her book The Dreaming Way.
This a learning group where you practise dream tending skills with each other in a collaborative and supportive environment.
It is not a dream therapy group.
-
You are asked to maintain strict confidentiality about people’s personal sharing and to attend most or all of the sessions, to help create a supportive container. Sessions will be recorded if you need to miss one or two sessions.
Tending dreams requires deep listening and relational care from the circle. This is a learning group where you will practise dream tending skills with each other in a supportive and collaborative environment. Thus the dream circle is highly participatory and engaging and is not a ‘simply watch’ online circle.
The only commitment expected between sessions, is to record your dreams, if you have them, either in writing or recorded on your phone. You are not obliged to share your dreams.
You may want to continue to explore some of the dreams practices we cover, in your own time, but that is optional.
-
To help create a supportive container for the intimacy of dreamwork, you are asked to please attend all or most of the sessions. Of course, life happens, and it is fine if you need to miss one or two sessions. Sessions will be recorded for those absent, with permission from participants.
-
The dream circles are small, from 4-8 people, to make a supportive container for the intimacy of dream exploration.
Dreaming Our Lives Awake
An 8 Week Dream Tending Circle
Online with Anahata Giri
When: 8 consecutive weeks Thursday 7.00-9.15pm 6, 13, 20 & 27 August, 3, 10 & 17 September (no session 24 September) & 1 October 2026
Where: online via zoom
Price: $380 for 8 sessions, 16 hours of sacred circle, handouts and comprehensive dream tools you can use for a lifetime. Completion of this circle gives participants access to an ongoing dream circle, coming soon…
Circle is limited to 8 participants to allow generous time for each participant to explore their dream/s in depth. We will work in the full group, in triads and pairs.
Please attend regularly to build continuity and trust in our circle.
It amazes me how images that at first are baffling, always bring such profound, attuned, even precise, wisdom for the individual dreamer.
And our dreams bring medicine not just for the individual, but for the collective. I believe that the world needs our dreaming, to bring planetary regeneration.
Maybe the world is dreaming through humanity, so that we might wake up?
I hope you can join us in the fertile underworld of dreams.
♡ Anahata
About Anahata
I am a soul tender, dream tender, circle weaver, facilitator, story teller and a dedicated apprentice to the inner life.
My dream tending is a synthesis of many influences including: my six year and ongoing apprenticeship to dream exploration through stream of consciousness writing, art-making, active imagination, movement, ceremony and nature-inspired practice; the soul-centred approach of the Animas Valley Institute; a body-centred approach drawing on my training as a somatic psychotherapist and yoga teacher; work with the imaginal realm inspired by many including Bill Plotkin and Clarissa Pinkola Estes.