I had a lovely (albeit busy) weekend. The weather here in Chicago has become idyllic; the rains are coming less often and are leaving behind sunny-but-temperate days. This is some of my favorite weather but it has a strange effect on me. Somehow my body still thinks "summer! yeah! we're on vacation!!!" and suddenly I have a hard time being indoors, especially when the sun goes down. It's as if my circadian rhythms are set to "open all night" and I tend to stay up well past midnight until I literally have to force myself to go to bed. I wanna walk under the stars. I wanna drink in the scent of blossoming trees, warm soil and our tangy lake. I wanna play with the wild things and kiss the moon...I can't help it.

Throughout my life I have gone in and out of cycles of sleep dep but I know it's not good for me. It affects my sitting practice (makes me want to nod off in meditation) as well as my dream work (because I stop recalling dreams when I'm not getting good sleep). It is a bit ironic then that as these seductive summer nights are setting in, I attended a dream workshop facilitated by Anne Hill. I've been lucky to have had access to a few workshops/dream circles with Anne and I am always amazed at her knowledge, skill and intuition. If you're curious about dreams at all, I encourage you to check her out. If you don't have access to her workshops, you can contact her for dream consultation, listen to her radio show, and/or read her book What To Do When Dreams Go Bad.

I really enjoyed getting to see Anne again and to participate in her work. After a year frequented by some intense nightmares it is exciting to be invigorated about holding onto my dreams and looking at them in more detail again. I believe I got a lot of personal insight and many tips for using future dreams to support health, expansion and self-knowledge.

If nothing else, Anne reminded us that our dreams about needing to go the the bathroom are sometimes actually about creative urges and the need to release that creativity into the world. Given that I am known in some (small, odd) circles for my "pee dreams"...this makes me feel nuch more artistic and slightly less warped. ;>)

I've had the fortune of doing dream work with Anne Hill in a few small groups and she's an incredibly talented person. If you're interested in dreams, dream interpretation and how you can work with your dreams for growth and healing, then you might want to check this one out. Anne has uncanny insights and it will be a fun day as well as a fascinating peak into the mysteries of our lovely brains!

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8th House Productions presents...



Working With Dreams to Strengthen the Soul
with Anne Hill

We all have questions we want answered, and fears we need to resolve. The great wisdom expressed every night through our dreams is our best guidance for all these concerns. Bizarre and troubling dreams especially bring healing energy for us, if we know how to access it. Understanding our dreams puts our worries to rest, builds wisdom, and helps strengthen our souls.

Dreams also open windows into the future, and help us see things from startling new perspectives. In this workshop we will use group dreamwork and shamanic dream techniques to dive into the world of dreams, find the treasure waiting there for us, and emerge stronger and more confident. We will create dream allies out of disturbing images, and learn how to be bold dreamers. All levels of dreamwork experience are welcome. Please come with an old or new dream to share, a journal, and a small object that evokes your dreams.

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Anne Hill, D.Min., is the author of What To Do When Dreams Go Bad: A Practical Guide to Nightmares. She teaches and speaks internationally, has a private dream practice, and hosts a weekly radio show on dreams. Anne writes about dreams and culture for the Huffington Post, and also writes the award-winning Blog o' Gnosis, http://gnosiscafe.com/gcblog She co-authored Circle Round: Raising Children in Goddess Traditions, is a Reclaiming and Feri priestess, and a faculty member of Cherry Hill Seminary. Anne’s website is http://annehill.org.

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When: Sunday, June 28, 2009, 10am–4pm
Where: Lifeforce Arts Center, 3148 N Lincoln Ave., Chicago IL 60657, www.lifeforcearts.org
Cost: $50 - $75 sliding scale, a $25 deposit is required to hold your space by Wed. 6/24.

To register or for questions, contact River Roberts at 773.506.1099 or river.roberts@gmail.com.

Last night I was dreaming~

I am on a school bus, yet I am going downtown to work in the loop. I am sitting next to my roommate Tari when a friend, MaryLisa (ML), stops at our seat to say hello. She is also on her way to work and shows us a pet carrier she has which is full of iguanas. The iguanas are of various sizes (ages?) and I am attracted to their bright colors but am a bit shy of them and a bit confused at why she's stuffed so many of them into one carrier. ML chats for a while and then moves to an empty seat at the back of the bus.

As I get up for my stop, I look back at the bus (which is nearly empty by now)and notice that ML's pet carrier has been left behind. I realize that ML has forgotten it, and somehow the lid has come off. The iguanas are all still in place though - stacked up into a perfect box-like shape as though some invisible container is holding them. I tell T to go on because I am going to gather the pets and carrier for ML. When I get to them and go to touch them...they scatter, and I begin to panic because I cannot catch them. Somehow, now there are hundreds of them. Every time I grab for one it slips through my fingers (and I'm a little freaked out by handling iguanas...not having done so before).

The bus stops at the end of it's route, which is a park-like spot. The doors open and all the iguanas stream off of the bus with me in hot pursuit. I do not catch a one - but run into a friend from grade school (Mary Beth) who suggests that I explore the park in search of them. She gives me an empty garbage can in which to collect them.

I wander through the park, which looks like a typical Chicago green-spot. Then it becomes more like Florida...then Louisiana. The air becomes thick and warm. The trees, draped heavily in Spanish moss, block much of the light.

I find a small house on stilts in the swamp and decide that I am going to stay there for a while. I can see welcoming light streaming from within and I somehow know that this place is (at least in part) mine. I wade into dark water up to my thighs and then climb the wet, rotting boards that make a ladder to the platform above. The house/shack doesn't have doors (which I don't seem to find odd) so I crawl through a window. I walk through the house (it only has 3 rooms that I remember), looking and touching things here and there. I like it there.

Out the front window is a porch, and on it is a friend, Charles, who is playing pan pipes. I get very excited because I know that if there is anyone who can help me find 100 or so random iguanas in a swamp, it is Charles (ironically, in waking life this is also true). I tell him my story, he agrees to help and we set off on random adventures which are foggy for me and which lack detail.

All I know is that upon waking I had not caught a single errant lizard.

So I remember a short snippet of a dream from last night. It falls into a pattern of reoccurring dreams that I've had about my pets dying or being injured.

In the dream, I am standing and looking at the degu cage, and there are about 6 degu in it, which I seem to identify as our pets. (Degu are Chilean rodents. We used to have four of them, but 6 years have passed and now we only have one.)

As I'm looking at the cage, small bubbles of blue fire begin popping up, and as I rush forward to put them out, I see that one degu's coat has caught on fire but it is not reacting (nor are any of the others). I put my hand in the cage and begin patting the fire out - on the one burning degu - and on the straw which lines the cage. While the degu have not responded to the flames (nor do they seem threatened) by the time I get the fire out - I see that they are all limp (as though dead). Somehow they have also changed shape and color, and are no longer degu - but are small polar bears (the size of beanie babies). I try to lift them and they flop as though boneless and I panic. I try giving one mouth-to-mouth (mouth to snout actually), but I get no response. Just as I am about to break down into grief - I realize I am dreaming and refuse to put myself through the emotional turmoil of those deaths...

So I wake myself up - pushing aside sadness. By the time I finished my sitting I felt better - but it was an odd dream. Perhaps it was influenced by articles I was reading last week about the effects of global warming on polar bears, which truly reflects a nightmare.