An Animas Valley Institute Program
October 6, 2014 – October 10, 2014
Skalitude Retreat Carlton, WA Cost: $1350.00
There is no better way to deepen the conversation with soul than by attending your dreams while immersed in nature.
Soulcentric Dreamwork is a central component of soulcraft – a contemporary set of nature-based, cross-cultural practices designed to facilitate the encounter with soul.
There are many forms and schools of dreamwork. Soulcentric dreamwork has the distinguishing purpose of initiating the ego into its soul path through a familiarization with the nightworld or underworld. Other forms of dreamwork attempt to borrow or steal a little something from the nightworld and import it back into the dayworld — seeking meanings or interpretations to further the ego’s healing, therapy, self-understanding, or entertainment. Instead, in our dreamwork, we will voluntarily and courageously commit ourselves to an extended stay in the soul’s mysterious domain, permitting the dream to do its formidable and sometimes fearsome work on us rather than the more common approach of doing our work of interpretation on the dream. Throughout the program, we shall be engaged in a numinous dialog with the mysteries — with much of our time spent on the land, learning from greater nature as well as our human nature.
We will apprentice ourselves to the mystery held within our dreams. With a variety of modalities — including direct dialogue with the dream itself, expressive arts and movement, deep imagery, and wandering on the land with (and in) our dreams — we will submit ourselves to the “underdream” that lies beneath our everyday conscious self. We will offer ourselves to what the nightworld has to reveal and will allow ourselves to be changed as a result. We will explore how our dreams want to shift us, what doors they want to open for us, what underworld thresholds they want to usher us over.
We will deepen our dreamwork through additional soulcraft practices, including council work, poetry, shadow work, and individualized soul tasks on the land.
An application is required. Please download Soulcentric Dreamwork Application and return to Animas office at soulcraft@animas.org.
Guides
Nate Bacon, M.A.
Nate Bacon’s passion as a guide is firmly rooted in the fecund soil of our carnal reciprocity with the more-than-human world – and our inherence within that world. His work explores the intertwined and braided rivers of perception, language, and worldview with a commitment to the re-wilding of human culture. He is dedicated not only to undermining the psycho-cultural structures of our modern ways of being in the world, but also to re-membering how to feed and truly be fed by this wild and holy world that we call nature. A wildlife tracker, cultural ecologist, and writer with an M.A. in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness from the California Institute of Integral Studies, Nate brings fierce compassion and a deep love for the mysterious yearnings of soul to his guiding.
Mary is a soul-guide, mentor and wilderness guide. She creatively and heart-fully invites people to be in intimate and vulnerable relationship with Nature, Soul and Spirit.Mary is gifted at guiding individuals into their dreamworlds, accessing the power of deep imagination, and supporting those who are ready and willing to be claimed by their unique, mystical relationship with the World. She guides with humor, genuine compassion, and a deeply intuitive knowing of the soul journey. With grace, beauty, and fierceness, Mary invites sojourners to discover their unique gifts and to bring them into world – to feed Life itself.Mary’s work is deeply informed by her love for the Colorado River Basin and it’s imperiled waters and spirit. She is a mother, river-runner, front yard gardener and tends a flock of hens in her backyard in Boulder, CO.Mary incorporates her training and experience in Hakomi, somatic psychotherapy, trauma work, and creative movement into her guiding. She leads Animas programs, her own locally based soul programs and mentors individuals, near and far, on their soul journeys.
Be Earth Now 
