Greetings, welcome to The Dream.
On this page you can follow its progress.

THE DREAM
I establish a ritual retreat and healing center in a beautiful natural spot
on the outskirts of a culture-filled European city or town.
The center is dedicated to bringing back the ancient goddess traditions in a living sacred space.
The center hosts growth and transition workshops, and living dramatic pageants
at the equinoxes, solstices, and other seasonal turning points,
and on the birthdays of all kinds of heroes and heroines from Jung to Buddha to Brigid and Cinderella.
Many musicians and performs help on these pageants.
News of the center spreads by word of mouth to the people who are meant to visit.
The center includes an underground kiva Moon-space for shamanizing and meditating,
a bright plant-filled Sun-space fire and sky chamber, garden-spaces, a waterfall for Shinto ceremonies,
guest rooms for visitors with art and musical equipment in each room,
and a large group room for building altars, sculptures, and creating journals, as well as ceremonies.
The center would be as energy self-sufficient as possible, including self-heating, and power-generating.
The house entrance faces south, SE, or SW.

Development of the Dream
Many people have been interested in the process that enabled me to develop this dream.
The Dream for what I want to do with the rest of my life emerged slowly between 2000 and 2003.

Until I started this envisioning process, I thought my next move would
be into creating animation, movies, and virtual reality.

September 2000:
After reading a Civilization magazine article on Buddhism,
I envisioned my dream house, which would have windows open on beautiful scenes.
The house would be as energy-efficient - I saw a solar-heated greenhouse.
I wanted it to be as energy-efficient as Anna Edey's Solviva.
It would be have enough space for visiting guests - perhaps enough for a dozen.
I thought about the possibility of teaching web design, especially to young
people, especially to third-world children who could use those skills to
let the world know about themselves and their community.
I could also teach Dayan (Wild Goose) ch'i gung.

Then I caught Barbara Sher on public television,
and started working through her self-guide questions.
I started listing what I love:
Travel
Intellectual discussions
Art nouveau
A house like the movie "Performance"
Gardens
Storytelling and movie-making
Humanizing technology
Ancient history
History walks, discovery city-walks
Group adventures, being in a group working toward goals
Ritual theater, including Bread & Puppet, Sha Sha Higby, Julie Taymor
Sleeping outdoors, Beaches at evening, Hills at morning

Barbara Sher's most important question is:
What would you do if you knew you could not fail?
(You cannot fail because you love what you are doing, so you will stick to your dream through all obstacles.)

My answers included:
Create virtual reality worlds (I love Osmose)
Invest in real estate
Create etchings and jewelry
Create environments - This was a big breakthrough. I had really enjoyed fixing up my house.
I realized I would rather create environments <in the physical world> and not in cyberspace.
I wanted to continue doing art, but not as separate pieces, but as part of a whole environment.
This came as a big surprise.
And finally:
Introduce myself to my heros (I came up with this in July 2002;
previously my lack of self-esteem had made me avoid this.)
I listed some of the things I might want to be more involved with.
They included: costume societies, citywalk historians, festivalmakers,
fantastic architects, ritual theater artists: Julie Taymor, Cirque du Soleil,
Bread & Puppet, and then I remembered Cassandra Light.
I knew Cassandra had helped hundreds of people with her workshops.
She works with anyone who has been through trauma in their lives, of any kind
(divorces, deaths, sicknesses, non-supportive childhoods, and more).
I gave her a call and was able to sign up for her next workshop.
It went from October 2002 to spring 2003, and changed my life.

In mid-2002, I did another exercise suggested by Barbara Sher.
I had done a good bit of remodeling on my house, and was very much
enjoying the changes. I was considering whether to do more.
Now I visualized the house remodeling completely finished
and asked myself how I would feel if that dream was complete,
and made another surprising discovery, which was that
no matter how perfect my house could be made,
I would never be really happy in the neighborhood I am in.
I cannot afford to buy a house in another neighborhood of the San Francisco Bay area.
So I started to think about where else I might want to live.
I've always wanted to live in Europe for at least a year.
Now I realized there was no reason I needed to stay in
the Bay area, or California, or even the U. S.
I thought about all the places I'd visited, and where I might want to be.
I began making plans to visit some of these places.

The year-long workshop had dramatic effects, and I had also gotten
involved with some goddess groups. When listing my heros,
I remembered Suzanne Wenger, a French artist living in Nigeria who started doing
sculptures to revive the Yoruba tradition which was dying out,
and I realized that I wanted my dream house to be dedicated to The White Goddess.
I wanted it to feature living drama events in honor of her cycles.
I also wanted it to host ritual growth workshops
that could do for others what the dream workshop had done for me.
It would have to be properly situated according to feng shui principles.
It would be great to have water in front of it.
It would have an underground kiva and a brightly-lit solarium with a firepit.
One possibility would be for the guest pads to be arranged around a central garden.

In February 2003, with the dream plan already quite worked out,
I continued to think of details that would enhance it even more.
I realized I would like to invite people whose work I admire to create
the ceremonies and pageants that would take place there.
I also would invite musicians and performers to be part of these ritual events.
I realized that in addition to the yearly turning point days, there could
be celebrations of birthdays of other creative and wise leaders.
I wanted there to be a drawing pad and art equipment in each room,
as well as a lending library of self-help and spiritual books.
There would be morning dream-sharing sessions.
Then I remembered an earlier dream I'd had about re-establishing
the Breton/Irish annual storytelling cycle. I would like this to
happen nightly, and I would like it to be an opportunity for
students of drama to get experience.

Areas investigated for location:
Fall 2004: central Brittany
December 2004: San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
April 2005: eastern Italy and northern Portugal
May 2005: Ireland
August 2005: western Michigan and Hudson Valley, New York
September 2005: Somerset, southwest England: Glastonbury
February 2006: Stockbridge, Massachusetts
June 2006: western Italy, southwest England and Wales (& Glastonbury again)
February 2007: northwest Ireland, Scotland, southwestern France
September 2007: Glastonbury again, (Tibet and Nepal), and finally Prague
Meanwhile, the value of the dollar went POOF.

Stay tuned . . .

2010: I've found my dream place.
But the value of my house has taken a dive.
Waiting . . .