Soulcentric Dreamwork Intensive
Kangaroo Valley, NSW, Feb 10 - 14, 2025
An Animas Valley Institute event
Artwork by Doug Van Houten
A residential, face to face, fully catered intensive held at Chakola wildlife refuge and conservation area in Kangaroo Valley, Southern NSW.
Program Pricing (Soulcraft ANZ Inc is a not for profit volunteer organisation):
Early Bird: $1,595 Early Bird (to be paid in full upfront at registration)
Full Price: $1,795 - with a $500 minimum deposit to hold your place - paid in full by January 10, 2025.
Concession: $1,495 - A current concession card is required.
We encourage you to pay the full price if you have the means to do so. This will enable us to cover costs and offer some concessional places to those in need. If you are challenged financially, please contact us to discuss.
The soul yearns to dream itself into the world. Every dream emerges from the mystery of the soul and is an opportunity for our conscious self, our ego, to be further initiated into the secret stream of our deeper life.
On this 5-day immersion, you’ll learn what it’s like to enter dreams as mysteries; to boldly and vulnerably interact with its denizens and dreamscapes; to be moved by the deep intelligence of its living images; to open to non-ordinary ways of perceiving; and to experience the underdream of your everyday waking life.
Soul speaks through images, including those that comprise dreams. While most modern forms of dreamwork focus on interpretation and analysis, soulcentric dreamwork invites us to do something radically different — to fully surrender to the experience the dream wants us to have, however strange it may be. A soulcentric approach holds every dream as an embodied invitation to our unfolding soul story.
In this intensive, we’ll wander slowly in the disturbing splendor of the nightworld’s rich symbols, images, and emotions. We’ll courageously commit to an extended stay in the soul’s mysterious domain, permitting the dream to do its formidable work on the ego. Instead of trying to figure out the meaning of the dream, we’ll submit ourselves to its atmospheres, landscapes, and characters.
Earth is always dreaming and inviting us to dive into our own dreamstream. The inner wilds of dreams and the outer wilderness of the world are two of the most potent guides to soul. Unlike any other Western form of dreamwork, we’ll enter both wildernesses at the same time, amplifying the initiatory effects of both. We’ll apprentice ourselves to the mystery held within our dreams while approaching the animate world as if it is listening and wanting to participate. We’ll re-enter our dreams while deepening our conversation with the other-than-human world.
Through 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’ll explore how our dreams want to shift us, what doors they want to open, what underworld thresholds they want to usher us over.
Join us and deepen into your dreams and your unfolding soul story!
There is an opening downward within each moment, an unconscious reverberation, like the thin thread of the dream that we awaken with in our hands each morning leading back and down into the images of the dark. – James Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld
Venue:
Chakola is a 32ha wildlife refuge and conservation area on the tribal lands of the Wodi-Wodi people in Kangaroo Valley NSW. The property adjoins the Kangaroo River which can be accessed for swimming. It is 2½ hours drive from Sydney or Canberra. Nowra, Berry and the Princes Highway are 25 minutes away over Cambewarra Mountain, while Bowral, Mittagong, Moss Vale and the Hume Highway are 45 minutes away via the beautiful Fitzroy Falls.
Your Guides:
Doug Van Houten: Doug draws on the wisdom of the natural world, depth-psychology, eco-psychology, dreams, somatic knowing, poetry, and many pan-cultural, soul furthering practices that include: The Way of Council, vision fasting, shadow work, symbolic artwork, trance dancing and conversations with the more than human world. Doug’s true calling in life is to support others as they uncover their own unique gifts and in so doing, transform their lives in service to what Thomas Berry called ”The Great Work” of our times. Doug is also an ardent beekeeper, a visual artist, a wily wanderer, a dream tracker, an emergent ceremonialist, a heart-centered activist, and a yogi and a dancer interested in new forms of somatic practice.
Rebecca Wildbear MS: Rebecca is the author of Wild Yoga: A Practice of Initiation, Veneration & Advocacy for the Earth and has offered Wild Yoga™ programs since 2007. She guides people to listen to the mysteries within nature and their bodies and dreams so they can belong to and serve the Earth community. Rebecca has been a wilderness and soul guide for decades and has spent most of her adult life in wild places. She has extensive somatic therapy and dreamwork training and loves to tune in to the mythic stories of humans and the animate world. An Earth lover, activist, feminist, and writer, she fiercely supports radical social and cultural change. Rebecca often guides alongside her canine muse-beloved, Xander, who is guide to love, joy, presence, and play.
Food and Accommodation:
The program is fully catered, providing hearty vegetarian food. We will pass on any dietary restrictions advised by you at registration. If you have not already let us know of any dietary restrictions that apply to you, please forward to us as soon as possible.
Lodgings and bedding requirements:
There is dormitory accommodation in shared bunk rooms or camping if preferred.