Raise your hand (or, better yet, leave a comment on the show notes, so I can see it too) if you’ve ever dreamt of a political figure you strongly dislike. When they showed up in dream-form, how did you engage with them? When dreamers have shared dreams of political figures who were the object of anger or disgust, I've seen transformative shifts in perspective unfold.

In this episode, my guest Cythera Wilkerson (another acupuncturist and dreamworker! yes!) talks about, for example, dreaming of Trump, and discovering the connection between feelings toward him, and feelings from childhood. This type of realization is one of the things I value most about dreamwork, on the personal and the collective level: when we are more aware, more clear, and less clouded by reactivity or trauma, we’re available to take more wise, heart-ful action in the world.

I highlight that moment in this conversation because, in the very near future, I’m expanding this podcast to include much more than dreamwork. Along with dreamworkers, I’ll be including guests doing all kinds of work that contribute to The Great Turning of human society toward a life-sustaining way of being on the planet. I share a little more about that in the intro to this episode, and there’s much more to come. Click Play to hear about it, and to hear me and Cythera explore:

• Being simultaneously drawn to and resistant to dreams, which are a place of “darkness,” where we haven’t yet shone light
• A powerful dream of Cythera’s, about smoke and an obstacle in the road, in connection with a transformational process she was in around addiction
• How she turns the energy wrapped up in suffering (or anger or sadness about suffering) toward energy for healing
• Dropping into what Classical Chinese Medicine calls the “yuan level” by speaking about dreams (I know her descriptions of the body levels will strike a chord for someone!)
• Healing by letting our bodies respond to dream images
• Undesirable characters and bathroom dreams
• How she’s seeing yin and yang and the Five Elements in dreams
• and how when we find what we need ourselves, we can offer that as medicine.

Cythera Wilkerson is an acupuncturist and bodyworker who incorporates the world of dreams and the exploration of the personal myth into treatments. She has a Masters in Oriental Medicine and has been active in a dreamwork training through the Haden Institute that opened up a whole new world of healing. She practices in her beloved Appalachian mountains at Medicine of the Heart. Cythera honors the work of the divine feminine, which is subtle, body-focused, and slow. She feels that in our fast-paced society it is a space that we and our earth are desperately asking for us to honor.

It's so fulfilling to connect with Cythera and her beautiful work, and I hope you'll be filled by this conversation too. Listen in now and come leave a comment on the show notes at thedreamersden.org/32

Links in show notes. Music by East Forest.