Turning Season: Conversations with Changemakers in Our Adventure Toward a Life-Sustaining Society

Do you carry stories or sayings from your grandparents, or other elders in your life? How about wisdom that comes through you -- are you a mentor or an elder to someone? Do you ever view yourself as a "future ancestor"?

Click Play now to listen to my conversation with AnneLisa Vallery about supporting intergenerational connection in BIPOC (Black, Indigenous & People of Color) communities.

When I look to examples of more life-sustaining societies, and imagine a life-sustaining mainstream culture (won't that be something!), one for-sure piece of it is this: 

More intergenerational connection. 

So when I heard AnneLisa Vallery talk about her project, Causing Legacy, supporting connection between BIPOC youth and elders, I was excited to invite her onto Turning Season Podcast to share why closing the gap between generations matters so much to her.

AnneLisa is the founder of Causing Legacy, as well as a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) for teens in the Los Angeles County foster care system, a holistic wellness coach, a singer and an artist. She's a beautiful example of what I'm so drawn to: people who are following the threads of what they love, what breaks their heart, and their own life story, to rise to their own role in our Great Turning.

In this conversation, we speak only a little about the "big picture" ecological and social crises, and speak a lot about remembering those we've forgotten, and connecting with older and younger generations, through stories of AnneLisa's own experiences. 

Click Play now to hang out with us, heart to heart, and notice where you recognize yourself in AnneLisa's stories.

Show notes: turningseason.com/episode5

The one where a grandfather & permaculture designer points out my "old paradigm" thinking. And where this seasoned teacher, André Soares, founder of Ecocentro Ipec in Central Brazil, talks with me about:

• his more than 25 years in international permaculture design and teaching
• unlearning "business as usual" thinking
• healthy home design
• the abundance of our planet, coexisting with the inequality between people on different parts of the globe
• being a grandfather
• the view that thriving living systems are true wealth
• how to understand "sustainability"
• and shifting our old paradigms (like mine, where there was such thing as "building from scratch")

André Soares is a trilingual permaculture designer/teacher and natural builder, and since 1994 has trained more than 7 thousand designers in Brazil, Portugal, Australia and the USA. Co-founder of The Permaculture Institute of Central Queensland and NAG community radio in Australia and Ecocentro Ipec in Central Brazil, a living and learning ecovillage centre that has seeded the Permaculture and Natural building movement in many regions of South America. Andre has received multiple design awards for his work with Ecovila Santa Branca and Boom Festival, a biannual gathering of 50,000 people in Portugal. Andre was the first representative of GEN in Latin America in 1998 and has been recognised since as Social Entrepreneur in three continents.

Show notes: turningseason.com/episode4

Matt Cochran joins me again, this time to share how dreamwork, especially in connection with men's work, is a part of his role in The Great Turning. Click Play to hear us talk about:

• how Matt relates to the "three stories of our time" (and how these compare to a rite of passage, or initiation)
• what dreams are for him and the people he works with (a navigational tool; a fierce, viable presence; a glimpse of the mythic level of our lives)
• men's work in Matt's life (including his shift from the loneliness of a lone wolf to non-competitive brotherhood with other men)
• how "the initiated masculine" is a part of The Great Turning
• mapping and protecting landscapes, from inside and outside of existing legal structures
• looking to the Earth as a role model, not as a victim
• and one of Matt's own most significant dreams

After you listen, leave a comment at turningseason.com/episode3 and let me know what struck you. I'm curious what you think/feel/wonder about this conversation.

And remember to share your book recommendations for Turning Season's bookshop!

Matt Cochran is a dreamworker, wilderness guide, and modern homesteader. Raised in California, he’s spent his adult life in the Innerwest. First as a wandering poet, then as an Exploration Geologist in Nevada, a Surveyor/Mapper in Colorado and Montana, and a wilderness guide in the Southwest, he’s had a continued relationship with the wild landscapes of the Innerwest. 

With his partner, he’s created a world-built-by-hand and they spend much of their time running their modern homestead. In midlife, Matt earned an MA at Pacifica Graduate School in Depth Psychology focusing on dreams and ecopsychology. In hindsight, he sees that he took his mapping skills to the inner territories, and recognizes that the language of wild nature corresponds to the language of dreams. 

He’s trained in Rites of Passage with Animas Valley Institute and been involved in Men's Work through Michael Meade and the Rising Man Movement. Matt is now blending all these worlds into the offering of Raven Dream Tracking, where he focuses on dynamic dreamwork and works with men in what he calls Wolfpack Dreaming. As Matt says, “Dreams to me are an incredible navigation tool and a fierce, viable presence. They give us life from the hidden places within, and a generative, creative and visionary capacity in the world without.”

Show notes: turningseason.com/episode3

Music by East Forest

Click Play now to hear my conversation with Jay Wong, who's developing "regenerative smart villages" in Portugal.

What would it look like to have residential, commercial, and agricultural life happening in a multi-generational community, one that handles waste, water, food and electricity sustainably? That's a big question, and Jay's learning about all aspects of the answer, in the project he co-founded: Inspira Villages.

Inspira Villages is a real estate development and design firm based in Portugal dedicated to building Regenerative Smart Villages designed around healthy living, holistic sustainability, and local resilience.

Jay grew up in Southern California, and has lived and worked in the US, India, and Portugal in technology, health, nutrition, wellness, finance, and media with a focus on innovation in product and service design, sustainability, and systemic transformation. He's also a meditation teacher offering workshops and retreats on stress management and personal development. He helps run a yoga school with his wife and is a proud father of 3.

And, he's my little brother. I'm so excited to be having these kinds of conversations with him and to get to share this one with you.

Listen in to hear us talk about:

• Jay's journey from living in "business as usual," through deep sadness about "the great unraveling," to his current role, generating solutions at the perimeter of mainstream society
• how to bring these topics up with people who aren't already thinking about them
• what he loves about being alive on Earth, and what breaks his heart
• our need for a whole-systems approach, thinking about ecological health, not just carbon and our ticking clock
• new ways of designing cities, with innovations at the level of infrastructure and core utilities (rather than making incremental changes in existing cities)
• plus dry toilets, circular economy, cradle to cradle, and more

Show notes with links to all resources: turningseason.com/episode2

We can each be guided by what we love, and by what breaks our hearts. Ariella Daly's heart is with the bees.

If you've listened to The Dreamers' Den series, you heard Ariella in Episode 31, speaking about dream mirroring, bee shamanism, and the dreamweave of the earth.

She's back now to to kick off Turning Season Podcast with me, opening her heart about how she relates to this time of ecological crisis and possibility, humans as a part of nature, and teaching natural beekeeping.

Click Play to hear us talk about:

• the 3 stories of our time -- Business as Usual, The Great Unravelling, and The Great Turning -- and how these three stories are playing out for bees, and for beekeepers.
• the differences between conventional beekeeping, natural beekeeping, and other ways of being with the bees
• the "alarm bell" bees have been ringing, with their deaths and "colony collapse," and what we can do
• bees on almond trees and bees on city rooftops
• what it feels like to bring a child into the world while feeling great love for life on Earth, and going through times of ecological apathy and dread
• and looking through multiple lenses to realize there are no simple answers, so we focus less on policing each other or exiting a destructive system, and more on nourishing new ways of life

You'll hear the voice of Ariella's 6-month-old baby, too, and hear her get distracted by the beauty of leaves outside the window. I love those moments, because no matter what else we're focused on, parenthood and trees in the wind are present too, all the time.

Subscribe to Turning Season Podcast to get every dose of active hope. I'm thrilled to be bringing you this new, expanded podcast including conversations with healers, changemakers, visionaries, inventors, and all kinds of people doing the on-the-ground work of The Great Turning.

Show notes and resources: turningseason.com/episode1

Music by East Forest

Something new and much more personal for this Full Moon: You’re about to hear me share a series of 3 of the most potent dreams of my life, and how they’ve been woven into my healing.

There’s the personal physical level, the ancestral, and the societal levels. There’s a yurt at the sandy confluence of two rivers; a computer to reprogram; a devil prince; an invader and a martial arts master; a golden sword; and a poem about autoimmunity, hatred, and living “In the Time of Choice.” It’s a full two hours!

May this bring you some a-ha’s of your own, a different perspective, or new questions to explore.

I’m the guest in this conversation, hosted by my friend Steve Ernenwein, the dreamer in our recorded dream group (Episode 33). This is an episode of the podcast Steve hosts with JM DeBord, called The Dreams that Shape Us. They are breaking down the myth that “dreams don’t mean anything” one powerful story at a time. I know if you’re here, you probably don’t think “dreams don’t mean anything,” so for you their show is a delicious chance to hear individual people thoroughly share their powerful dreams, with original music and dreamy sounds by Steve in every episode. So after you listen to this, be sure to check out their podcast, The Dreams that Shape Us, for more.

This is Episode 35 of The Dreamers’ Den Podcast and the final one that will be released under this name. After a pause for some deep, slow breaths, quite a bit of website work, and a few exciting conversations, I will be back on the Full Moon in September and this podcast will show up in your feed under a new name:

Turning Season.

You’ll be hearing conversations between me and all kinds of healers and changemakers of “The Great Turning” — which is a name for this enormous transition humanity is making toward life-sustaining societies.

If you’re feeling concerned (or beyond concerned!) about “the great unraveling,” this podcast will become your regular dose of active hope, heart-to-heart connection, expanded awareness of how much is being done already, and glimpse of what’s possible.

The first few conversations will be with dreamworkers whose contribution to the Great Turning includes their dreamwork. You’ll hear from Ariella Daly again, about natural beekeeping, and bees as wisdom teachers. Matt Cochran will return to talk about men’s work. I’ll share more about my role as a Classical Chinese Medicine practitioner, parent, grower of food, and … host of Turning Season Podcast!

With future guests I’ll be diving into everything from circular economics to personal trauma healing; composting toilets to decolonization; art as activism to protecting thriving ecosystems; new technological innovations to pleasure as revolutionary…

You get the idea.

I’m also excited to talk with people who might not identify as a healer or a changemaker, an activist or a visionary, but are rising to their role in the Great Turning in the way they live their everyday lives. If you have any suggestions for interviewees, or you want to be interviewed yourself, contact me through thedreamersden.org.

Show notes: thedreamersden.org/35

Do you recall any dreams of being back together with an ex? How about needing to pee and not being able to find a bathroom? These are more common dream-themes than you might realize, and there can be much more going on here than the obvious.

Click Play to hear a deep-dive on these themes, in excerpts from two bonus podcast episodes originally released for Dreamers' Den members only.

In the first, I talk about bathroom and gotta-go dreams. It may be a little uncomfortable, but you're here for dreamwork, so... uncomfortable is a cherished part of it, right? It's all about dreams of needing to find a bathroom, finding problems with the bathroom, and the urination/defecation dreams that are oh-so-common, but not so commonly talked about. I share my Chinese Medicine viewpoint on these dreams (including the Metal and Water elements, and our inner plumbing), some of Jeremy Taylor's insights (like sh*t in alchemy), and an example dream of my own (compost, baby chick, and ancestral healing).

In the second, you'll hear a conversation between me and dreamworker Kezia Vida, exploring one of her favorite topics: dreams of exes. For all the intensity that these dreams can bring up about past relationships, there are many other rich possibilities of why the dream has come. We talk about dreams where the ex is ignoring the dreamer, dreams of being back together in love, and a juicy example dream where there's an ex, a new potential lover, AND a bathroom.

Click Play and see what a-ha moments are waiting for you.

Show notes: thedreamersden.org/34

I could try to describe group dreamwork to you. Why we do it, what it's like, how wow'd and moved I am every time. But I couldn't do it justice. There’s nothing else like this. I couldn't have imagined it before I'd taken part, no matter how it was explained.

A current dream group member who's been loving our time together was thinking along these lines, and suggested that I record a dream group session. She’s relatively new to dreamwork and remembers a not-so-distant past when she was curious about dreams, but had no idea why she’d talk about them in a group - and maybe, some of you are in that place, too.

For this session, Steve Ernenwein (host of The Dreams that Shape Us podcast) shares a recent dream with me and three other members. He knew it was a big dream, but still, we opened something deeper than he expected. You’ll get to hear how each member of the group contributes questions and reflections (in the “projective dreamwork” format) that help Steve on his way to the a-ha’s of this dream.

It takes him a little bit by surprise - but then again, the dreams always surprise us, so at least being surprised isn’t a surprise.

If you’ve been curious about what a dream group with me is like, considering “projective dreamwork” for your own group, or if it intrigues you to hear five people connect about dreams and to listen to someone in a growth and healing process, as he becomes the man and the father he wants to be… then this one’s for you.

I’m going to leave my written words there. Dream group is hard to describe, and that’s why this episode exists. So, enough reading. Click Play and dive in with us.

Show notes: thedreamersden.org/33

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.

“Bee shamanism” is ancient, but its existence was recent news to me. Ancient Greek priestesses who dreamt with the bees? A European folk tradition tied to women's spirituality and beekeeping? Tell me more! In this episode, Ariella Daly tells me so much more. I was enchanted. Click Play to hear us talk about dreamwork in connection with bee shamanism, plus:

• dreaming with the Earth (or the bees) vs. dreaming of the Earth or bees
• the honeybee and the snake: beings who regenerate themselves, important allies and sources of wisdom
• working with the body as a dreaming vessel (especially the womb, for female bodies)
• the dreamweave that circles the earth
• three powerful dreams of Ariella's: a python in a river; two roads; and women, trees, and weaving
• one dream of mine (I was grateful for Ariella's pointing out that the underground setting of my dream places me in the earth, and connects the dream to “subterranean wisdom”)
• and the technique of “dream mirroring” in groups (which could include listeners sharing their body sensations, emotional experiences, spontaneous songs, or even drawings), plus tips for listening to dreams in this way.

Listen now and come leave a comment on the show notes: thedreamersden.org/31

Ariella Daly is a dreamworker and a natural beekeeper living in Northern California. She fell in love with bees in 2010, when a swarm of wild bees moved into the wall behind her bed.

Ariella teaches and speaks about natural beekeeping, the honey bee organism, and the human relationship to bees. She believes that through learning to listen to the bees with all our pathways of knowing, we are learning to heal our own disconnect from the natural world.

Her work with bees is also informed by a decade studying European bee-shamanism with the Lyceum in England. This tradition holds the honey bee as its central motif and ally. She is trained in dream work, oracular seership, The Pollen Method for healing, and Nektary work. Ariella sources from both the bee tradition and living with bees to facilitate retreats, workshops, and personal sessions to support healing, intuition, womb wisdom, and our inherent connection to the vitalic life force energy of the earth.

Show notes including links to Ariella's website + upcoming course: thedreamersden.org/31