Dreaming Is Being Is Liberatory
When we co-create space & time to dream in community with others, we co-create pathways to liberation.
Dear Dreamers & Those Who Want to Dream More,
We know that these days and times are incredibly stressful. Everyone is pulled in multiple directions simultaneously, and we are in an information overload. It’s short circuiting everything, especially our responses to crises.
We also know that while it is all overwhelming and anxiety-producing we must find ways to be amidst and amongst it all with others. And that’s precisely why we, Crystal Mason & Queerly Complex (aka Jason Wyman), founded Queering Dreams.
We’ve experienced the power of dreaming in community with others to slow down all of space & time and create deep, lasting connections between & amongst ourselves.
When the 2016 election cycle was ramping up, we saw rising authoritarianism and the constant demonization of our comrades by both political parties, especially the Republican one. It produced increased anxiety & depression in both of us as we tried navigating our own complex lives intertwined with trauma, oppression, and death. These feelings of overwhelm, of not being able to respond, got us both dreaming separately & then together. Since Trump’s election, we’ve both been holding Spaces for Dreaming with family, comrades, and neighbors. It’s transformed our being, our relations, our cosmos. And it’s changed our family, comrades, and neighbors, too.
As we head into 2022, we want to hold more space & time to dream.
We know it provides direct benefits to everyone who participates. We have testimony from 16 to 60+ year olds about how dreaming in community with others has given a moment for stillness & pause, shifted perspectives, and reduced feelings of isolation & anxiety. Just yesterday, January 10, 2022, we held A Space for Dreaming for Arts Education Alliance of the Bay Area, and educators & artists shared how it was the first time in a long time to just be with their thoughts. That revelation is profound.
Dreaming is not a panacea. It will not solve the root causes of oppression. It does not provide direct material benefit. It will not pay your rent or get you healthcare or change the failures of our government in meeting the needs of its people.
Dreaming does demand space & time, and liberating our selves & our communities from the confines of oppressive systems demands more space & time to dream, to simply be. We cannot escape our instinctive reactions to ongoing & escalating crises without it.
In camaraderie & solidarity & dreaming,
Crystal Mason & Queerly Complex (aka Jason Wyman)
Do you need A Space for Dreaming?
Queering Dreams offers A Space for Dreaming Workshops on topics includes Opening Hearts, All Our Relations, Abolition & Freedom, and Mutual Care, Aid, and Support. These 90 to 120-minute sessions are ideal for classrooms, arts organizations, community groups, housing cooperatives, s corporations & b corporations, senior centers, public health, non-profits, and small businesses that value & practice (even if messy) consent, conversation, co-creation, and care. By the end of the workshop, participants will feel more spacious and more connected.
A single workshop starts at $600 and increases depending on size of group, length of engagement, type of client, etc. Discounts given to movement organizations and groups.
Basic Agenda:
Casual Arrival
Equity & Culture Keeping
Opening Circle
How We Dream Together & Framing Our Topic
Dream Time
Reflection & Introspection
Triad Sharing
Large Group
Closing Circle
Casual Departure
Topics for A Space for Dreaming:
Opening Hearts - How can we open our heart? This inquiry is ideal for those who are feeling closed off, isolated, anxious, stressed out, over capacity, and stretched too thin or for folx who provide direct services.
All Our Relations: Who are all our relations? This inquiry is ideal for those who desire to (re)imagine relations, (re)connect with their ancestors, (re)orient their place within the cosmos or those seeking to widen their circles of care.
Abolition & Freedom: What must be abolished for us to be free? This inquiry is ideal for those who seek to change patterns of behavior that get in the way of our collective freedom and groups desiring to start conversations about abolition.
Mutual Aid, Care, & Support: How do we cultivate mutual aid, care, and support? This inquiry is ideal for those who know we must do better, who want to explore mutuality, and who are know all we have is each other.
Our Space for Dreaming Sessions hold space for whose who often hold space for others.
Join Us in 2022 for A Space for Dreaming
In addition to facilitating A Space for Dreaming for clients, we are hosting our own monthly A Space for Dreaming Sessions.
A Space for Dreaming is our offering to our community of Black, Indigenous, queer, trans, gender non-conforming, disabled, poor, immigrant, neurodivergent, youth, and senior community of communities. All sessions are small to ensure we can cultivate an environment of belonging, intimacy, and vulnerability. We want to bear witness to our dreams collectively because our liberation depends on it.
We will be hosting sessions on the following Fridays:
February 11, 2022 - Seed: Opening Hearts
March 11, 2022 - Seed: All Our Relations
April 8, 2022 - Seed: Abolition & Freedom
May 13, 2022 - Seed: Opening Hearts
June 10, 2022 - Seed: All Our Relations
July 8, 2022 - Seed: Abolition & Freedom
September 9, 2022 - Seed: Opening Hearts
October 14, 2022 - Seed: All Our Relations
November 11, 2022 - Seed: Abolition & Freedom
To learn more about how we hold space & time, read our Emerging Guide.
What others have said:
“Queering Dreams services unveil templates of the Queerness that Dreams offer us, an unorthodox view of the same tired landscape, a new way of seeing all that is within us with the opportunity to change the course of our lives and thereby, change the direction of the world.” –Kane Scarlett, Journalist
“Dreaming reminded us of our own abundance. This was crucial for me to give myself permission to dream, to access that abundance.” –Participant in the Unicorn Author’s Club
“Yes! I want more space for dreaming. I’m finally thinking of poems again.” –Sheila McKinney, 2021 Youth Poet Laureate of Richmond, CA
