let yourself dream
Dear friends, far and near: here’s a new offer:
LET YOURSELF DREAM, a two-part experience to dissolve the fear of dreaming and to give yourself the gift of getting into that dream and then to put your thoughts down on paper in a concise and feasible way. This offer was inspired by two recent encounters, one of contraction and one of liberation.
value the unknown
I recently had a conversation with an old friend who works a 9 to 5 job and she told me that even though she wants to do something else, she cannot let herself dream, the fear of risk and of the unknown is too great. Oh my goodness, that woke me up to how much I want to support anyone, everyone, in just letting themselves dream. Because the unknown is precious to me. And it’s not valued for the most part which is a shame because we all sense that is where our root passion and purpose reside. You don’t have to know what, I said to my friend. Just let yourself feel. Let the dream speak for itself.
liberate the dream
A la vez, I’ve recently felt such liberation working with another friend, Ellen, on writing my own dreams. She is also a storytraveler, a working theater artist and musician. We met in a cave in Granada, Spain, learning to sing flamenco cante and the essential compás — the underlying rhythms that carry the emotions and feeling of the songs. It’s an apt metaphor, because the beauty of that music arises from that combination of centering rhythm and expressive feeling. One cannot exist without the other. And Ellen knows this and has a way of getting to the heart of a story — she’s helped me write two dreams these past weeks — one to write a book in Ireland, and another to do Creativity for Confidence workshops with girls in New Mexico to bridge the “confidence gap”.
That’s what led to this new offer. LET YOURSELF DREAM is a two-part tailor made individual experience to let yourself feel the dream in its full mystery and light and write it down.
SESSION ONE
Let yourself dream: a one on one 70 minute session with me (online/or in person, depending on your location). Through gentle questions, guided visualizations and writing prompts, we will go on a journey to meet fear, and go behind the fear to invite the dream into presence. We’ll go into the language of the senses and connect into the ancient cave of shadows where the human feeling to create was so strong it emerged from the heart - tadaap - and into the hands and began to paint the dream on walls. These old energies will help us get to the core of the dream and your longing. What does inspiration taste like? Where does your deepest longing reside in that dream, connected to why you are here, now? The dream journey is one that thrives on mystery — and in this session, we’ll write into those shadows and fragments. This will allow that dream to rise and lead you to the next step…
SESSION TWO
Let yourself write the dream with us: a 90 minute group writing session with myself and Ellen. Be supported by two writers who are also dreamers, unafraid of following the call to journey and also empathetic to the necessity of taking those dreams and making them real. We will work via Zoom on creating a 1-2 page document that takes all the fragments and mystery and longing of that first dream session and manifesting it into a tangible statement of intent.
What is the dream?
What is its place in the world?
Why is it calling to you?
And what are the first steps to making it real?
You’ll have the words for however you want to use the dream — whether it’s for your website, for a proposal, to send an email to someone, or a manifesto to put on the wall for yourself so you have spoken it out loud and don’t forget.
PRICE: $220 usd
ABOUT YOUR DREAM GUIDES
SHEBANA MARISSA COELHO is an award-winning, multidisciplinary artist whose work spans writing, filmmaking, theater, dance, radio, and facilitating creativity workshops. She grew up in India and currently resides in New Mexico. Currently, she is facilitating the course, “Imagining Fantastic Futures through Creative Writing” at A:shiwi College in the Pueblo of Zuni. She has received a Fiction Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Fulbright research grant to Mongolia and a CEC ArtsLink award to Palestine. Her stories, poems and articles have been published widely in US and international journals such as Slice, Calyx, The Normal School, the On Being Blog, Al Jazeera America, The Best Women’s Travel Writing Vol 10, anthology. Since 2012, she has facilitated Faraway is Close creativity workshops in New Mexico, Zuni pueblo, Palestine, Mongolia, American Samoa, and Spain. Her stories, poems and articles have been published widely in US and international journals. Faraway is Close is another name for all her work: resonant cross cultural experiences that dissolve borders that keep us from our connection to story, land and each other. Explore shebanacoelho.com.
The Shab in my name means night in Persian. And I revel in the creative dark, full of shadow journeys. I’m a natural at transforming the mystery of creating into a playful, profound experience that liberates your imagination.
ELLEN MÁIRÍN JOHNSTON is a writer, musician, theater artist, editor and obsessive long-distance walker, originally from Vancouver, Canada, now living in Los Angeles. She has walked two pilgrimage routes of the Camino de Santiago (and written a book about it!), the Oregon Coast Trail, and many highways and byways of the Americas. Recent Musical Theatre/Film/Writing highlights: Apollo (Highland Arts Theatre), Following Arrows (travel non-fiction), Corona de Flores (Vancouver Latin American Film Festival), Duty (In Tune Musical Theatre Festival - Touchstone Theatre), Don’t Look For Me (Bowery Electric), God From the Machine (Canadian Fringe tour), and Zookeeper (NAAP). She is also a singer-songwriter, and plays both solo and in a dark folk band called Absent Familiar. MFA: NYU Tisch Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program.
Ellen comes from the Greek word for light or torch. Its etymological origins lie in the name of the moon goddess, Selene. The moon, of course, is the torch that lights up the night sky, a light in the darkness. Perhaps that’s why Shebana and I work so well in tandem. We both thrive in that mysterious dark. My gift for this dream journey is to help bring light to all that mystery.
CONTACT: shebana@gmail.com for more info and to schedule the experience. I'm also happy to get on a quick call/Zoom to answer any questions
CONNECT ON INSTAGRAM: shebanafaraway
