Dear Dreamers,
Thank you to everyone who joined us for our public matrix in North Woods on March 4th, as well as to those who have been sharing ongoing projects. I look forward to collectively reflecting on this all when we meet this Tuesday, March 25th, from 6-8pm in the Radical Ecology Studio. During this time, we will also discuss the format for the next public matrix, which will take place on April 12th as part of Land, Art & Justice, a public programme hosted by Radical Ecology in response to Ashish’s solo show at Thelma Hulbert Gallery. It has not yet been decided who will facilitate this session, so we will discuss this too.
Before our discussion on Tuesday, I’d like to share some insights about how the matrix unfolded in the woods, especially for those who couldn’t make it.
We rented out the Glade, a social forestry space in North Woods, which required some additional logistical planning. Ashish purchased some firewood, kindling and matches which we stored at the Glade overnight. Tilly arrived at 5:30pm to light the fire in the Nest, a circular indoor space at the Glade. Some of us drove over from the studio in David’s car at 5:45pm, leaving a sign on the studio door to redirect anyone who may have missed the location change. Most participants met us at the Glade, where we offered hot chocolate and scones. Tilly and Natasha distributed the consent forms, and a question arose about whether returning participants needed to sign them again. We decided that yes, each session required fresh consent as each one unfolds differently.
David had walked through the woods a few days earlier to observe the transition into night. By 6:30pm, the woods were on the cusp of darkness, with owls and crows calling. By 7pm, it was almost entirely dark. Because of this, we began the session slightly earlier at 6:15pm. We gathered just outside the Nest, surrounded by leaves turning into mulch. David introduced the session by asking, “How do we make the world a better place?”, introducing dream-telling as a practice of change through time. Natasha followed by explaining different ways of engaging in this space - through speaking, writing, or movement. When we were planning the session, it felt important to acknowledge the multiple entry points into dream-telling, ensuring that those who didn’t wish to speak would still recognise their participation through movement or drawing or writing.
We stood in a loose circle, and I invited people to notice their relation to one another. Then, I encouraged them to shift their body in a direction that they were drawn to - some looked up at the sky, others crouched down to place their palms on the soil, and a couple of people leant against a tree. We stayed there for a moment, noticing our breath and the constellations we formed with the land around us. This was the first step toward connection, beyond the circle between people, and towards shapes and/or orientations that included trees, earth, and sky.
Natasha then led us down a long, straight path towards an area of conifer trees - mostly cedars, a few redwoods, tree stumps from recently felled trees, and new saplings of willow, oak, and Japanese cedar. On our way, she invited us to notice a detail around us, keep our eye on it, and follow it until we moved beyond it. We repeated this process - finding a detail, following it, and then finding the next - until we reached the conifer grove.
We entered a gate into the main area of woodlands where the session would be held. Natasha continued the exercise, now inviting us to make contact with the details we noticed. Once we had made contact, we were then invited to place our weight on it, make a shape in relation to it, and then melt into it. This continued to build. It was our way of getting to know the space of dream-telling.
David and I then rolled out a scroll and placed pens on it. Everyone was invited to write down or draw reflections and questions in response to the word “dreaming.” By this time, it was pitch black. We shone torches on the scroll so people could see what they were writing. I recall feeling the texture of the bark I was sitting against, hearing the church bells ringing, twigs snapping, and leaves crunching beneath our feet. This made me wonder, why don’t my dreams carry textures, sounds, and smells? I noted this reflection down.
I recall Sarah taking a cluster of conifer needles and sweeping them across the scroll, creating a rhythmic sound. The occasional hoot of an owl, the pull of the bright, magnetic waxing moon, and the buzz of insects around me animated the now pitch black surroundings. Though I had walked through these woods many times, this was the first time I truly felt like I was listening to them. They were louder than before.
David then invited us to begin sharing our dreams. It was silent for a while, but then the dreams started to trickle in… By this time, I started to feel the cold in my toes. David, Natasha, and I were writing what we were hearing on our clipboards. I liked this process, jotting down dreams and drawing lines between them, my page becoming an exercise in mapping the connections between dream-worlds. Some dreams were tied to place, others to the body. I had expected to hear many dreams about landscapes, and indeed there were: contrasting places, such as inside and outside, water and land, countryside and city, the idea of boundaries between spaces. What I hadn’t anticipated were the dreams of morphing bodies - a pregnant mother and a rabbit, a person and a chicken. And in the moments where no dreams were shared, the silence was never truly silent. The soundscape - the rustling leaves, the hooting owls, the distant church bells - became part of the dreamscape itself. It was never truly quiet. It was never truly still.
At one point, after a lull in dream telling, Sarah and Kate began reading from the scroll. It was interesting to see how earlier reflections re-entered the dream-telling space - not as interruptions, but as echoes.
We walked back to the Glade to warm up again with some more hot chocolate. Natasha and I gathered in the Nest’s center, noticing how our voices echoed and amplified there. David moved between the bench and the center. We explained that we had been jotting down patterns and would now reflect on what we had heard and observed in the dream-telling. Though we had all reflected individually, certain points and insights built upon and reinforced one another. For example, David spoke about the way dreams were narrated or ‘storied’ when shared, and in response, I read aloud how people began their dreams: “I have a bit of a dream.” “A fraction of a dream.” “I once had a dream.” This phrasing made us wonder, why do we describe dreams as incomplete? No one else knows if a dream is only a fragment. Does this reflect an inherent vulnerability in the act of dream-telling?
Natasha noticed something about lines - railway tracks, the seashore, and a landform extending into infinity. She wondered whether this was prompted by our earlier walk along a line into the woods.
I reflected on a jagged cut in one of the tree stumps, which reminded me of a dream. Although I felt anxious sharing the dream (as I knew I wouldn’t be able to articulate the fuzzy vision in my mind), there was something about the immediate connection - the tactility of the stump - that made me feel compelled to share it, even if I couldn’t fully translate my dream to others.
Some noted that the cold and surrounding sounds made it harder to focus. It made them work harder for dreams to come to them, if at all. Yet, rather than discouraging us from engaging with North Woods, this instigated a request for a longer-term exploration. Something was keeping us there. Something was making us say, let’s stay here a while. Let’s continue dream-telling in - or with - North Woods.
Looking forward to discussing this, and more, on Tuesday.
Warmly,
Iman