My greatest enthusiasm today brings all of my interests together. I have recently been trained to facilitate the "Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream" Symposium, designed to explore the current state of our planet from a new perspective, connecting participants with a powerful global movement to reclaim our future. Its aim is to bring forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just human presence on Planet Earth.

A "call" came a few years ago from an intact, indigenous dream culture, the Achuar, in the Amazon region of Ecuador and Peru. As one aboriginal Elder expressed it: "If you are coming to help us, you are wasting your time. But if you are coming because your liberation is bound up with ours… then let us work together." Their ancient prophesies predicted that about now the Eagle, representing ‘societies that are very materialistic and very human oriented’ and the Condor, ‘representing more spiritual societies and ones that feel more integrated with their environment’ will fly together in the same skies and help us harmonize together. The Pachamama (Earth Mother, Mother Universe) Alliance was born.

The basis of the Symposium is a recognition of the interrelatedness of all beings, of not sacrificing the needs of all for the wants of a few, and of integrating environmental sustainability with spiritual fulfillment and social justice for all. In many parts of the world the perennial wisdom of indigenous people is just beginning to become recognized after brutal suppression by "Western Civilization." In the Symposium the two are working hand in hand, with stunning video footage of our earth and the universe, and insights of wisdom speakers of all traditions, like Thomas Berry, Bishop Tutu and Thich Nhat Hahn. At the same time, the Symposium is helping us to see that major changes have already come about recently in peaceful ways, and to make us believe that it’s not too late for more such seeming miracles to save us and our habitat.

There are already almost 70 facilitators in Eastern Canada, and some 1,400 around the world. We intend to organize some half-day Symposiums for representatives of congregations and organizations, to help them decide whether they would like to sponsor it for their own group. However, you could take a look now at an introductory video and various background material at www.awakeningthedreamer.org, and if you would like to begin discussing its availability, please contact me at leslie@barberry.ca or 416-226-2869. Some Symposium dates will also be open to individual Interfaith Unity readers.