While on a backpacking trip this past March with fellow Signal Fire alumni, I invited my desert company to participate in a deep play on dream practices. Deep Play, created by Signal Fire guide Julie Perini, is at its core a community building practice while sharing space in the outdoors. These participatory activities/prompts/pieces are totally voluntary and can range from collective poetry making around a campfire to challenges on who can last the longest submerged in ice cold stream water.

For this particular deep play, participants were asked to reflect on one dream or sleep experience from our time in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona, along with other instructions on honoring their particular experience. With their consent, I will be sharing the manner in which they decided to honor these incredible happenings. I also want to share that this project will inform my ongoing research on dream practices as an avenue for healing, empowerment & decolonization.

Gracias a todxs por compartir conmigo, xoxo

Blanca cooling off in a pool of water on the Hieroglyphic Trail in Arizona. March 2019Photo credit: Christina Catanese — Blanca cooling off in a pool of water on the Hieroglyphic Trail in Arizona. March 2019
Photo credit: Christina Catanese