Want dreams to become part of your life?
Finally yesterday had the interview with Steven Leavitt on Paint your Dreams for the podcast the Language of Creativity. No doubt dreams can be inspiration for art and should be included in what is the language of creativity. Its important to make dreams part of our being creative in the world. It takes a bit of time and work but worth it. Thanks so Jack and Lucy Mattice who hosted the space for me to do the interview from as Dale and I are presently traveling on the “Gypsy Wagon Journey.”
As Tenzin Wanghal Rinpoche often says, “ We sleep eight hours a day .. why not make this also an important time for practise and awareness”. Mentioned in the interview his “This is a dream” method of bridging the gap between this world we live in and the dream world.
For me becoming more lucid and aware can pave the way to fantastic visionary art.
As Robert Moss says it is important to honor our dreams and then we have more.
This I have always tried to do.
Why not use dreams to fulfill our desire to be creative and share with others?
As I say in the Dream Wheels book in a poem I read in the podcast with Steven in the Language of Creativity “We come together to dream”. In dreams we can find who we are, solutions, guardian animals, travel to new places, be imaginary, find cosmic ones, muses, have visions, self- heal , find the divine, angels, doorways, emotions, beauty, dream galleries, dream friends. In the interview I gave examples of different artist who have gotten creative juice to paint a painting when finding these qualities in their dream worlds. This included Andrew Gonzalez, Cynthia Re Robbins, Rolland Proulx, Jennifer Michelle McEuen, Irene Vincent, and Kuba Ambrose.
Artist Philip Rubinov Jacobsen – says of Dream Wheels – “an autobiographical account that bridges the beauty and wisdom of the collective unconscious with our waking life. A guide to delve deeper into Dreamland. It Bridges between divine unity and waking reality”.
As I go thorugh the Dream Wheel book I reflect on the seven themes of my seven seven year cycles shown on the Dream Wheels – Initiation, Birth , Medicine, Wonder, Third Eye, Miracle and Divine.
In my first Cycle which I call the Initiation Cycle 1967-73, the theme I found was “freedom in my dreams.”
In the podcast the poem was read – “In your dreams you find Initiation
A Divinely limited solitary room become creative incubation
You dream journey to the Dream Temple of Asclepius
Where you are given a Caduceus
Carrying the staff of Isis you find a purpose to live
You wear the Bird Helmet with power and possibilities
A Merbird is born and freedom is regained
Reminded that beyond the distant hills is a rainbow
In your Dreams you find with your Bird Helmet you can fly
BIG DREAM- THE BIRD HELMET
I think when you are put in confinement it brings on creative incubation. I had a couple of incidents where this happened to me and I found my dream world comforting. Not only comforting were they to me but came profusely and in full color. One incident was discovering I had cancer in my twenties. I felt totally alone and didn’t know what would happen next. But in my dreams I had company , not only company but travelling to other fantastic land. This time echoed back to me many times when I saw people go through the Covid isolation. Yes they had masks and restrictions on seeing others .. but if they could go to inside dream worlds sometimes night dreams, hypnogogic, or even places you go in meditation things seemed better. Part of the healing for me at the time when I had cancer was making the transformational decision to go to India and there had amazing dreams of the world being one. I wrote the book “Journey to a Lotus”
I dreamed during these times of the Bird Helmet and in travelling to new places created the beginnings of Dodoland.
BIG DREAM: THE BEGINNINGS OF DODOLAND
This kickstarted the second Birth Cycle from 1974-1980
In designing Dodoland I discovered who I was and how important it was for other “to be what they want to be”. Guardian animals were encouraged and self discovery. I told the story in the interview of how I asked my friend what fantasy animal they would like to become and thus painted the Dragon Ship.
BIG DREAM: DRAGON SHIP
The third Medicine Cycle from 1981-87 was full of wisdom dreams. I was very concerned about the destruction of the environment and wrote a poem called “Rubbish dolls”
I was then instructed by a dream guide to write “Magical Earth Secrets”. I woke up one morning with a ring of rainbow light on my finger and wrote the first draft of Magical Earth Secrets.
BIG DREAM: MAGICAL EARTH SECRETS
How dreams can manifest into art and be shared with the world is embedded into the story of Dodoland. Dodoland came from dreams and imagination. I painted and wrote about it. It became a storybook. A producer from New York saw it and lo and behold Dodoland was performed in New York for seven years and the story got out to major museums like the Natural History Museum, Smithsonian, Brooklyn Academy of Music and to a large conference in Guatemala called the Magic in Me. We were very concerned about the people that were disadvantaged and had disabilities so performed and storytold in unique places .. like in hospitals, schools like Sunnyview school and the Hearing Impaired Schools in Ontario and even in prison. The story of Dodoland was embraced and the city of New York sponsored in the Project Opportunidad in Harlem The ‘Magical Earth Secret’s going into all the schools in East Harlem. It was a fantastic development for this story and before it was a book. At the end of this cycle I was privileged to study with the renowned clown teacher Richard Pochinko in Toronto.
The Fourth Cycle from 1988 – 1994 I called Wonder. My synchronistical things happened including “finding muses and using the imagination”. Because I was part of the group Inner City Angels that initially worked with inner city children to storytell and teach them art I was asked by an environmental group called Globetree in Sweden to come to an environmental conference in Sweden where the children were saying what they wanted in the future. Children performed the ‘Magical Earth Secrets’ story and the words not only to love but take care of the earth were born. Marijke Sluitjer was at the conference from Holland and we worked on getting it to the Dutch people by her translation of the book which in 1990 was published by the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. We were also invited to Korea to the World Island Festival where Dodoland and Magical Earth Secrets were storytold.
Dreams- how they influenced my stories/art - Della Burford
Steven Leavitt: interview with Della Burford – ‘Painting your Dreams’ – June 20th 2023 – Create a Dream, with Della Burford (dellaburfordartist.ca)Reflecting on my Dream Wheels book as preparation for a podcast interview with Stephen Leavitt on the Language of Creativity . No doubt dreams can be inspiration for art and should be included in what is the language of creativity. Its important to make dreams part of our being creative in the world. It takes a bit of time and work but worth it.
As Tenzin Wanghal Rinpoche often says, “ We sleep eight hours a day .. why not make this also an important time for practise and awareness”.
For me becoming more lucid and aware can pave the way to fantastic visionary art.
As Robert Moss says it is important to honor our dreams and then we have more.
This I have always tried to do.
Why not use dreams to fulfill our desire to be creative and share with others?
As I say in the Dream Wheels book in a poem “We come together to dream”. In dreams we can find who we are, solutions, guardian animals, travel to new places, be imaginary, find cosmic ones, muses, have visions, self- heal , find the divine, angels, doorways, emotions, beauty, dream galleries, dream friends. I have given examples of different artist who have gotten creative juice to paint a painting when finding these qualities in their dream worlds.
Artist Philip Rubinov Jacobsen – says of Dream Wheels – “an autobiographical account that bridges the beauty and wisdom of the collective unconscious with our waking life. A guide to delve deeper into Dreamland. It Bridges between divine unity and waking reality”.
As I go thru the Dream Wheel book I have seven themes – Initiation, Birth , Medicine, Wonder, Third Eye, Miracle and Divine.
In my first Cycle which I call the Initiation Cycle 1967-73, the theme I found was “freedom in my dreams”
BIG DREAM- THE BIRD HELMET
I think when you are put in confinement it brings on creative incubation. I had a couple of incidents where this happened to me and I found my dream world comforting. Not only comforting were they to me but came profusely and in full color. One incident was discovering I had cancer in my twenties. I felt totally alone and didn’t know what would happen next. But in my dreams I had company , not only company but travelling to other fantastic land. This time echoed back to me many times when I saw people go through the Covid isolation. Yes they had masks and restrictions on seeing others .. but if they could go to inside dream worlds sometimes night dreams, hypnogogic, or even places you go in meditation things seemed better. Part of the healing for me at the time when I had cancer was making the transformational decision to go to India and there had amazing dreams of the world being one. I wrote the book “Journey to a Lotus”
I dreamed during these times of the Bird Helmet and in travelling to new places created the beginnings of Dodoland.
BIG DREAM: THE BEGINNINGS OF DODOLAND
This kickstarted the second Birth Cycle from 1974-1980
In designing Dodoland I discovered who I was and how important it was for other “to be what they want to be”. Guardian animals were encouraged and self discovery.
BIG DREAM: DRAGON SHIP
The third Medicine Cycle from 1981-87 was full of wisdom dreams. I was very concerned about the destruction of the environment and wrote a poem called “Rubbish dolls”
I was then instructed by a dream guide to write “Magical Earth Secrets”. I woke up one morning with a ring of rainbow light on my finger and wrote the first draft of Magical Earth Secrets.
BIG DREAM: MAGICAL EARTH SECRETS
How dreams can manifest into art and be shared with the world is embedded into the story of Dodoland. Dodoland came from dreams and imagination. I painted and wrote about it. It became a storybook. A producer from New York saw it and lo and behold Dodoland was performed in New York for seven years and the story got out to major museums like the Natural History Museum, Smithsonian, Brooklyn Academy of Music and to a large conference in Guatemala called the Magic in Me. We were very concerned about the people that were disadvantaged and had disabilities so performed and storytold in unique places .. like in hospitals, schools like Sunnyview school and the Hearing Impaired Schools in Ontario and even in prison. The story of Dodoland was embraced and the city of New York sponsored in the Project Opportunidad in Harlem The ‘Magical Earth Secret’s going into all the schools in East Harlem. It was a fantastic development for this story and before it was a book. At the end of this cycle I was privileged to study with the renowned clown teacher Richard Pochinko in Toronto.
The Fourth Cycle from 1988 – 1994 I called Wonder. My synchronistical things happened including “finding muses and using the imagination”. Because I was part of the group Inner City Angels that initially worked with inner city children to storytell and teach them art I was asked by an environmental group called Globetree in Sweden to come to an environmental conference in Sweden where the children were saying what they wanted in the future. Children performed the ‘Magical Earth Secrets’ story and the words not only to love but take care of the earth were born. Marijke Sluitjer was at the conference from Holland and we worked on getting it to the Dutch people by her translation of the book which in 1990 was published by the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. We were also invited to Korea to the World Island Festival where Dodoland and Magical Earth Secrets were storytold.
BIG DREAM: TO TAKE CARE OF THE EARTH
The fifth Third Eye Cycle came next from 1995-2001 and the theme was “you can find your cosmic one.”
I was very concerned with manifesting art to beauty and told to do this in a dream. One synchronistical thing that happened to advance this idea was I was asked to use Dodoland to launch a government project in Canada called Swiftsure led by David Godfrey by using Dodoland for a website In 1995. My husband Dale Bertrand and I were given the website to maintain and over the 26 years it has had millions of visitors. We have had it free to the world and an act of love. It still exists today. We were able to travel and share art .. creating in projects in Mexico, Korea and we did travels to Wales and Cornwall when working In England.
When problems arise I like to go the positive route. I found I had cancer again ( not related) and with Dr. Roger Rogers encouragement wrote the qualities needed to survive a crisis in the story Miracle Galaxy.
To my surprise just nine months after surgery I had a mystical experience at our home in the Kootenay.
I was visited by many spiritual being and told my path was towards to divine.
BIG DREAM: MANY SPIRITUAL BEINGS
The next sixth cycle from 2002-2009 I called Miracle and the theme was “you can heal yourself.” In this cycle the Miracle Galaxy story was created. In the development of the story of eight Angels of Healing we visited many sacred sites in the world which was also tied to Dale’s Celtic project called Druidical Quest. I placed the Angels in these Sacred Places as their earth homes . They also lived in the Miracle Galaxy in which I was shown in a dream what it looked like.
BIG DREAM: ANGELS OF HEALING & MIRACLE GALAXY
In the seventh Divine Cycle from 2009- 2015 the theme was “co- creating with the divine”. I worked with Aaron Zerah on painting for his book “Spirit storybook’ I painted many of the painting with guidance from dreams.
I went to study the ‘mische’ technique in Vienna with Philip Rubinov Jacobsen. I was writing Dream Wheels and had various artists I met there include a painting in the book inspired by a dream.
I was told in a dream to have artist working together. I found a spiritual home in Bali and led 6 different retreats there having artist working together. Because of the earthquake in Japan and what they felt was an urgent need to love and protect the earth in 2011 Kazuko Asaba and clothes designer Ruu Ruu produced Magical Earth Secrets as a play. It performed for seven years and then Ruu Ruu made a play of the book Miracle Galaxy. It is now performing in various venues.
In seeing the play in Japan of Miracle Galaxy I realized it was not only a story to heal oneself and but also to heal the planet. I wrote Star Galaxy for the World which encourages people to take gratitude, kindness, peace and creative action for the world. This was created when going thru the crisis of a broken femur and soon after was the world trauma of dealing with Covid. It became an even more important time to share my story of self healing for oneself and the world. This was helped by being part of the Design Science Studio of the Buckminster Fuller Institute in 2021/22 and working with an animator Julian Ramirez and creating the Topia Worlds of Dodoland and Star Galaxy for the World. In 2023 I joined the Space Camp and edited the Earth Action book which is an activity book including the Magical Earth Secrets story.
BIG DREAM:THE STAR GALAXY STORYTELLERS
There is ideas in the Dream Wheels book on applying your dreams to your life and art and stories. It tells into how you can create your own Dream Wheel and Inner Life Mandala. Dreams have made my art more meaningful for me and the world. My wish is that you too will go into Dreamland and find stories and images and music to creatively share with the world. Good luck to everyone.
Thanks and love Della Burford
P.S. Art Board by Rosemary E. Scherba on ‘Paint Your Dream’