SACRED ART RETREAT IN PORTUGAL IN NOVEMBER 2027
Dream Incubation
on the Shore of the Atlantic Ocean
Sunday 14 November – Sunday 21 November 2027
Location: Surf Camp 360, near Santa Rita Beach and the coastal town of Santa Cruz, in Torres Vedras, Portugal — approximately one hour north of Lisbon.
“THE ASKLEPION”
THE DREAM INCUBATION CHAMBER OF ASKLEPIOS
The annual Sacred Art Retreat in 2027 is going to be bit different, because it is going to run on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean in Portugal (not in London, UK). Participants will have daily access to the beach (but please note that the resort itself is a short drive from the beach!) The Atlantic Ocean itself is going to be our 24/7 Dreaming Ally, but we will also dream with some very powerful divinities who specialise in Dream Incubation.
The Greek god Asklepios was the Divine Physician. People petitioned him for healing. In Ancient Greece, healing sanctuaries, called Asklepions, existed. Most were found in areas of stunning natural beauty. The main one was in Epidaurus. Here the priest-physicians practiced a form of spiritual healing focussed on dream interpretation or even “dream therapy”. The pilgrims or “clients” came to seek a healing intercession from the Divine Master Physician himself. There was rigorous preparation involved to earn this privilege. The pilgrims also brought offerings. They were then prepared for ritual or ceremonial sleeping and dreaming.
Asklepios and his wife Epione had five daughters (the Aesclepiades). The names of the daughters are Hygieia, Iaso, Aceso, Aegle and Panacea. .We will make a Dream Incubation chamber together, dedicated to the Divine Master Physician.
We will start every morning with a dream share. Experience tells me that when a group of people dreams together, they all receive pieces of a larger puzzle and we then gain insights into the mysteries (and larger or overarching patterns) in the cosmos. The night sky will be our ally as well!
We will work closely with the Spirits of Place and reflect on the way that landscapes on earth reflect the inner landscapes of our mind, soul and dreams. We will track song lines and help sing the future world into being.
The Australian Aborigines speak of jiva or guruwari, a ‘seed power' deposited in the earth. In the Aboriginal view every meaningful activity, event or life process that occurs at a particular place leaves behind a vibrational residue in the earth, as plants leave an image of themselves as seeds.
The shape of the land – its mountains, rocks, river beds and water holes – and its unseen vibrations echo the events that brought the place into creation. Everything in the natural world is a symbolic footprint of the metaphysical beings whose actions created our world. As with seed, the potency of an earthly location is wedded to the memory of its origin. The Aborigines called the potency the “Dreaming” of a place, and this Dreaming constitutes the sacredness of the earth. In (shamanic) states of altered consciousness we can tune into the inner dreaming of the Earth.
In the language of the Walbiri, a major Western Desert tribe in Australia, the word for this innate potential of a thing (anything!) is guruwari – literally translated as ‘totem design'. Guruwari refers to the invisible seed or life-creating energy that the Creative Ancestors deposited in the land and in all forms of nature.
The great ancestral beings were vast, unbounded, intangible, vibratory bodies, similar to fields of energy. They created by drawing vibratory energy out of themselves and stabilising this energy by specifying or naming – the inner name is the potency of the form or creature. The comparable image is the creation of sounds, words or songs from the vibration of breath. Aborigines refer to the Dreamtime Creation as the world being “sung” into existence. We will work with the ancient art of singing our world into being.
Last but not least: you may or may not be “into”, or open to, astrology. It doesn't matter as this is not an astrology course. However, here is one very interesting and relevant fact:
The Zodiac consists of 12 signs (or star constellations) but there is one constellation in that “belt” or “celestial circle” which has been omitted from mainstream astrology. That sign is Ophiuchus or the Serpent Bearer. Ophiuchus is closely linked to Asklepios, who carries the Rod of Asklepios (a staff with one serpent coiled around it). In plain English: the Divine Physician was left out of the Zodiac.
To engage with healing our world (and dreaming a better world into being for our descendants) we need to include Asklepios and give him his rightful place. That also gives us access to his Daughters. The sky mirrors (and reveals) the hidden architecture of human reality so there is work to be done.
PRACTICAL INFORMATION