Purpose and background
Throughout the Global Ecovillage Network, many people use Dragon Dreaming and at every annual GEN gathering, Dragon Dreaming workshops will be held. It is a widely used and cherished tool and it has become part of our sources.
The philosophy of Dragon Dreaming draws upon indigenous wisdom of the Western Australia Aborigines – and facilitation and managing tools used also at business and governmental level.
Dragon Dreaming is an approach to consensual participatory strategic planning for projects and organisations in the fields of Ecologically Sustainable Community and Economic Development. It enables rapid feedback that builds collective wisdom and fosters adaptive capacity enabling individuals, groups, enterprises, communities, and government bodies to adjust creatively and positively to situations of rapid and potentially chaotic change.
It is based on three, equally important objectives: Service to the Earth, Community Building, Personal Growth.
In short, it allows us to become aware of the limitations of our personal comfort zones, and of the cultural win-lose games of which we are a part, that prevent us from achieving the goals we seek for a rewarding and fulfilling life for all. It allows us to transcend these limits through a deep engagement of ourselves with the environments in which we live, integrating theory and practice in an effective way that connects our dreams and visions, our plans, and our actions with deep celebration.
Brief Example of the Process:
Dragon Dreaming aims to support collective projects. It does so by using different methods and tools, from non violent communication, to Theory U, charismatic communication, planning and managing tools, and celebration.
It invites us to share our individual dreams and transform them into collective dreams, where we invite people we are connected to, to co-create a dream for successful projects. The first question which we ask ourselves is: “what should this project include, for me to feel this is the best possible project in which I take part”. Once the dream is manifested we work through the Dragon Dreaming wheel which is divided in 12 steps, which helps us to oversee all different parts of our project. We must remember to celebrate our steps every time – and failures must be celebrated too.
Through facilitation techniques we share and cluster objectives giving them priorities; we then transform these objectives into actions by identifying all necessary steps for the realisation of our objectives defining the concrete actions, who will carry it out and by when. Each action should be supported by 3 individuals: a leader, or the person who takes responsibility for the action to be completed; a support person who would like to learn, and an expert person who might not be active in the realisation of the action, but who has knowledge on the “how to”. The actions we define must also include celebration actions needed for the successful completion of the project.
Outcomes / Benefits, Influence on the 4 layers of CLIPS:
Dragon Dreaming supports the individual’s personal growth, helping the individual to recognise his/her personal needs and the community needs and how they can integrate. It helps to identify a collective dream and what is needed to put it in practice. It helps to create the group/community through celebration, through a common intention which becomes concrete thanks to clear and time-bound actions. It supports the group process in all its phases and at the same time it gives clear structure on how to bring a dream into practical concrete actions. It invites us to “get things safely out of control” and it reminds us that “perfection is the enemy of the good”!
Further Information - Possibilities to get training in the approach.
To learn or be trained in Dragon Dreaming check out the international webpage at http://www.dragondreaming.net
Here you can find seminars and trainings in different countries and languages. After having learnt and practised Dragon Dreaming in a group, it is possible to attend a ‘train the trainer’ seminar.