Compass Dreamwork

Dreamwork as Spiritual Practice

Category: Publications

Just Walk

March 29, 2019 /

A big dream of mine has become a reality. The book that I’ve been dreaming and writing for the past couple of years is now a living being, made of actual paper and ink: Just Walk: Following the Camino All the Way Home. When I walked the Camino de Santiago in 2016, this book was stirring deep underground, breathing beneath my feet at every step. And when I returned home and found myself grappling with some serious health issues, the pilgrimage continued in my everyday life and the dream of telling its story began to emerge—first in fragmentary whispers on the edge of sleep, then flowing slowly into wholeness.

For me, the Camino pilgrimage was an experience of immediacy. I couldn’t reflect on the changes as they were happening; it was all I could do to “just walk.” The process of integration happened gradually, as I stepped through the mirror to follow the Camino again in reflection, discovering dynamic soul connections between that journey and my life’s journey, between past and present, grief and love, stillness and movement, courage and vulnerability, solitude and community, wellness and illness. Although those connections were intimate, they were not merely personal—they were beyond me. I needed to make something out of them that could be shared. Thus, the book.

Because of my work with the world of dreams, where the dynamics of the imagination are truly real, I know that this book is not only a real physical object, but actually alive: it is tender, funny, contrary, painful, joyous. And right now, as I’m recovering from a life-changing surgery (multi-level spinal fusion) that literally took me apart and put me back together again differently, I’m also watching how this book, this reflection of my lived experience, has fundamentally changed me, and how it has the potential to change others who may read it. The book itself will change, too, becoming richer as it is read.

If you read it, the book will be yours, and it will whisper to you like a walking-prayer, accompanying you on your path. I hope you will read it.

[to find the book, click on the photo]

Interview by Metka Cuk on the “Dream Owls” website

March 31, 2018 /

Metka Cuk, a creative and inspiring dreamworker and artist, has been interviewing other dreamworkers and dreamers, introducing us to the depth and breadth of the dreaming community. These interviews are posted on her delightful website, “Dream Owls: A Place to Talk About Your Dreams.”

Some months ago, she did a wide-ranging interview with me about my background in dreamwork and my spiritual journey with dreams, including connections in my life between dreaming and healing, hospice work, Buddhism and Christianity, the Camino de Santiago, haiku, and more.

Please click on the picture to read the interview, and while you’re there, you’ll want to check out “Dream Owls” and the many other wonderful interviews, as well as Metka’s excellent cartoons and artwork!

I hope you can imagine your own version of how dreams have affected your life… Think of how you might share your own dreaming story with others. Dreams take us to our depths, and reflect the vital heart of our lives—and sharing these stories can be meaningful for all of us.

The Challenge of Real Change

February 6, 2018 /

This article, “The Challenge of Real Change” was published in the spiritual direction magazine, Presence last year.  I wrote about pilgrimage, dreams, and change in my own life, and in my work with clients. I hope you’ll take the time to read it. Please consider sharing your thoughts with me: I’d love to hear how you have changed, what experiences have changed you. We can all encourage each other, and walk together, even when we are venturing into unfamiliar territory.

To read the article, click here.

What makes real change possible? My work as a spiritual director gives me many opportunities to explore dreams in the context of our spiritual lives—and, of course, our spiritual lives are always a work in process. We aren’t looking for a final, ideal state of perfection and certainty, but for ongoing flexibility, and fundamental openness to experiences of deep change. Life itself is defined by change, and  if we can’t really change, we can’t live fully.

Dreams—with their untamed (and often uncomfortable) changeability—help us to practice being flexible, but if we want to embrace change at the deepest level, we have to invite the weirdness and wildness of dreams into our waking lives as well. Sometimes, we have to step out of the “comfort zone” and into the unknown.

A Dream of Surrender and Hope: DreamTime Article

May 23, 2017 /

Click on the photo to read the article, and enter the woods…

For the Spring 2017 issue of DreamTime Magazine (a wonderful publication of the International Association for the Study of Dreams), I wrote a short article that really expresses the depths of my heart in these troubled times. My own dreams often invite surrender and offer hope—and I believe that such dreams can change our lives and our world in essential ways.

Please take a few minutes to read the article (by clicking on the photo)… And let’s talk about dreaming our way forward. How do your  dreams guide you? How might you choose to surrender old ways to follow a different path? And where do you find courage and hope?

The Dream’s Way

February 7, 2017 /

What is truly meaningful in our dreams and in our waking lives? How do we find resonance in dreams that seem vague, disturbing, incoherent or unpleasant? We all experience a range of frequencies of dreams and dream-like states every day and night. Some of these experiences are beautiful and breathtaking, but some are difficult to appreciate, and many are not particularly moving or memorable. How do we “tune in” to the ground of our collective being that is perfectly and uniquely expressed in each moment of dream experience?
-Kirsten Backstrom (from “The Dream’s Way”)

Pilgrimage can open the way to the dream world, and dreams can open the way to a spiritual path, but walking and dreaming must both unfold on their own terms.  When I walked the Camino de Santiago last year, I knew I was in for an adventure, and that I would be well outside my comfort zone—but I didn’t know how I would handle the experience, and what my dreams had in store for me…

At the recent 2016 Psiber-Dreaming Conference (an exciting international on-line event that explores the outer reaches of dreamwork and dream studies), I offered a presentation called  “The Dream’s Way: Resonance in Dream Experiences on the Camino de Santiago .”  

Please Click on the Photo, to read this presentation:

 

Dreaming and Daring: Meeting the Unknown Every Night

November 17, 2015 /

ocean with rocks 02

I am suggesting that the crazy nature of dreams is precisely what makes them useful and meaningful. Each night when we sleep, dreams combine fragments of our personal lives (memories, recent incidents, perceptions, sensations) with something more essential and shared (archetypal imagery, body and earth wisdom, a vital sense of meaning and connection). All of this same stuff is available to us when we are awake, but in our dreams it is organized in crazy ways, with a pattern-producing randomness similar to that which creates fractals in nature. It is my belief that the all-inclusive chaotic patterning behind dream craziness is actually closer to “the way things really are” than the self-reinforcing information structures that make up our waking conception of reality.
-Kirsten Backstrom, “Dreaming and Daring”

At the recent 2015 Psiber-Dreaming Conference (an exciting international on-line event that explores the outer reaches of dreamwork and dream studies), I offered a presentation called  “Dreaming and Daring: Meeting the Unknown Every Night.” 

This paper is a playful adventure into the Open Mind Theory of Dreams…

Click on the picture to plunge in and read on…

Part 2 of DreamTime Article on Dreams of the Dying

September 25, 2015 /

DT cover 2015 fallDreamTime is an inspiring and intriguing magazine published by the International Association for the Study of Dreams. The first part of my article on dreams of the dying appeared in the Winter 2015 issue, and now part 2 has come out in the Fall 2015 issue.

Click on the picture to read Part 2 of the article: “Dreams of the Dying: Where Reality and Identity Become Fluid” by Kirsten Backstrom

Click here for Part 1:Dreams of the Dying

And click here to become a member of IASD! You’ll receive DreamTime three times a year, along with many other benefits!

Article on Dreams of the Dying, in “Dreamtime” magazine

February 6, 2015 /

dreamtime-forblogs[1]DreamTime is an inspiring and intriguing magazine published by the International Association for the Study of Dreams, and I recently had an article appear in the Winter 2015 issue.

Click on the picture to read the article: “Dreams of the Dying: Where Reality and Identity Become Fluid” by Kirsten Backstrom

And consider becoming a member of IASD! You’ll receive DreamTime three times a year, along with many other benefits!

 

Kerry Backstrom

Click on the photo for Kerry’s bio

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“In my view, dreams are much more accurately described as experiences—that is, conscious events one has personally encountered.... We live through our dreams as much as our waking lives.”
-Stephen LaBerge

“Perhaps, in the end, there are no dreams intrinsically more healing than those that demonstrate that our separation is an illusion; that we are part of a living web that extends beyond our own skin and skull.”
-Marc Ian Barasch

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