WISE and WISDOM — as it relates to Wise Dream Tending
By Lanie Bergin, Founder, Center for Dreaming Arts
Welcome to a deeper dive into the creation of our Wise Dream Tending workshops. Specifically, what we mean by the words wise, wisdom and how it all relates to evolving relationship of dream tending.
Wise Dream Tending is a living conversation with the inner wisdom keeper. This is a journey guided by the wise part of you: the inner leader, the discerning voice, the soul who already knows.
The wisdom is already there.
We simply learn how to listen.
What does “wise” mean in Wise Dream Tending work?
Wise Dream Tending is a return to the inner sage of the psyche.
It is the practice of listening to one’s inner wisdom keeper: the guide, the witness, the ancient intelligence within.
Wise = Self-knowing. Discerning. Patient. Deep-seeing. Trusting.
Wisdom = An embodied awareness that already knows its own truth.
A Wise Inner Leader
This work awakens a wise inner leader—a guide who discerns what feels true, timely, sacred, or resonant. A leader who trusts intuition over instruction. Who follows inner knowing rather than external authority. It is the maturation of one’s inner guidance system.
The Wisdom Keeper of Dreams
Within each dream, there is a wisdom keeper—an internal oracle who speaks in images, symbols, mythic language.
Wise Dream Tending teaches us to enter that relationship, not to have our dreams decoded via outsourcing them, but to sit with them as living beings with their own intelligence.
Discernment as a Spiritual Practice
Wisdom in this context is not about answers, it is about discernment.
The ability to feel what is true for one’s self even when the meaning is incomplete or still forming.
Wisdom = A slow unfolding of meaning through sustained relationships.
A Solo Journey First - Where intuition meets imagery
Lanie’s Project Dream Research revealed something important about the value of tending to her dreams privately. “There’s something unique about the dreams I didn’t share in contrast to when I did share dreams. When I read my life-context during times of “not sharing” I can see how this choice deepened my feelings about trusting my psyche. I trusted that all will be revealed in time.
Tending dreams begins quietly.
Privately.
In the intimate chambers of the psyche.
While we might share our dreams with others - the dreamer has the primary relationship with the psyche. In this intimate relationship to our dream world we can learn to be in a reverent relationship with them ourselves.
Solo = Listening. Recording. Witnessing. Remembering. Returning.
And a Shared Journey Together - A personal pilgrimage with collective impact
We begin alone, in sacred intimacy with our psyche. Then we gather in community, where shared dreaming supports the evolution of collective consciousness.
Once a dream has been honored inwardly, it can be witnessed in the community.
Shared dreaming builds collective consciousness, strengthens archetypal patterns,
and contributes to the evolution of the human soul and beyond. It is a community where we can foster the evolutionary process of human development.
Community = Connection. Co-regulation. Meaning-making.