Spring News-Letter
Dance, Dreams and prayers
Dear family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, workshop participants … whose e-mail was in one of my mailing lists as exported from gmail to my new hub on Substack:
Welcome to Lana’s Letters
Sent quarterly, with a personal message and announcements for the season.
*If you’re receiving this as unwanted mail, my excuses, and please unsubscribe at the bottom of this message.
Spring has arrived and with it comes the promise of new life … the birds hold daily concerts, blossoms are starting to show their colours and the bees are collecting pollen to indicate that their mother/queen is in good health and laying eggs— soon this new generation will fly out into the fields, harvesting the bounty and turning it into honey. But, like us, the bees face many dangers ahead: monster wasps, parasites, monoculture, pesticides… Yet, they continue in their dance, navigating with the sun, fulfilling their purpose…. Persevering.
In these times of increasing and incessant darkness, injustice and suffering around the planet, nature provides a little bit of solace. I hope you are finding your own sources of comfort dealing with the challenges – collective and personal. May this turn of season also mark a turning of a page in our collective consciousness, towards connection and forgiveness, where we no longer feed the dysfunctional system that is enslaving us, but find novel and creative ways to build community, to collaborate, trade, work and prosper as a humanity. May we witness the Towers of Tyranny crumble – while staying firm on our feet— and may we live to see the seeds of the new sprouting.
Here’s a bit of what’s sprouting in this little girl’s life:
ANNOUNCEMENTS
I was a guest on The Dream Journal Podcast with Katherine Bell last weekend– talking about enacting and ritualising dreams to create a dialog with the imaginal realm - and how to meet the “other.” We both enjoyed the conversation that— which within dream fashion— took unexpected and magical turns. I hope you enjoy listening to it too (or watching it.) You can access the podcast episode with youtube links here.
WORKSHOPS & PERFORMANCES
Wisdom of the Mothers:
An online Symposium April 22 + 23 with a wonderful line-up of presenters, including yours truly. I’ll be leading an experiential/movement workshop titled Hayya: Dance of the Serpent. (Been doing it for many years-and it constantly evolves, doing now for the first time virtually…:-) Full program Here. Come dance the Serpent with us.
Vurige Tongen
Firey Tongues Festival Amsterdam * RUIGOORD * Mary 24 & 25 May:
What I’ll be doing is yet unknown (also to me) … I’ll probably be letting the jinn out of the bottle and letting him/her/it do their work.
IASDreams Conference
Taking place June 13-18 in Ashland Oregon. I’ll be dreamweaving the opening and closing ceremonies of the conference into a Dream Hive and facilitating a workshop with Robert Bosnak and Judith White: “Dreaming the Other” - more on this and the full program you can find here
On-line Presence
If you haven’t been able to find me on WhatsAap, Instagram, Youtube, and FaceBook – or if you sent me a message and wondered why no reply, I am still alive and not ignoring anyone. I deleted Meta - because of their policy and breaches and what they do and how. Same applies to google (I’m slowly phasing out of my gmail, hence transferred my mailing list here). I’ve discovered Thaura AI as an alternative to ChatGPT… it’s still growing and has its limitation, but worth checking out. I’m still on LinkedIn - for now. You can always find me at my website: LanaNasser.com. Telegram of Signal are good substitute for WhatsAap for those considering the switch.
Navigating the world of social media is not easy, but I can tell you that breaking up with Meta has been a great decision, positive for my mental health and creativity. The only downside however, is that I’ve missed many of you. We had gotten so used to these platforms that we forgot that there are other ways to connect (Do your remember when we used to still write each other e-mails, when we’d call out of the blue, or even send a letter?)
So please, stay in touch, I’d love to hear from you.
HOME/Animal News
We’re all well al-hamdulillah. We have a new cat in the house, he’s about 17 year old, adopted from an apartment in the City where his previous owner could no longer give him the attention he needed. He was known to simply lay there. But since he’s moved with us in the forest, discovered the outdoors and found the lap of a writer (best profession for cats) he’s acting like a kitten- full of energy, and has officially become my office assistant (currently, he’s taking a nap.)
And now, to work on the book synopsis… (you know, the one I’ve been working on for 12 years. It’s here, done- and now to see who wants to publish it… wish me luck.
Warmest of wishes and purrs from a cold yet sunny day in the South of the Netherlands
L:-