Dreem Warriors? Allies made to change the world!

This past weekend hosted a slew of amazing connections as our friends and fellow activators of the Urban Conservation Warriors visited for adventure and collaboration. With a mission to employ students (at beautiful wages) to install 100% sustainable and native landscaping, these warriors are really making an impact in Oakland. Inspiring!! Bravo to you Warriors and a special thanks to Rain Dove and Ford for sharing their time with us - what a wonderful weekend. With our parallel Dreems of changing and educating the world - we have decided to join forces. To launch this, we will be having a Dreem Warriors Retreat in the proposed location of Holy City, CA - in the presence of a ring of Redwoods to council and inspire us. This event will be held from Friday, Oct 26th - Saturday, Oct 27th. We will do lots of enthusiatic team building, activations, discussion, etc. In fact, here are the notes from our brainstorm about the event:

Join the facebook event for the Retreat, here!

*We ask that everyone contribute $15 to food sharing! Please hand it over to your respective "leaders by Wed, Oct 24"*

Proposed Schedule of Events Fri, Oct 26th 10am - 12pm: Arrival & Set Up 12 - 1pm: Lunch (shared potluck style meal) 1 - 2pm: Team building and Activation! 2 - 5pm: Discussion Time One 5 - 6pm: Fun Activation and Team Building...more of it! 6 - 7pm: Dinner prep and misc duties for the evening 7 - 10pm: Eat and Celebrate (bonfire, music, storytelling, etc) Sat, Oct 27th 6 - 7am: Breakfast making and waking 7 - 8am: Morning circle and breakfast 8 - 9am: Morning Activation and Team Building...can't get enough! 9 - 11am: Discussion Time Two 11am - 12pm: Lunch Prep and Fun time...face painting? 12 - 1pm: Lunch time 1 - 2pm: Interactive thought on current spicy topics in the world 2 - 4pm: Collaborative Final Discussion Three 4 - Infinity: Go home and create amazing things in this world Proposed Topics of Discussion:

• Mission statements of Dreem and Warriors
• Overview of accomplishments and goals - past, current, and prospective
• Projects in action
• Techniques of operations
• What are our differences as entities and why? What can we learn from each other?
• Potential collaborations
• What we have to offer as individuals

Activity and Team Building Ideas:

• Collaborative Creation (drawing, painting, theater, mandala)
• Take home product/project (DreemCatchers? Pinecone peanut butter squirrel feeder?)
• Workshops and mini-classes (Survival, shelter building, water filtering, yoga, soil evaluation, cob creation, composting, etc)

  Hope to see many there! ~Dani

Art of Community Event - We're Back!

We have returned! This past weekend, Friday Sept 21 - Sun the 23rd our DreemTeam set out on an amazing journey to Occidental California to attend the FIC’s Art of Community Event. Referred to us by our director Chris Kindig, this event’s purpose was to not only educate attendees about various topics surrounding cooperative culture and community, but to provide an opportunity for us to experience it (see video below for more info).

With the constant support of Susan Frank, the event coordinator, we Dreemers were able to coordinate a group discount, contribute to the Community Casbah, and become an official sponsor for the event! So many thanks to Susan for her incredibly hard work and consistently friendly and precise communication. Each one of our Dreemers were such a crucial element to the “success” of our mission there. I want to thank them infinitely! Theresa, Shiree, Giovanna, Kivah, Jonathan, Melinda, and Dani (myself) - our energy together was powerful, our dedication as individuals and a team was (r)evolutionary, I am so proud and honored to have been on your team. I hope that they will all share their experience in writing, in addition to the notes they took in their classes. Please check back to read them! Also coming up will be a fun video that includes the Dreemers experiences as well some words from others that experienced the DreemTeam. Check our YouTube Channel: DreemTV for that soon. For now - we’d like to say hello to the many new Dreemers we connected with (yes you!) and thank them for reaching out to us then and now. More details about our experience at the event coming soon!

Kirby High School Community Service Project

This past Thursday, Sept 20th we met with students at Georgiana Bruce Kirby High School in Santa Cruz, CA. In an effort to transform the school she works for, DreemGarden leader Theresa has instigated Dreem Reality's involvement in creatinggardens on site. Two gardens are proposed for this community service project available to students:

• An organic herb garden to supply the kitchen with fresh seasoning for their creations
• A roof-top container garden for students to learn about various elements of vegetable gardening

As we wait to hear the outcome of interested students as well as possible funding for the project, we are eager for the opportunity to make our first leap into the School Garden arena! An extremely powerful goal of DreemGardens as it continues to evolve and blossom. It was quite impressive to see how driven and independent the students were that are taking the lead on the project. They had their own table, a poster board displaying their objectives, and space for interested students to sign up.   We'll make sure to check back with the progress on this exciting potential!

It Ain't Easy Being Green...but we're working on it!

Hello, all! Kaitzilla, here: one of D.r.e.e.m. Reality’s east coast voices! One of my favorite things to do includes noticing the many sustainable techniques already available where I live. It’s easy to take personal responsibility and make a difference, even in unlikely places!

For example, I went to the North Carolina State Fair this year. Growing up in the capital city of North Carolina, naturally I went to the State Fair every year. However, I noticed a different experience this year. I found myself surrounded by gardens, culture, and even… recycling? That’s right! The State Fair is no longer just about deep-fried candy bars, donut-bacon cheeseburgers, and nauseating rides anymore! It’s also about helping to protect the earth. For the record, no, I’m not kidding. There was seriously a bacon-cheeseburger with all the fixin’s served between two glazed donuts instead of a bun… Mmmm, can you feel your arteries shutting down just thinking about it? I digress. Anyway, I am proud to acknowledge that recycling bins were abundant and convenient at the fair this year! Almost every trash can had a recycling bin right beside it. Now, if we could keep the trash cans from overflowing, and use the recycling more, we’d be in great shape, NC! I want to urge people to be more aware and take notice of these convenient receptacles. They are available, let’s use them!

You may already be familiar with the giant pumpkin sporting a blue ribbon you can find at a state fair, but what about entire gardens? We saw dozens of squares of land, themed and decorated with a wide variety of beautiful plants. Beyond the judging area there were also larger gardens on display, including a huge one dedicated to edible plants growing easily together! This garden (a small portion pictured to the right), simply named “Pretty and Tasty Garden,” contains all-edible plant life. The experience felt particularly exciting for me, as I got to see a prime example of the many foods that can grow in my current climate! [*if you read my last blog, I recently encouraged everyone to figure out what kinds of foods can grow easily at home. In fact, I encourage you further. Check out Where to Find Pick-Your-Own Fruit and Vegetable Farms / Orchards for Local, Fresh Fruit, Vegetables*]

The art projects on display at the fair are inspiring to see. Entries include traditional folk art, to cake decorating. Wonderfully, the artists range from professional s to children! To close, I leave you with the wise words of my favorite entry, a robot built by a young child.

“Hi, I’m Recycle Bot! I am made of a lot of recycled things. Recycling is very important in the state of North Carolina! Each year North Carolinians throw away $74,072,000 in aluminum and $41,411,600 in plastic. Did you know N.C. has a statewide ban on the disposal of these items?...”

The delightful robot goes on to boast about the numerous things made from recycled materials! Listen to the robot, recycle!

<3 Kait

Hawaii and Beach Walk Clean Ups!

We are still awaiting our approved Articles of Incorporation in the mail, but we are sure they will be here very soon. While we are waiting we are eagerly preparing for our very first research trip!

With the Eco-facility Research Project in the hopefully near future, we want to make sure we take every opportunity to have an effective study. Therefore, we are taking three months to travel the Big Island of Hawaii to learn and participate in work exchange on several Ecovillages and Farms. It is our goal to start becoming familiar with the ways that these systems work - first hand. So from August 10th until November 11th we will be on this adventure!

***

On another note, our Directors Ashley and Crystal take part in a daily beach walk in Santa Cruz, California. While they walk, they collect trash! This past week we joined them...

D.r.e.e.m. Reality at Fresno Pride!

This past Saturday, June 5th, was the first time D.r.e.e.m. Reality had an official booth at any public event!

Four of our Directors, all who are very proud, manned a booth at Fresno's Gay Pride Festival. I feel we had one of the most beautiful booths around with colorful tapestries, drums, and hand-made incense, oils, and bath soaks hand-made by our Director Ashley.

In order to prepare for the event, we found ourselves in full force to get the basic public image tools in place. We now have:

• A website published at www.DreemReality.org
• Business Cards
• An "About Us" Pamphlet
• A "How to Compost" Pamphlet
• Refined Logo, and Rainbow Colored rendition for Pride
• An understanding about making Tshirts

It was a challenge getting all this done - but worth the work. Even though we didn't end up selling ANY Tshirts at the event (Haha!) - we did learn a lot. We made about $12 in donations, and handed out all of our Pamphlets.

The main goal of being part of an event is to start getting our name and presence out there. And as always, to learn.

We hope that if anyone does wonder to the website or blog from the Pride Event, they give us a holler!

~Dani