Reenchantment of Public Space project

I wrote this about 4 months ago, when I was unemployed dreaming of what I really wanted to do with myself.I let it sit on the computer (and got a job),till now then thought why not just put it out there as is. I am still committed to the project in a different format.Its good to dream...


The Re-Enchantment of Public Space Project

You are invited to join a coalition of like-minded souls for a unique experiment in Community Dreaming and Carnivalesque Psychotherapy!

Whenever Illness is associated with loss of soul, the arts emerge spontaneously as remedies, soul medicine: Shaun Mc Niff

We may have to return to childhood and recover its truths, its vision, its logic, its sense of time and space, its extraordinary cosmology, and its creative physics if we want a way out of the black-and-white world of disenchantment: Thomas Moore

After many years of working as a therapist with people from all over the world, it seems to me that ignoring the Dreaming is an undiagnosed global epidemic. People everywhere suffer from a chronic form of mild depression because they are taught to focus on everyday reality and forget about the Dreaming background: Arnold Mindell

But if there was in fact a beginning to the epidemic of depression, sometime in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, it is of obvious concern here, confronting us as it does with this question: Could this apparent decline in the ability to experience pleasure be in any way connected with the decline in opportunities for pleasure, such as carnival and other traditional festivities? : Barbara Ehrenreich

Australia becomes an ideal place for the birth of a new dreaming, a dreaming that could be an important experiment for the world at large: David Tacey

Dreaming together is a new kind of social activism: it means going deeper to find the basis of personal and social healing: Arnold Mindell

…many indigenous peoples construe awareness, or “mind,” not as a power that resides inside their heads, but rather as a quality that they themselves are inside of, along with the other animals and the plants, the mountains and the clouds: David Abram

Enchantment is an ascendency of the soul, a condition that allows us to connect, for the most part lovingly and intimately, with the world we inhabit and the people who make up our families and communities.
We have yet to learn that we can’t survive without enchantment and that the loss of it is killing us. A culture dedicated to enchantment recognizes our need to live in a world of both facts and holy imagination: Thomas Moore


My passion is to bring together anyone who is committed to making life magical, enchanted and deeply meaningful. To begin to heal the rifts so many of us feel between body, psyche, community and ecology. Especially welcome are artists of all varieties, therapists and healers from diverse traditions, community workers and those who are ecologically minded.
That we experiment with one-off projects that focus on new forms of small-scale carnival and ritual/ceremony. As Victor Turner observed “each kind of ritual, ceremony or festival comes to be coupled with special types of attire, music, dance, food, and drink…and often masks, body painting, headgear, furniture and shrines”.

My vision is form a core group that can flexibly come together for a project and also support and collaborate where possible in our normal practices.

Who am I and what I can bring to the Project?

Jeff Power: I have over 20 years experience in youth and community work, family therapy and counsellor training. I have a BA in Creative Arts and a MA in Jungian Psychology. Up until recently I was a team leader and trainer at QPASTT (Qld program of assistance to survivors of torture and trauma). I am passionate about finding ways to connect to the ecology: one tree, one stone, one animal, and one insect at a time. I paint, write, perform ritual/ movement meditation and follow my nightly dreams. I have extensive experience and a love of group facilitation and conflict resolution. I see my primary role as inspiring, envisioning and facilitating the group’s creative process.
I have a sneaking suspicion I was a court jester or perhaps a holy fool in a past life.