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“People who live with a sense of a larger story, a larger purpose, a deeper dream are better at getting through the ups and downs of routine existence. Having the right story, having a sense of that gives you courage and passion for the every day journey.” Robert Moss
For Life on Purpose Episode #37, my guest is bestselling author, teacher, and world-renowned “dream explorer” Robert Moss. He joins me for a fascinating and lively conversation* in which we discuss fun ways to bring more magic and play to your life; his new book Sidewalk Oracles: Playing with Signs, Symbols, and Synchronicity in Everyday Life; living with a sense of a larger purpose and story; becoming a kairomancer, and much more.
*NOTE: because of technical difficulties with our connection during recording, this interview has been heavily edited, though a few “Skype hiccups” are still noticeable. I apologize, but think you’ll still enjoy this highly inspirational conversation.
About Robert Moss:
Robert Moss describes himself as a dream teacher, on a path for which there has been no career track in our culture. He is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming.
A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. He has published twelve books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination.
He identifies the great watershed in his adult life as a sequence of visionary events that unfolded in 1987-1988, after he decided to leave the world of big cities and the fast-track life of a popular novelist and put down roots on a farm in the upper Hudson Valley of New York. Moss started dreaming in a language he did not know that proved to be an archaic form of the Mohawk language. Helped by native speakers to interpret his dreams, Moss came to believe that they had put him in touch with an ancient healer, an arendiwanen or “woman of power” and that they were calling him to a different life.
Out of these experiences he wrote a series of historical novels and developed the practice he calls Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of contemporary dreamwork and shamanic methods of journeying and healing. A central premise of Moss’s approach is that dreaming isn’t just what happens during sleep; dreaming is waking up to sources of guidance, healing and creativity beyond the reach of the everyday mind.
Over the past 20 years, Moss has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Brazil and Austria and leads a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. He hosts the Way of the Dreamer radio show at www.healthylife.net.
He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast and the Diane Rehm show on NPR. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman’s Drum.
Moss was a keynote speaker at the IASD world conference in Chicago in June 2009. He was keynote presenter at the East Coast conference of the Institute of Transpersonal Studies in October 2009 and the keynote speaker at the A.R.E.’s Easter conference in 2010. His books have been published in more than 20 foreign languages.
To learn more about Robert and his work: http://www.mossdreams.com.
About Sidewalk Oracles:
Synchronicity is when the universe gets personal. Through this book of games and enchanting stories, you’ll learn how to monitor the play of coincidence and the symbolic resonance of incidents in daily life in order to tap into the deeper logic of events, receive extraordinary counsel, and have wonderful fun.
You will be invited to become a kairomancer: someone who is poised to catch the messages in special moments when synchronicity is in play — and to take action to seize the opportunities those moments present.
To be a kairomancer, you need to trust your feelings as you walk the roads of this world, to develop your personal science of shivers, and to recognize in your gut and your skin that you know far more than you hold on the surface of consciousness.
This is a way of real magic, which is the art of bringing gifts from a deeper world into this one. Follow it, and you will put a champagne fizz of enchantment into your everyday life.
To learn more about Sidewalk Oracles: Playing with Signs, Symbols, and Synchronicity in Everyday Life, visit New World Library.