Toko-pa Turner
Discover dreamwork as a sacred practice to restore a deep sense of belonging to your life, and to the world.
Receive the medicine of your dreams through your body... and apply this wisdom in your everyday life.
We all ache to belong...
Belonging — to another, our families, and a community — is a fundamental human need...
Truly fulfilling this need starts with our ability to know and “belong to” our self.
Belonging is also a seemingly forgotten skill, cultivated through the sacred practices of dreaming, storytelling, ceremony, and song, which enliven archetypal stirrings that we can feel in our bones… connecting us to our ancestors and to our own soul.
Yet, in today’s Western society, with its focus on the outer world rather than our deep and rich inner landscape, we’ve become disconnected from this mythic or symbolic life…
That's why so many of us feel disconnected from each other, our ancestral roots, and even parts of ourselves — losses that contribute significantly to our feelings of personal and cultural isolation and loneliness.
The good news is that the skill of belonging — when practiced well –– can connect us to our authentic Self, to the others around us, and to the greater world. All we have to do is make an earnest courtship of our nighttime dreams, which offer a personal gateway into the richness of a soul-led life.
The images, symbols, and archetypes that emerge in the night can provide us with a map back to our place of belonging.
If we can decode these nighttime messages, which initially can seem quite mysterious, they can serve as clues to healing emotional and physical challenges, mending relationships, and igniting the sparks of inspiration for new possibilities for our lives.
They can also introduce us to the “dark guests” or shadow selves at play in our psyche that inhibit us from living fully… inviting us to befriend our hidden sadnesses, anger, and wounds that need our attention, compassion, and integration.
As we work to embrace the otherness we encounter in our dreams, we begin to feel the groundedness and authenticity of true belonging to ourselves, which is the foundation for cultivating belonging with others.
Only when you have committed to accepting the entirety of who you are can you completely open your arms to others and stand fully in your place in the world.
Experience the Art of Courting Your Dreams
In this exciting dreamwork course, author, teacher, and dreamworker Toko-pa Turner will share what she has found to be the most enduring and fulfilling path to living a symbolic life and cultivating belonging...
You’ll discover and master the art of courting your dreams. This fascinating courtship involves circling in closer to the mystery, making yourself approachable so you might learn what your dream loves and longs for, and then move your life in response to that longing.
You’ll begin by discovering how to reframe your dreams as Nature, naturing through you, and inherently drawing you towards healing and belonging.
You’ll come to understand how your longing to belong comes out of your separation from the Mythic Life — and how myth, ritual, and dreams can help bridge this separation and enhance your everyday life.
And you’ll come to know your body as the first gate of dreaming — and recognize how your emotions and other somatic expressions are there to help you cultivate an embodied presence.
You’ll be invited to re-member and welcome back your more sensitive and creative aspects — often devalued, dismissed, or neglected by Western culture. Healing your split from these parts of the Self can help you heal conflict in your relationships, and even illness in your body.
Rituals & Dream Sharing to Bring Your Dreams’ Gifts Forward
Dreams don’t always tell you which way to go, but ritual can help you live with that ambiguity. Once you’ve worked with a dream to reveal its teachings, it’s important to take what you’ve learned and find a way to honor it in your waking life.
Through ritual, you can create a living bridge for the mystery and magic of the unseen world to manifest and take shape in tangible ways in your life… You’ll also discover how to create ritual as a response to your dreams, to deepen your connection and reciprocity with the holy in nature.
And you’ll also find out how to create community through a dream-sharing circle, where in the act of coming together with vulnerability and authenticity, you can deepen into your dream’s teachings… discovering not only what a dream has come to teach you, but the gifts it bears for the whole.
During this exciting 7-module dance with the mystery of your dreams, you’ll:
- Discover how dreamwork can assuage your feelings of loneliness and disconnection
- Engage in a courtship of your dreams as a potent practice for personal growth and connection
- Be introduced to Toko-pa’s 5 Keys for “Courting the Dream”
- Explore ways to ground your presence and involve your body in dreamwork
- Participate in somatic exploration of your dreams
- Explore how the structure and arc of a dream can put you in touch with its meaning
- Circumnavigate the intellect to meet and tend to your animal heart
- Learn how to reframe nightmares and the so-called “negative emotions/images” as clusters of energy, striving to belong with us
- Discover how to approach a threatening dream to reveal its concealed medicine
- Learn how to transform your fears and hesitations about joining groups so you can participate in community
- Discover how sharing dreams with others takes you into the heart of intimacy and belonging
- Find out how to start and sustain your own dream circle
- And much more...
Toko-pa’s approach to dreamwork blends the mystical tradition of Sufism, the depth of Jungian psychology, and a feminine receptivity that cherishes dreams as sacred.
She believes that a complex alchemy occurs in not-knowing, and that being with this mystery is the essential starting place for becoming worthy of a dream’s revelation.
When you join Toko-pa for this rich inner journey, you’ll explore the deep longings of your soul through the mysterious workings of your dreams... you’ll reconnect with the orphaned parts of yourself — the key to cultivating belonging in your life and in the world... and you’ll fall in love with a deeply experiential approach to dreamwork… and life.
You’ll also meet a dreamwork teacher who weaves together poetry and practicality, has a deeply compassionate heart, imbues her work with profound integrity... and who can open your heart to what it truly means to belong to yourself, your people, your community, and the earth.
What You’ll Discover in These 7 Modules
In this 7-part online journey, Toko-pa will guide you through the fundamental spiritual skills and competencies you’ll need to successfully discover dreamwork as an enduring and fulfilling path to living a life of meaning, with a deep sense of belonging — to yourself, others, and the world.
Each training session will build harmoniously upon the previous ones so you’ll develop a complete holistic understanding of the practices, tools, and principles of “dream courtship,” with an emphasis on the body as the first gate of dreaming, and learning how a somatic exploration of dreams can help bring their wisdom into your everyday life.
Module 1: Dreaming Is Nature
How Your Dreams Are in Service to Healing & Belonging
Most of us have been taught that our dreams are the products of our own minds. But as anyone who has plumbed their depths can testify, there is a much greater mystery at work. We begin this course by reframing dreams as Nature, inclining us towards healing and belonging.
You’ll explore the root causes of forgetting your dreams, and learn how the psyche works to retrieve the lost, devalued, and neglected aspects of the Self. As you engage in this process of remembership, you realize you’re also restoring belonging to your life.
In this module you’ll:
- Learn how dreaming is nature, naturing through us in service to our wellbeing
- Reveal the underlying reasons you forget, dismiss, and even denigrate your dreams
- Discover how dreamwork can assuage your personal and collective feelings of loneliness and disconnection
- Engage in a courtship with your dreams as a potent practice for personal growth and connection
- Recognize longing as the sacred calling homeward
Module 2: The Art of Courtship
Practices for Approaching the Mystery of Your Dreams
Unlike so many Indigenous cultures, we in the Western world have become disconnected from the Mythic Life. This loss contributes significantly to our personal and cultural loneliness. Even when we do work with our dreams, we are often taught an acquisitional approach, asking, “What does it mean for me?”
Courtship is the art of circling in closer to the mystery, making yourself approachable so you might learn what the dream loves, what it longs for, and then moving your life in response to that longing.
You’ll be introduced to Toko-pa’s method for “Courting the Dream” and discover why this leads to a more enduring and fulfilling relationship with your symbolic life.
In this module, you’ll:
- Understand how your longing to belong comes out of your separation from the Mythic Life
- Discover how myth, symbols, and dreams can enhance your life
- Learn a more engaging alternative to traditional dream analysis
- Be introduced to Toko-pa’s 5 Keys for “Courting the Dream”
Module 3: Embodying the Dream
Somatic Practices for Integrating Your Dreams
The body is the first gate of dreaming. Dreams are a biological imperative, and the emotions they inspire are somatic expressions. This is why in courting a dream, we need to do so with embodied presence.
You’ll learn to listen to the communications of your body during dreamwork and allow its agreements and disagreements to guide your process. You’ll learn techniques for giving relevance to the invisible through dream journaling, somatic exploration, and walking in nature.
In this module, you’ll:
- Learn about the biological function and necessity of dreams
- Explore ways to ground your presence and involve your body in dreamwork
- Practice an embodied method for recording your dreams in greater detail
- Participate in a somatic exploration of a dream
- Engage with nature on integrative walks to enhance dreamwork
Module 4: The Architecture of Dreams
Discover the Universal Patterns Underpinning Every Dream
Dreaming is our mother tongue... but throughout the ages, we’ve forgotten how to speak this symbolic language.
Dreams are made up of metaphors, archetypes, and symbolic motifs that occur in every different culture around the world. When we learn these patterns, we can better understand our own dreams and their archetypal significance, which rescues our lives from randomness and gives us a map to follow. (Bring a journal and recent dream to work with.)
In this module, you’ll:
- Recognize key elements in every dream and use that knowledge to make effective associations
- Learn how the structure and arc of a dream can put you in touch with its meaning
- Discuss universal themes and tips for stepping out of recurring patterns
- Learn how to engage your curiosity and follow the energy of a dream
- Circumnavigate the intellect to meet and tend to your animal heart
Module 5: Making the Encounter
Working With the ‘Dark Guests’ in Your Dreams
Many of us feel disconnected from each other, our ancestral roots, and even parts of ourselves. Throughout our lives, we are shaped by our consensus culture’s celebration of certain qualities, with more sensitive and creative traits often devalued, dismissed, or neglected. As a result, we become split off from those devalued parts of the Self, which can turn into shadow dreams, conflict in our relationships, and even illness in the body.
You’ll learn how dark dreams are actually a validation of something that is ready to be healed.
In this module you’ll:
- Explore the origins of our alienation and how we became estranged from each other and ourselves
- Learn how to reframe nightmares and the so-called “negative emotions/images” as clusters of energy, striving to belong with us
- Discover how to approach a threatening dream to reveal its concealed medicine
- Witness a demonstration of dreamwork
Module 6: Walking the Dream
Connection With the Holy in Nature Through Ritual & Reciprocity
Dreams don’t always tell us which way to go, but ritual helps us live with that ambiguity. Once we have worked with a dream to reveal its teachings, it’s important that we take what we’ve learned and find a way to honor it in our waking lives.
We’ll discuss ways to create ritual actions as a response to dreams to deepen our reciprocity with the holy in nature.
In this module, you’ll:
- Weave bridges from the wisdom of your dreams back to waking life
- Come to see dreamwork as a conversation with the holy in nature
- Understand that when you create ritual, a greater intelligence will meet you halfway
- Develop ritual tools and other methods for honoring your dreams
Module 7: We Are an Ecosystem
Guidance for Cultivating Dreamwork Circles & Community
An incredible thing happens when we come together in dream-sharing community. We quickly realize that the pieces we are working out as individuals are arising not just for our personal healing, but to serve the larger ecosystem as well.
Dreams require us to come together with vulnerability and authenticity so that we can discover what the circle can teach us as a whole. This process introduces us to a new model of leadership that is deeply needed in the world today.
In this module, you’ll:
- Learn how to transform your fears and hesitations about joining groups so you can participate in community
- Discover how sharing dreams with others takes you into the heart of intimacy and belonging
- Discuss the role of dreaming and storytelling in creating a new culture
- Learn how to start and sustain your own dream circle
The Courting the Dream Bonus Collection
In addition to Toko-pa’s transformative 7-module virtual course, you’ll receive these powerful bonuses. These bonus sessions complement the course — and promise to take your understanding and practice to an even deeper level.
Dreamwork & Belonging
Audio Dialogue With Toko-pa Turner Hosted by Susan Audrey
Through our many personal, cultural, and ancestral displacements, we’ve become distant from ourselves, alienated from each other, and disconnected from the natural world. Our dreams are the first place the alienated self will appear. Join Toko-pa as she explores the origins of our estrangement, how a diminished life can lead us into “false belonging,” and how coming back into relationship with the outcast self can create true belonging in our lives and in our world.
During this heart-opening session, you’ll discover:
- How alienation affects the choices we make as individuals and as a culture
- Why exile is a necessary initiation into true belonging
- That dreams bring us back into relationship with the refugee aspects of the self and the larger ecosystem in which we’re embedded
Susan Audrey holds a master’s degree in Depth Psychology. She is a dreamwork practitioner and guide whose precognitive dreams and miraculous connection with the sacred feminine archetype of the Black Madonna have made her a true believer in the power of dreaming to connect us with something greater than ourselves, deepen our trust in life, and grow our sense of belonging. Susan is also trained in therapeutic guided imagery, and is a member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams.
Dream Recovery Kit: Tips for Dream Recall, Dream Incubation & Overcoming Blocks
PDF Guide From Toko-pa Turner
Designed for the individual who has lost touch with, is feeling estranged from, or is having trouble remembering their dreams, the Dream Recovery Kit is a guide to help you recover your dream life. This kit contains helpful acknowledgments for overcoming your blocks to remembering your dreams, tips for dream recall, and exercises for deepening your practice, such as creating a dream altar, and dream incubation to petition your dreams for answers to your biggest questions.
Courting the Dream: A Guide to Understanding the Dream Structure, Key Elements & Common Themes
PDF Booklet From Toko-pa Turner
In this rich booklet, you’ll receive an outline of Toko-pa’s 5-Key Process to Courting the Dream. In addition to this guidance for how to move through the dreamwork process (for yourself and others), you’ll receive an overview of the structure or dramatic arc of a dream, learn how to isolate its key elements, and discover the meaning behind some of our most common dream themes.
Dreaming Together: How to Start & Sustain a Dream Group
PDF Guide From Toko-pa Turner
It can be bittersweet to participate in a temporary dream community, only to find yourself returned to daily life without anyone to share at that level of soulful intimacy. In this guide, Toko-pa offers her favorite tips for creating and sustaining a dream circle. You’ll learn how to facilitate a dream circle, including how to structure your time, how to give ethical feedback on a dream, and how to encourage participation and circular leadership.
What People Are Saying About Toko-pa...
“My life has become my work of art...”
I used to believe I was damaged beyond repair. Now, the bumps and bruises are my gifts. My life has become my work of art and Toko-pa creates a safe place to feel emotions, to feel into my shadow, to ride grief into the sunset. I take grief out to dinner now. We have a fine relationship and love for each other. Life is better with Toko-pa, her words, her medicine, her midwifery of hidden mysteries. I am forever grateful.
— Jessica Beck
“I have been able to be more vulnerable...”
Thank you for guiding me in my artistic (and life) process as a mentor and friend. I always felt that dreams were special but you validated this for me, showing me that dreams can serve as a barometer to our life and guide us. I was astounded at how closely my dreams reflected real issues going on in my life and brought up some feelings long buried inside of me. I have been able to be more vulnerable in my personal and artistic life because of the work we have done together.
— Danielle Greene
“I have been reconnecting with an old language I’d forgotten.”
I’ve been telling friends and colleagues about what I am studying and it has been incredible to see how people open up. They are curious and interested. [Toko-pa] offers powerful soul medicine that we can access by tending to our dreams. I have been reconnecting with an old language I’d forgotten. The dream sharing and witnessing dreamwork taking place gives a wonderful sense of tribal medicine.
— Aurea Hora
“Now, my waking and dreaming are becoming one seamless flow.”
Toko-pa is an amazing and gifted dream teacher. She has made the process of befriending our dreams so simple... With Toko-pa, I was able to reclaim my power of dreaming back... Now, my waking and dreaming are becoming one seamless flow. I’m deeply grateful for the work Toko-pa is doing.
— Sukhvinder Sircar
“I feel my internal and external vision has been honed...”
I love how this course inspires everybody to show up at their own pace and allows for both deep diving into ourselves or staying more on the periphery. I feel my internal and external vision has been honed — for my own psyche but also for its reflection around me and how it connects into a tapestry of multidimensional experience.
— Christina
“... a new set of tools to unlock the meaning behind the riddles of our dreams...”
Within a safe, supportive community of fellow dreamers, she guides us through the dark corridors and unknown doorways of our dreams, bringing us face to face with the ancient language and wisdom of the soul. Sharing generations of knowledge across disciplines, Toko-pa provides each dreamer with a new set of tools to unlock the meaning behind the riddles of our dreams, and uncover the mysterious messages that they hold. Her intuitive, heart-centered approach is both welcoming and inspiring, allowing each dreamer to feel deeply connected to their greatest purpose, and helping us to see the pathway to get there, as laid out each night in our dreams. She is a true wise woman, teacher, friend.
— Kristen
“... truly opens and deepens intimacy and confidence in self.”
A gentle, scholarly, and intuitive guide, Toko-pa accompanies us into the depths of our psyche to discover that we can navigate unknown dimensions, trust strange characters, and feel safe amidst the unfamiliar and often bizarre worlds of our own personal dreamtime. With her attentive instruction we discover that the language of metaphor, poetry, and myth is part of our dream and waking states. This enriching experience truly opens and deepens intimacy and confidence in self. I look forward to the next course.
— Suzanne Luedkens
“... I’m inspired to go out and create a future that I will love.”
Thank you so much, Toko-pa. My dreams are getting richer and I’m inspired to go out and create a future that I will love. Most of all, I’m starting to trust that this is possible.
— Nathiya
“A vast and powerful resource to... move through life with more depth and authenticity.”
One of the main gifts from this course for me has been in the finding of a deep respect for the stories that have been coursing through my psyche all along — deep, authentic, the old and the hatching. A vast and powerful resource to help us move through life with more depth and authenticity.
— Elaine
“I don’t think I would have survived if not for this course.”
— L. R.
Here’s What You’ll Receive
Seven 90-minute Class Sessions With Toko-pa Turner
Experience a rare opportunity to learn with author, teacher, and dreamworker Toko-pa Turner — from the comfort of your own home. Each class session guides you to discover specific skills and abilities to awaken your spiritual potential.
Seven PDF Transcripts of Class Sessions
In addition to the high-quality audios, you’ll also receive the entire class transcription in PDF format after each session is completed. You can then review, print, and highlight the most important insights and practices you were given.
Exercises and Questions for Each Lesson
Between class sessions, you’ll have the option of completing related exercises, practicing new tools, and answering questions to accelerate your learning and integrate each lesson.
The Courting the Dream Bonus Collection
- Dreamwork & Belonging
Audio Dialogue With Toko-pa Turner Hosted by Susan Audrey
- Dream Recovery Kit: Tips for Dream Recall, Dream Incubation & Overcoming Blocks
PDF Guide From Toko-pa Turner
- Courting the Dream: A Guide to Understanding the Dream Structure, Key Elements & Common Themes
PDF Booklet From Toko-pa Turner
- Dreaming Together: How to Start & Sustain a Dream Group
PDF Guide From Toko-pa Turner
An Unprecedented Opportunity to Join the Courting the Dream Virtual Training
We feel honored Toko-pa Turner has chosen to partner with The Shift Network to offer this exclusive online training. This is a rare opportunity to learn from an author, teacher, and dreamworker whose powerful insights and pioneering work are helping us heal and awaken ourselves and our world.
Through this powerful online format, you’ll not only save time and money on workshop costs (plus travel, accommodations, and meals — which would cost thousands of dollars), you’ll be able to benefit from Toko-pa’s incredible teachings and exercises from the comfort of your home — and at your own pace!
If you’re serious about cultivating dreamwork as an enduring and fulfilling path to living a symbolic life that can cultivate a deep sense of belonging, then you owe it to yourself, your loved ones, and our world to take this one-of-a-kind training.
If you’re ready to take the next step in evolving yourself, click the register button below to reserve your space now.
Your Satisfaction Is 100% Guaranteed!
Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed! If you don’t absolutely LOVE Courting the Dream with Toko-pa Turner — or don’t feel that it meets your needs — please submit your refund request form 2 weeks from your date of purchase and we’ll happily issue you a refund.
More Praise for Toko-pa Turner...
“Toko-pa speaks... to the heart of what it means to belong to ourselves...”
An exquisitely crafted journey that explores the deep longings of the soul, the mysterious workings of our dreams, the bittersweet wisdom of the orphaned self, and the losses of our lineage that we would rather ignore. Toko-pa speaks with poetry and practicality, pure compassion, and profound integrity to the heart of what it means to belong to ourselves, to our people, to our communities and to the earth...”
— Lucy H. Pearce, Amazon bestselling author of Burning Woman, Moon Time, and The Rainbow Way
“[Toko-pa] provides living nourishment for these times...”
As I read Toko-pa’s writing, I found myself being transported, not to some distant place, but to my deepest core. Belonging is a mirror to our true face, revealing the exiled threads of our being so that we may gently re-weave them back into the greater fabric of which we are all a part. [Toko-pa] provides living nourishment for these times...
— Bethany Webster, Writer, transformational coach, international speaker
“... she midwifes the deep wisdom of our souls into incarnation.”
With astounding clarity and compassion, Toko-pa guides us to embody a humanity deeply rooted in our belonging and reverence for the grand dance of life we are part of. Through her exquisite word-magic, she midwifes the deep wisdom of our souls into incarnation.
— Chameli Ardagh, Founder of Awakening Women Institute
“If you are ready, take her hand and prepare to grow.”
Certain people invite you into an experience that will alter your worldview forever. They have gone so deep, searched so thoroughly, traversed territories that most would shun, and then they return and lay their soul at your feet. Toko-pa is one such individual... She reaches her hand out to you and asks you to take a journey with her. If you are ready, take her hand and prepare to grow.
— Clare Dubois, international speaker and founder of TreeSisters
About Toko-pa Turner
Toko-pa Turner is an author, teacher, and dreamworker. Blending the mystical tradition of Sufism in which she was raised with a Jungian approach to dreamwork, she founded the Dream School in 2001, from which hundreds of students have since graduated.
Toko-pa has been interviewed by CNN News and BBC Radio and has a community of over 100,000 online readers. Her writing has been published worldwide — her first book, Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home, explores the themes of exile and the search for belonging. Belonging is an Amazon Bestseller in the U.S., Canada, and the UK. It won the prestigious 2017 Nautilus Gold Award for its contribution to the field of Personal Growth, the 2018 Readers’ Favorite Gold Award for Nonfiction, and was named Finalist in the 2018 Whistler Independent Book Awards.
Sometimes called a Midwife of the Psyche, Toko-pa’s work focuses on restoring the feminine, reconciling paradox, and facilitating grief and ritual practice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What’s a virtual course?
A: It’s a great way to engage live and pre-recorded teachings and each other from the comfort of your home! All you need is a computer, mobile device, or telephone. If there’s more than one person in your household taking the course, you’ll each need your own connection. We use Zoom videoconferencing to make it just like an in-person event, where you can ask questions and deepen your exploration of the course themes.
There’s no additional charge for connecting to Zoom with your computer or mobile device. Please note that dialing Zoom from your telephone is a toll call; your telephone service provider will charge you according to your existing long-distance calling plan. International access numbers are available.
“I’ve never seen a course so well put together ever...”
I had never participated before in an online course. The packaging, presentation, inclusion, and Facebook postings created a wonderful, safe cocoon within which to participate. I’ve never seen a course so well put together ever — not in all the years of taking college classes — and I had my doubts about doing an online course. The wealth of organization and ease of learning materials and support made this fun as well.
— Claudia F., Medford, Massachusetts
Q: Can I get benefit from the course if I miss the live classes?
A: Absolutely! You can download the recordings and transcripts of all course sessions from our online media archive, so you never need to worry about missing live calls. You can also engage the full community and leaders on our private online community group.
Q: Can you tell me about the private online community group?
A: We’ll have a private online community group for all course participants on Facebook that will support you in making connections with others, sharing insights, engaging in discussions, and completing homework assignments that can supplement your transformational journey. You’ll have the ability to share your experiences, projects, and growth throughout the course.
Q: Are there scholarships available for this training?
A: Yes, we always make a certain percentage of spaces available for partial scholarships, giving preference to those in developing countries or doing important but underpaid work to which they can apply the training material immediately. If you’d like to apply for a scholarship, please review our guidelines, which include a link to our online application form.
Q: What’s your refund policy?
A: Your satisfaction with The Shift Network and this course is our highest priority! We offer a satisfaction guarantee so that you can sample the course risk-free. The deadline to receive a full refund is January 17, 2019. To request a refund, please click on this refund request form and submit your request. Your refund will be processed within five business days and we’ll send you an email confirming your refund. However, we’d love to have a chance to address and resolve your concerns first. If there’s something we can assist you with, please email us at support@theshiftnetwork.com and we’ll be happy to help! (No refund requests accepted after the above date or with scholarship awards.)
Q: How can I reach Customer Support?
A: Please visit our Customer Support Center, where you should be able to find the answer to your question or the solution to your problem. And if you can’t, you can submit an online request form and we’ll get right back to you.
