Much of the information on this website is the product of conscious thought.

For several years, staff of the Science and Environmental Health Network and Indigenous Environmental Network have been working out the logic, implications, and possibilities of this exciting idea. We have acknowledged and relied on the rich cultural traditions behind Future Generation Guardianship. We have seen the power of the idea to ignite and inspire people. It has shown signs of cultural magic, of being an idea whose time has come.

For the most part, however, interpreting and implementing Future Generation Guardianship appeared to belong in the wide-awake world of social activism. We believed it was up to all of us who caught hold of the idea to work out what it meant and how to carry it out, and we would do that by the methods with which we were most familiar--talking, meeting, writing, emailing, advocating, and organizing.

And then we began to think there might be more to do, other ways to learn. First we sat in council for several days with the spiritual leader Joanna Macy, whose workshops engage people’s imagination in powerful ways to transcend time, space, and species barriers. We hoped to bring that kind of exercise into whatever trainings we developed because Guardianship requires transforming our hearts and culture as well as law and policy, although these are usually considered separate learning tracks. We knew combining them would be challenging.

Several months later, in the summer of 2007, we began getting news from even less conventional quarters. This time it was through an extraordinary series of dreams about guardians and guardianship. The dreamer, who was a friend of one of us, knew nothing about our work on Future Generation Guardianship when she began dreaming. Because her first dream was an astonishing description of what we wanted to do with this idea, we immediately brought her into the discussions. And then Rhiannon Hanson kept dreaming.

The dreams were for Rhiannon. They introduced her to her own calling as a guardian. You can read her unfolding story in the Story Book for Guardians of Future Generations.

Rhiannon calls the dreams her study guides. But some of them also seemed to be for the rest of us who are trying to find and lead the way into a sustainable future. Rhiannon has graciously agreed to share dreams that have this larger meaning.

In the next chapter (page) of this book we present Rhiannon’s Guardianship dreams as the core of a study guide for Guardians of Future Generations. They combine spirit, culture, policy, and activism; hope and despair; as well as warning, instruction, and promise--without the separations and contradictions we assume in waking life. The dreams are in chronological order. The first two occurred within a week and the final four came several months later on four consecutive nights.

We encourage you to use the study guide in three to six group sessions, keeping your own dream journals during that time. You may also use the guide individually. Dreams as coherent and lucid as Rhiannon’s are rare, but your own dreams may add insights, encouragement, and instruction. Set aside some group time to tell your dreams.

If you have dreams related to Guardianship, please add them to this book.