Dreamfruit Almanac

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Reviewed by Martha M O’Hehir

The Deep Times Journal rarely advertises products created by facilitators of the WTR, but there was something about this offering that struck a chord with me, personally, so I ordered a copy. 

I have been watching the videos offered by Michael Dowd called “Post Doom Reflections,” particularly the one with Joanna Macy speaking to how we humans need to re-envision ourselves, to see ourselves as cells in a larger body of the earth and as “Children of the Passage.” There are elements and cues in this planner that help me refocus on that identity.

While I am terrible at following through regularly with any planner, including this one, it offers me a window to the liminal space where dreams are born into activism. Whether or not you feel inclined to formalize your journey with a planning tool, just reading over her description, below, may give you some good ideas for your own re-envisioning.

Dreamfruit: A Lunar Planner for the Work that Reconnects 

In times of uncertainty, we find ourselves in the liminal space of no-longer and not-yet. We look for tools of transformation that can help us to bring a new world into being. Dreamfruit 2020 is an interactive almanac for radical belonging, and it is clearly designed to bring us into a greater sense of connection with our common humanity and the living Earth. This sense of interrelatedness is what radical belonging speaks to. As many of us are keenly aware, it is this restored sense of belonging that is a vital ingredient in our recovery from the effects of the Industrial Growth Society. 

Traditionally, an almanac is a reference book with collected articles on a particular area of interest, showing the movement of the sun, the changes of the moon, and other seasonal data. In the Dreamfruit almanac, each lunar month offers a “Dream from the Future” to activate our imaginative powers; provocative seed questions with space for journaling; and a guided journey through the Spiral of Reconnection. 

The almanac’s thirteen Dreams from the Future speak to the dire realities of our time while also offering a shift in perception that taps the intuitive and visionary parts of our awareness. Taken by themselves, these “dreams” present a mythic journey through our contemporary landscape of collapse and regeneration. Add to this a set of questions and creative prompts unique to each month, a calendar based on the lunar cycles, and the monthly invitation to reflect on the “Elements of Belonging” (comprised of open sentences from the Spiral), and you have a rich and immersive tool. 

A great many of us have felt ‘orphaned’ from our planet home and are seeking to return to our natural inheritance as co-creative cells in the living body of earth. Dreamfruit is filled with loving suggestions for returning to the wider circle of life and its natural intelligence. If you’re looking for a way to bring your personal path into perspective within the context of our shared world, this planner will be a treasured companion. 


As a writer, activist, and cultural creative, Elizabeth Russell has been studying and practicing the Work that Reconnects since 1992. Her community projects – including the Gaia’s Witness Pilgrimage (1999, 2000) and the Life.Art.Being Integrative Arts Festival (2012-2017) — have consistently been shaped by the principles of WTR. With Dreamfruit, she has now created a lunar planner and almanac to bring the Great Turning to life in our imagination and our daily lives. 

Dreamfruit 2020: an interactive almanac for radical belonging by Elizabeth Russell Earth Dragon Press, Eugene OR. https://elizabethrussell.space. ISBN 978-1-7342465-0-6

Martha O’Hehir is an educator and writer and has served as an editor or contributing editor for several publications, including the The Music Practitioner,The Orff Echo, and Reverberations. She wrote curriculums, elementary music and math, religious studies, and music improvisation for healing musicians. She is a facilitator of the Work That Reconnects and gives retreats and workshops connecting the Great Turning with the spirituality of Teilhard de Chardin. Ordained to interfaith ministry as an Eco-Chaplain in 2017, Martha aspires to bring greater consciousness to Earth stewardship as an act of spirituality, through her writing, music, and spiritual direction.

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