We decided that in our weekend dream community we would sleep in a wheel and that we would each make a weaving in which to catch our dreams. We felt a strong connection with weaving as a way of making something which was useful as well as beautiful. We respected the age-old association of weaving with women, the Fates, and creation. We decided we would all attach our weavings to the central pole of our circle so that we would have a giant collective weaving as well as our individual ones. When the weekend was over, each of us could take our personal work home with us. It would be a dream talisman—an object that would be imbued with the energy of the weekend. It would give us a chance to make something creative and would serve as a reminder of the attention we had decided to give our dreams.

Organizing the weekend meant weeks of meetings, ideas, phone calls and letters. It was not easy arranging for a dozen women from all over the West Coast to meet on a remote piece of land on a given weekend. We wrote long, involved invitations, arranged food and transportation and hoped that everyone would find her way.

On a summer's day we finally met. Old friends were happy to see one another. I was glad to be on the land, and went off by myself to lie in the stream and rid myself of the vibrations of the freeway and the city. Others took walks, chanted, or talked.

As the afternoon drew on, we gathered by the stream. Barbry had made a crescent, moon-shaped pattern for us to use for sewing small dream pillows. She had brought gold cloth for the moon, and gold and black yarn for the night sky. We stuffed our pillow with mugwort, an herb which brings strong dreams, and psyllium seeds, which help in remembering dreams. We sewed on acorns and autumn leaves that we found around us and used the yarn to hang the pillows around our necks. Each yellow crescent was the special creation of the woman who made it, while sewing them gave us a chance to talk and relax and get to know one another.

It was getting late and people were asking if we really were going to do all the things we had said we would. We had to decide where we would sleep so we could set up the axis of our wheel. Some of us made music with guitar, voices, drums and a wood xylophone while others drove a large pole into the ground. We arranged our sleeping bags as the spokes of the wheel around it and tied cords to the center pole. To prepare ourselves and to focus our attention for entering the wheel-circle, Tana showed us how to bathe ourselves ritually.