We were lucky to catch up with Anna Dorian recently and have shared our conversation below.
Anna, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory of how you established your own practice.
Looking back, there was so much magic in how my healing practice came to be, although it often felt like I was following signs and omens and by the seat of my pants. The journey looked like this…
Decades ago, in a college anthropology course, I was invited to write a case study of a healer. Serendipitous events led me to a wonderful woman named Joann Pun who agreed to chat with me about reiki. Little did I know that our connection would change rest of my life, and ripple out to thousands.
Joann and I had a sweet time in the case study interview, chatting in her cozy home over croissants about her experiences with reiki, her background as a pediatric nurse, and miracle stories she’d witnessed firsthand with healing energy. She asked if I’d like to experience reiki myself – I was enchanted, said happy yes, Joann popped me onto her massage table, and placed her reiki hands on my body…
and I felt like I had finally come home.
For the very first time in my life.
Like most folks called to healing arts, I arrived on Joann’s table as an empath and sensitive with challenging initiations under my belt. Humans seemed pretty baffling to me, and like a lot of starseeds and lightworkers, I often felt like a stranger here planetside. But in that wondrous moment – feeling reiki energy flowing to me for the first time – something inside ‘clicked,’ and life was never the same again.
I began to remember my life path and purpose.
Magic began coming regularly for tea.
In short order, Joann gave me my first reiki initiation…which led in the same month to my first (intentional) journey in the unseen worlds. Remembering how to work with the spirit world as an adult made sense of magical experiences I’d had as a young girl – making friends with my helping spirits was another homecoming, one I’d longed for without ever knowing, with grace that took my breath away.
That’s skipping a little forward in the timeline, though. Right after meeting reiki, the spirits relocated me to San Francisco. In an initiatic fashion familiar to anyone on a spiritual path, my life ‘blew up’ as I arrived – I left a successful career as an environmental educator, with a strong community and thriving partnership behind…and scant weeks after arriving, I found myself a single woman with no job and fewer friends, in a new city. Hello, initiation!
Every door in my chosen field at the time (environmental and social justice work) was closed to me. It was baffling and humbling, and I needed to pay my bills, find a flat for myself and my cat, and land on my feet. I’d managed independent bookstores putting myself through college, and so was able in that uncertain time to land a job at Green Apple Books, a jewel of a bookshop in San Francisco. I set to work rebuilding my life from the ground up.
From the rubble of how my life as I had known it had been, with the solid ground of the bookshop to sustain me, I practiced with reiki and the spirits. Daily. Ferociously. With enthusiasm. With devotion. Those merciful twin medicines were my saving grace in a lonely, hard time.
Mind you, I met reiki and journeying with the spirits back at the turn of the millennium. Today, you can google ‘reiki’ or ‘spirit journey’ and get a gazillion results. But that wasn’t so back then. I spent a lot of time helping folks understand what ‘healing energy’ meant for them, or guiding them to connect directly with helping spirits in beautiful unseen realities as valid as the one you’re experiencing now. There was, in those days, a sometimes-solemnity in spiritual practice that has thankfully shifted today…
The serious approach I ran into back then felt so different from my experience of working with the spirits and healing energy!
To me, reiki and talking with the spirits were joyful paths, and I felt that part of my contribution was to weave humor and play into spiritual pursuits (which is pretty normalized today, thank goodness). This desire, to embrace joy even in struggle and complexity, led to…the founding of a healing practice I’d run for 18 years, well known for the vibrancy and aliveness of healing energy, and the rich and wonderful friendship of the spirits.
I started what would turn into a full-time professional healing practice little by little, one baby step at a time – shelving books as a day job, and joyfully diving into healing arts in every other waking hour.
Here’s how birthing a healing practice unfolded for me: I started hosting small community reiki shares for reiki practitioners, and spirit circles for folks who delighted in journeying in unseen realms with magical beings as much as I did. I began by subletting a weekend office from a local acupuncturist. San Francisco brick and mortar prices were sky high, so I got creative and rented all kinds of funky and charming venues for community events. I remember hostessing in a Castro gym with practitioners nestled amongst quiet workout equipment by candlelight, in serene ashrams on meditation blankets in the heart of the boisterous and chaotic Mission, in photography studios crammed full of fancy cameras, in art galleries stuffed with antiquities, and my favorite – the Blue Bear School Of Music, where little kids learned how to rock. (so cool!)
My classes were tiny at first, teaching first two and then four students that later led to larger groups in big beautiful venues overlooking the Bay. I founded a community-based reiki clinic that ran for years and years, and also an annual reiki retreat with 7 iterations that met in Zen centers and on sacred mountains. There were leaps to faith involved, like moving into teaching reiki and immersions working with the spirits full-time, and peak experiences like teaching energy healing to unhoused youth, sharing reiki with horses, and getting to speak about working with goddesses in the spirit world at huge global summits. One thing led to another – there are so many stories! – and it’s all history now.
In retrospect, it was a deeply magical path. And it often, most certainly, did not feel that way. My own personal healing journey frequently felt like a knock-down dirty brawl, I often struggled to survive in the beginning, and it was only well into my career that I’d meet mentors who might have normalized initiations like dealing with client projection, or tending strong energetic boundaries. A lot of what I learned, and later went on to teach, came to me through ‘the wisdom of the skinned knee.’
It all started with that healing case study, that led to my life ‘falling apart’ so something new could arrive in its place. The baby steps that began Vibrant Reiki turned into a viable healing practice and thriving community of spiritual seekers doing beautiful work together for 18 years.
Nothing was linear. There was no business plan, although my experience managing bookstores and running nonprofit grants helped me wear the (many) hats needed to navigate running a business. There was no roadmap, no ‘this action leads tidily to that one.’ There were fierce initiations, places I fell down, ego death, vast handfuls of life-altering and life-threatening challenges that taught me how to turn poison into medicine, and then help others do the same in their own way.
And then…
There was the pandemic.
If you’re reading, you were here for it. You had your own experience of what it was to be isolated, in the unknowing of what was ‘safe’ or what was not, watching beloveds die, feeling life be disrupted as we had known it on a global scale. Hello, initiation.
At that time – and this is a larger story for another day, I’ll probably share it on the upcoming Dreaming Otter podcast – something changed in me. Lightcodes, divine timing, and external events prompted another metamorphosis – it wasn’t just the pandemic that changed the course of my little healing practice I’d loved so much and worked so hard at, but also an event that traumatized me deeply and ended Vibrant Reiki. I haven’t spoken much of that until now, and it was a long and lonely 5 years to heal that experience, and find my way back to myself and my voice.
I discovered along the way that holding space the way I used to…no longer fit as it once had. Just as that first magic moment with reiki lit me up and changed my life in a powerful way, the pandemic invited me firmly into the void and everything, everything changed.
From the ashes of that previous life and Vibrant Reiki, The Dreaming Otter was born. She is a very different healing practice, and the spirits share that she’s one of many emergent healing practices planetwide that carry frequencies needed in coming times. I’m still learning how to articulate The Dreaming Otter’s energies 5 years after her unexpected birthing – what you’re reading here is part of her lore, and will help all of us meet and make sense of her.
For now, I know this: Vibrant Reiki was about community and putting tools into the hands of folks interested in healing. The Dreaming Otter includes those vital medicines for our times – and she is a more mystical, visionary, and liberative creature. The Dreaming Otter is an active part of a vanguard of lightworkers, wayshowers, and changemakers here to help folks heal and transcend the trance and the control, such that we can shine, and shine brightly, on the missions we chose.
It’s strong work.
Each of us has a particular mission that we chose here, earthside. We all have our own heroic journey to navigate, and obstacles to overcome. We work on making sense of our life path and purpose at The Dreaming Otter by working directly with the spirits, healing energy, deep rest, sacred art, play, creative ceremony, and the power of love.
We do our inner work and learn healing tools in the company of kindred spirits. As we heal what hurts – from this lifetime and from many others – we become more able to serve the folks and systems we incarnated to help, and receive help ourselves. We work with the spirits and learn strong skills that make us more effective in our sacred callings.
It’s beautiful and messy and sublime, this work. We’re more capable and filled with light together, than we are alone.
The current evolution of my work, that all started with that one case study – pandora’s reiki box that catalyzed decades of spiritual practice – has led up to this evolutionary time you and I are sitting in, where it’s no longer acceptable to be small, hide our gifts, be diminished, or tolerate old wounds or fears silencing truth that wishes to sing out of each of us in beautiful, incendiary ways.
I don’t know what your particular gift is, but you do. I do know, if you’re reading this, that the spirits have brought you here to wade through the sacred poetries CanvasRebel kindly hosts, and listen in a new way to your own ‘dreaming otter’ within. Your inner voice KNOWS exactly how you’re meant to be part of the collective awakening of a world whose emerging signature is harmony, beauty, and grace. You incarnated with special gifts to help yourself in the larger arc of your soul’s journey, and also to support the larger collective in our evolutionary times.
So. The Dreaming Otter is about that – about waking up as a lightworker, wayshower, and catalyst, so you can do what you came here to.
The work, the invitation, the sacred call is about shining your gifts in a world that needs you.
Your way will be different than mine. Your spiritual path, your process of awakening, of finding community and kindred spirits may be linear or wildly not. Your journey may be tidy, and may make sense to you. That was not so for me, and all paths are brilliant and beautiful.
What I truly wish to normalize here, if you’re at all interested in running a healing practice, making a living working with energy or spirit or helping people, or teaching and leading, is that your path may be unexpected, twisty, turny, hard, unpredictable, make no sense to you, and things may fall apart (seemingly) again and again, and bring you crashing to your knees. The pain and the tumult may feel unbearable, the teachings may humble you utterly, and you may be invited to confront your most primal, ancient fears. You may walk with indescribable grace that leaves you slack-jawed with wonder, and incandescent with joy.
No matter.
If you are not called into this work, no mountain of spreadsheets, no picture perfect business plans, no tidy container will make you what you are not.
If you are a healer, if you are here to shine – no matter how hard the initiations or how luminous the road – you will do so.
CanvasRebel asks, ‘do you have any advice for a young professional who might be starting their own practice?’
Yes.
I believe in you. You know exactly why you came here, what you’re here to do, and even though you might just be waking up to that in a conscious way or already deep in the embrace of the mystery, you are here to SHINE and you are going to find your way.
Your way will not, when you find it, look like anyone else’s.
It will be lumpy, bumpy, covered in warts and sacred hairs. It will be glorious, light-filled, incandescent, meaningful, filled with purpose and joy and depth. Your path is a product of your lore, and although working with healing energies and your spirits will help things feel navigable, no one can tell you ‘how to do it.’
Believe in you.
You can do your sacred dream – in fact, it’s why you came.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My services are unusual, alchemical, and root magic in your life.
The work I do is wildly creative and deeply responsive to each person or group I work with. No two healing journeys, ascension processes, ceremonies, or sacred dreams are the same – that’s what makes healing so beautiful. Painting with a broad brushstroke, here’s what we actually ‘do’ when we engage healing on your behalf:
You remember power and purpose through working with friends you meet in the spirit world, learning to channel healing energy, and creating effective ceremonies that change the way energy moves in your human life. You find joy and humor in your healing and growing, even in struggle and complexity. You remember how to rest. And play.
You are truly, deeply seen for who you are, and loved without condition until you can remember how to do that for yourself.
You work with the goddesses and the feminine wild divine, who hold every manner of primal and secret power, and wish you to wake up to your own.
You become the recipient of a wide smorgasbord of healing tools to release energy that doesn’t belong and causes harm, or welcomes home energy that longs to return, so you can do what you came here to in a strong and kind way.
You create effective, playful, and potent ceremonies with your spirits and then perform them. You remember that you are a ceremonialist, powerful creature, and alchemist. You change the way energy moves in your human life.
If you wish, I can rattle off an eye-glazing litany of different healing tools here (laughter) – and that isn’t actually helpful for you if you’re working on healing an old pattern, learning to love yourself, starting a new life chapter, or birthing a sacred dream that yearns to come into form as only you can embody it. What is of service is actually connecting, learning together if our hearts are old friends, and inviting the spirits and power of love to open doors for your particular healing journey.
What I really, truly love to do these days is work with folks – usually who identify as women but not always – in deep, ongoing work where we spend several hours together every month and bring every form of healing the spirits have taught me on your behalf in an exquisite and strong container. These journeys – I call them ‘The Magical Life’ – are rare and wondrous. We’ll weave in labyrinths, personal retreats, soul retrievals, oracles, extractions, art, ceremonies, sacred storytelling, talismans, and play. We’ll hoot with laughter when the mystery delights us, honor your losses and sorrows together, sit quietly in witness with what is, and exult in your bravery and brilliance.
Regular and repeated healings in a strong container build in you the courage to speak, lead, and shine in your own way.
So. What do I offer? A lot. My work is alchemical, ephemeral, ever-changing, and guided by energies of the moment.
Sessions, circles, workshops, trainings, ceremonies, mentoring – you’ll find new offerings online all the time – and they all share one unifying thread:
The magic you need will find you through my work.
If we’re a good fit – you’ll need to be strong, gifted, tender, goofy, brilliant, and brave – we can synthesize everything mentioned here and other quiet mysteries, and what we weave together will fit you in a perfect way.
We’ll need to actually connect with each other for the magical, sweet, wondrous journey to begin. Usually folks do that by meeting an online guided journey with me, joining a community circle to get a sense of me and the energy I hold, or by signing up for an initial 3-session series to begin. From there, we learn if big adventures like The Magical Life are for you.
No matter what, the medicine will be strong, unique, funny, heart-warming, confronting, generous, and exactly as you need.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
Can we do this forever? These luscious questions that invite origin stories to emerge from the mists of time and pour out onto the screen? This is so fun!
My ‘business partners’ are often not human-shaped.
They are helping spirits. I’ll explain…
On my website, you can read the blog article about how River Otter showed up for me, decades ago. It’s fleshed out in quite a bit of detail, and I invite you to peek – in essence, Otter started showing up decades ago in extremely (!) vivid dreams. Night after night we would gambol and frolic as otters do, diving and dancing, hunting and dreaming together – it was glorious.
The dreams were so realistic that I’d wake up daily, wondering in astonishment where my tail and whiskers were! (laughter)
In that sweet beginning time, messages were too insistent to ignore – Otter on bumper stickers, Otter in books, Otter overheard in conversation, Otter and her cubs at retreat centers, Otter sitting proudly atop taxi cabs – Otter everywhere to get my attention! The path of direct revelation in the spirit worlds – was just blooming in my life then, and I followed the omens and signs, and started journeying with Otter with enthusiasm and dedication.
A whole magical adventure unfolded. I’d learn after years of working with Otter that our friendship is a strong part of my ancestral lineage (who call Otters ‘the sleek ones). The gifts have been rich and generous – Otter is my strong spiritual ally today, and my best friend.
For decades, Otter has offered me counsel whenever I ask – about life, living, and in the context of this article, also business. I frequently bring him questions like, ‘What lessons will I learn as a result of this business partnership? What challenges await me if I undertake this professional path? What are the gifts in working with this colleague?’ (and so on).
He and other helping spirits in the unseen worlds never ‘tell me what to do,’ but instead offer loving counsel, sometimes with ferocity, patience, or humor. Let’s not forget that spirit work, always potent and mystical, can also be delightful and funny – I can’t count the number of times River Otter has dressed up for me in a journey to get a point across – Otter in drag, Otter as wizard with pointy hat, Otter as 1950s housewife, Otter as bohemian artist, Otter as midwife, Otter as surly soldier, Otter as Elvis or Aphrodite…you name it.
There are lots of helping spirits who counsel me on my business – some I speak of publicly, some I do not. A variety of goddesses, ascended teachers, beings from other times and dimensions, and of course, the spirit of The Dreaming Otter herself…
That’s a story for another day. For now, who are my cherished, trusted business partners, who I take major decisions to, who advise me, who help illumine the way forward?
My helping spirits.
They are my best friends, advisors, family, and heartmates. I’m so very grateful for their loving presence, and can’t imagine a better way to run a healing practice, or live a human life, than with loving friends in the spirit realms at my side.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
I love this question. The work that’s influenced my philosophy most isn’t a best-selling management book, a manifesto on running a business, or other tome of professional counsel. Nope!
What has shaped my philosophy most is…a book of fairytales.
When I was a little girl, I was gifted this marvelous book – that would turn into a sacred and much-beloved talisman – by my magical Uncle Matt. Like me, Uncle Matt was a black sheep of the family, and he existed in magical outer orbit to my life, appearing and delivering wildness and art with a perfect timing that no one since can touch or replicate. I miss him dearly.
Way back in 1981 when I was a young lass, Uncle Matt gave me a copy of ‘Tatterhood.’ It’s published by The Feminist Press, and there are now other compilations of its kind – but in the late 70s and early 80s, not so much.
‘Tatterhood’ is a wonder. It’s a collection of fairy tales from around the world, each sharing the story of a bold, intelligent, courageous woman who by turn saves the day, finds the way through the puzzle, rescues herself or someone else, and models resilience, tenacity and integrity in the process.
My copy of ‘Tatterhood’ is tattered itself, and very worn – it’s been dropped in the bath, and has woobly spots on it that might be eggnog or fairydust – I love it dearly. I drank deep from that magic book gifted by Uncle Matt, and learned to my core how resourceful, powerful, clever, and strong women can be. Those truths have saved my life many times over, and shaped me profoundly.
The tenets in ‘Tatterhood’ show up a lot in my professional work today. I often work with folks who identify as women (and not always), who are in their own heroine’s journey to find their power, awaken their magic, and make it through arduous quests to emerge as champions for good, and light, with humor and resilience along the way.
It’s how I see myself, and everyone I work with. It’s how I see you.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://thedreamingotter.com/
Image Credits
Laurie Bell Bishop