shared dreaming sanctuaries
A quarterly co-imagination practice space to explore how our dreams and ideas can grow when we choose creativity that's collaborative, interdependent, and shaped by communal care.
BRING YOUR CREATIVE DREAMS AND IDEAS TO THE SPRING GROUP
Wednesday, April 8 and April 22 | 6-8:00PM EST
6 spots available
what if shared dreaming could be a sanctuary carrying us away from "the constant individualism of creation" and toward
life-sustaining moments of creative exchange?
adrienne maree brown inquires about how we can disrupt “the constant individualism of creation” in her
2017 book Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds.
the experience
Together, we’ll blend the practices of "imagination collaboration”³ and asking "what if" questions in response to projects we feel ready for other imaginaries to witness. The Shared Dreaming Sanctuaries will offer us connective moments beyond feedback and critique. It's a tender, generative way of being with each other’s ideas, designed to (re)build our trust with the process of sharing the creative dreams we long to make a reality and to help us weave new worlds together, in abundant relationship.
the people
This is for folks who are seeding dreams rooted in liberatory ways of being, sensing, making, and relating. Who carry the burning desire to experience moments of dreaming alongside and with one another. Who want to explore their ideas being met with communal care and collaborative imagination. Who feel seen and supported by the invitation to transform feedback and critique into "what if" portals and possibilities.
the cadence
The group experience: During each quarter, an intimate group of 6 people will gather for a two-part gathering on the first and third Wednesday of the selected month from 6-8:30PM EST.
The 1:1 experience: For folks who’ve participated in the group, private 90min sessions are available and begin the first full week of each month. Sessions are for three weeks and can be scheduled on Mondays 2-8:30PM EST or Wednesdays 6-8:30PM EST.
This is especially true for those of us who are Black, queer, strategically marginalized, disabled, chronically ill, and have lived experiences of harm related to all things creative. [Citation] To tend to this reality, we will always begin with connection building, listening to one another's experiences of sharing our creative dreams, and co-creating a "gestures of care" list we can extend to feel held and heard in the space.
There are two “gestures of care” I will automatically bring into every Shared Dreaming Sanctuaries space and they will need to be agreed upon before entering:
A shared understanding that intellectual citation is a form of care (as named by Tricia Hersey) [citation] and the co-imagination offered will be credited in the ways asked by each participant.
All creative dreams, ideas, and stories shared in the space, stays in the space. Any acts of co-option and theft will not be tolerated.
I personally know how the intimacy
of sharing our dreams and making our ideas public can be a place of vulnerability woven with feelings of fear.
“when they are dreaming,
they are realising that in the dream-space things that do not otherwise exist are brought into being,
when she is dreaming, she is not dreaming of jobs on the commune, when they are dreaming, there is no clear point at which the dream ends, when he is dreaming, he is dreaming of how political practice without pleasure leaves some stuff out,"
— Lola Olufemi, Experiments in Imagining Otherwise
the group experience
This will be a two-part gathering for 6 folks who want to seed new connections with a dynamic group of people and exchange creative ideas as a form of resource sharing and communal care. I will be present as both guide and participant in the practice of co-imagination.
literary immersion 01:
creative lineages
Book: “and when we touch our creative lineages”
Practice: communal storytelling
Felt futures wander within the collective remembrance of memory, grief, and legacy to touch the lineages of who we are, what our bodies know, and who/what we honor as creative beings.
This experiment invites us to trust story as medicine and collective memory as preservation. Through communal storytelling, space holding, and memory keeping, we will wonder:
What parts of our creative lineages feel necessary for us to excavate, reclaim, nourish, and preserve? What will our stories reveal about what matters most to us, the ways we practice, and why we return to creative work? How can the feltness of our spoken histories illuminate the futures we want to live inside?
pause & integration: week of march 2
march
literary immersion 02:
abundant creativity
Book: “to tend to each other’s abundant creativity”
Practice: intimate correspondence
Felt futures intimately correspond with the people and more-than-human beings in our lives who tend to our breath, our being, and our abundant vessels of creativity.
This experiment invites us to write words and worlds to those who are generously filling our abundant vessels of imagination, dignity, and (self) determination. Through intimate correspondence, memoir, and truthtelling, we will wonder:
Whose existence supports who we are, what we feel, and what we long to transform? How can the intimacy of letter-writing become a practice of worldmaking and archiving? What futures of care exist within our letters to each other while at the edges and ends of the world?
pause & integration: week of march 30
april
literary immersion 03:
rituals
Book: “let us listen for and design the rituals we desire”
Practice: ritual design
Felt futures listen for the rhythms, renewals, and reconnections of ritual to deliberately bring our commitments and desires into existence.
This experiment invites us to continuously listen in long, luminous ways and design the everyday rituals our beingness desires. Through ritual design, communal dreaming, and ceremony, we will wonder:
What is our relationship to ritual, to spirit, to life, to ancestors? How do we long to be held through the complexities of change? How can we practice transforming our days into liberating and meaningful moments?
pause & integration: week of april 27
may
literary immersion 04:
devotions
Book: “while protecting the energy of our devotions”
Practice: devotion documentation
Felt futures prepare a soft sanctuary of safety for our devotions and the energies they carry, the things we’re made of, and the things that matter most to us.
This experiment invites us to be in intimate relationship with what we are devoting ourselves to energetically. Through devotion documentation, sanctuary building, and living manifestos, we will wonder:
What can the act of devotion reveal to us and teach us? Where are we placing our energies and loyalties and how might this guide the politic of our creative practice? How can we deepen our dedications and protect what matters most to us as we design wild dreams for care and liberation?
to celebrate the four-month journey and showcase your creations that emerged from our experiments in felt futures. This ceremony also welcomes your invited beloveds and kinfolk to join us in the celebration.
closing ceremony: may 23 at 1PM EST
the full 2026 schedule and syllabus
Inside this document, I’ve gathered all of the juicy details for our literary immersion.
You’ll find summaries of each month’s focus, weekly descriptions of ways we will experiment and feel into our futures of care, intimacy, and liberation, and specific dates and times.
Let this be the beginning reference point, with plenty of breathing room left for our stories and complexities.
the materials
and support
systems you will receive:
A free copy of the book collection, may we dream and design felt futures by Denise Shanté Brown
To receive a free copy, you must be in the US and register by January 30.
Four 3-week immersions totaling 24 live sessions
Digital and printable worksheets to help guide your experiments each month.
One private 45-minute session with Denise Shanté to offer guidance on a future you’re dreaming and designing into existence. This session can be scheduled after the literary immersion closes, from July - September 2026.
Care-centric teachings grounded in Black feminism, design justice, healing justice, and somatics.
Easeful engagement with multiple modes of media to open different meaning-making portals that honor our bodyminds.
Pause and integration weeks between each monthly literary immersion.
Access to join a private community on Discord for asynchronous connection with other participants.
Access to downloadable mp3 files of the felt futures sensorium album that include me reading excerpts from each book. These soundscapes are a collaboration with Filipinx-American ambient musician and designer, Camille Nibungco (they/she).
Invitation to be published in the “felt futures archive” memory-keeping the felt futures emerging within you and your creative practice.
Closing ceremony with a showcase of what you’ve created during the four months, welcoming invited loved ones to join us.
experiments in
felt futures is for
you if:
You want to open portals and prototype ways to feel, dream, and design futures that emerge from your deepest desires and intuitions.
You’re seeking a playful practice ground where you can start embodying sensorial ways of being, knowing, relating and making alongside an intimate community.
You're longing to experience the sensations of care, intimacy, and liberation within every aspect of your practice and personhood.
You’ve been pouring a lot of care into communities, movements, and spaces and now want to build practices and worlds that will also care for you.
You feel a sense of aliveness when frameworks offer you the freedom to explore your interior worlds through multiple modes of expression, inquiry, and experimentation.
You're ready to trust your sensorial knowledge and tend to the expansive, (dis)abled body from which you create.
You connect with your creative practice as a call to remembering, sensing, listening, embodying, collaborating, reimagining, storytelling, and writing.
You want to uncover, deepen, or reconnect with your creative lineages, abundant creativity, rituals, and devotions.
solidarity pricing
The pricing tiers are borrowed from friend and creative co-conspirator, nènè myriam konate.
If you need a two-payment plan option, please indicate this in the registration form below.
People who attend the free discovery + soundscape session will receive a special enrollment price.
nurture
$1950
Choose the nurture tier if most of the following applies to you:
your (embodied or relational) proximity to whiteness, your gender, your sexuality, your marital status, your citizenship, your health, and/or your level of education grant you structural advantages
you, your family, or your partner own the home you live in
you have investments, retirement accounts, or inherited money
you have access to family money and resources in times of need
you work part time or are unemployed by choice (including unemployment due to full-time school in a degree-earning program).
By choosing this option you are nurturing this practice, paying it forward, and pouring into scholarships.
sustain
$1250
Choose the sustain tier if most of the following applies to you:
you have stable income and/or you share living expenses with your family or your partner
you can meet your basic needs (food, medication, housing, childcare, transportation, etc.)
you have access to health insurance and/or other benefits through your employer, your family, or your partner
you are able to miss work either for sickness, emergencies, or leisure and are still able to pay your bills
you are able to make regular payments towards your debt.
By choosing this option you are sustaining this practice.
honor
$750
Choose the honor tier if most of the following applies to you:
you are black and/or indigenous
you have been forced to leave your native land
you are disabled
you face structural barriers due to your sexual or gender identity
you are a survivor of sexual/domestic violence
you are single and/or solely responsible for your living expenses
you are a sex worker
you have been denied work due to your incarceration history
you have significant debt
you are supporting (chosen) family
you take risks to meet your basic needs (food, medication, housing, childcare, transportation, etc.)
By choosing this option you are naming how much you can pour into this practice while honoring your needs and inviting me to honor them with you.
join experiments in felt futures
In loving regard for the Black, disabled, and chronically ill body from which Denise Shanté creates, 2 full scholarships for experiments in felt futures are being offered to Black disabled and/or chronically ill folks with a creative practice.
The interest form includes the same registration questions for all participants, plus one additional field for you to share more about why you’re applying for the scholarship and how this experience will resource you and your creative practice.
Interest Forms will close by midnight EST on Friday, January 30 or when 10 submissions have been made to limit the amount of labor toward submissions, understanding only 2 people will be selected. Chosen recipients will be notified on Monday, February 2.
Scholarship recipients (in the US) will also receive free copies of may we dream and design felt futures.
full scholarships
If you’re someone who wants to donate funds and help financially resource the accessibility of this literary immersion, I welcome your generosity. You can donate to me directly through the following platforms:
CashApp: $DeniseShanteBrown
Venmo: @Denise-Shante
PayPal: denise.theartiste@gmail.com
Any questions about resourcing full scholarships can be shared through an email to me here.
welcoming donations
the experiments in
felt futures manifesto
written by Denise Shanté Brown
we begin by feeling.⁴
with our bodies as the compass,
our interior worlds are sensuous
sanctuaries that will carry us
through every trusted dream,
desire, and devotion.
porous and potent—
care is the connection,
intimacy is the sustenance.
liberation is the breath.
experimentation will be a
promise because the abundance
within us longs for ceremonies
of collective praxis and play.
crossing and transcending
borders, our creative beings
are expansive. our creative
practices are embodied.
our creative dimensions
are expressed.
each ritual and movement
guiding our fully felt futures
will be an ode to our creative
lineages and the legacies we
were made to design and write.
this is the practice ground.
this is the rehearsal.
meet the author & guide
Through everything endured and remembered, my body is here—creating the conditions to feel the futures I desire as my practice continually reorients itself to connect with what can become more possible for us.
Felt futures came through as a divine contribution worth naming and bringing forward into the collective because it wants to breathe within each of us—as creative compass, as liberatory lifeforce—to help make the futures we desire a reality.
Alongside creative spirit, I listened. I surrendered. I excavated. Now, with over 10 years of designing a creative social practice rooted in the sensorial and the possible, I’m honored to guide us closer to the futures we deserve—futures where every part of our creative being and practice can feel the sensations of care, intimacy, and liberation.
The pages within may we dream and design felt futures were designed to be your creative sanctuary, activated through shared ceremonies of praxis and play. This four-month literary immersion, experiments in felt futures, is our moment to remember and explore the futures echoing through our bones so we can open pathways for what our bodies have dreamed and known.
denise shanté brown
MULTIDIMENSIONAL DESIGNER
CREATIVE CO-CONSPIRATOR
INTUITIVE WRITER
join experiments in felt futures
Frequently Asked Questions
Are scholarships available?
Yes! Two full scholarships are available for Black disabled and/or chronically ill folks with a creative practice. If this is you, you can submit your interest through this form. Interest Forms will close by midnight EDT on Friday, January 30 Interest Forms will close by midnight EST on Friday, January 30 or when 10 submissions have been made to limit the amount of labor toward submissions, understanding only 2 people will be selected. Recipients will be notified on Monday, February 2.
Do you offer refunds?
This is an intimate experience, holding space for 12 participants.
Please read all of the information and schedule details, attend the free discovery and soundscape session, and dedicate space to be in your discernment about alignment and capacity before making a decision to register.
If an emergency arises and you’re no longer able to attend, please contact me to receive a refund. Refunds will not be given from February 7 and beyond.
How do I pay?
After completing the registration form, you will be emailed a payment link to save your seat and pay via Venmo, CashApp (these two preferred) or Stripe.
What access supports will be available?
Every gathering will have scheduled breaks with freedom to take additional breaks as your bodymind needs, auto-captioning via Zoom, co-generated community agreements, camera on/off as desired, and all forms of communication welcomed (voice, chatbox, emojis, movement).
Please note that due to the intimacy of storytelling and shared practice, sessions will not be recorded. All weekly experiments are sent via email and I’m available to support any questions and/or guidance you may need.
What materials will I need access to?
A copy of the book collection, may we dream and design felt futures (one will be shipped to participants in the US).
Something to write with
Something to write on
Any creative and art making supplies you enjoy
If you're outside of the US and won't be able to receive your free copy, any specific excerpts and pages from the books referenced throughout our gatherings will be scanned.
What if I still have clarifying questions?
I’d love to hear from you! Send me an email at design@deniseshantebrown.com
collective spells for
felt futures
may we be free, safe, and at peace.
may we remain grounded in our humanity, in care, in love, in solidarity, in truth.
may we be love.
may we continue to be brave hearted in our expressions and let unconditional love overflow through the woven stories of our omnipresence.
may we be unapologetic.
may we continue to feel deeply.
may we continue to connect to our compassion and humanity.
may we connect to creative life force that leads to our deepest expressions of love and community.
may we trust the futures that leak through our pores and spill into infinite oceans of wisdom.
may we continue to nurture our minds, bodies, and souls with creativity and authenticity.
may we look to our teachers in the natural world, unseen realms, and inner-Creatrix as we co-weave our felt futures.
may we trust our creative compass and feel our way to the futures we love, desire, and deserve.
co-written by friends, comrades, and creative co-conspirators who joined the virtual book launch and celebration on Tuesday, May 13, 2025 for the collection “may we dream and design felt futures” written and designed by Denise Shanté.
notes
¹ My love for P. Ife Williams’ definition of praxis is alive here, defined as “our commitment to a constant, cyclical practice of rigorous reflection and action.” Echoing this framing, maybe play could be “our commitment to a constant, cyclical practice of ungovernable wonder and experimentation.” P. Ife Williams, “Reflections on the Negation of Blackness//Affirmations of Our Clairvoyance Through Creative Healing Praxes,” in:cite journal 1 (2018), 28.
² This description of the experience comes from the quote, “For once, I can see the beauty in having flesh that is as loud as my spirit. It insists on care, it is just as stubborn as I am, just as brilliant, and I forgive it for being like this, disabled and furiously alive.”Akwaeke Emezi, “My Spirit Burns Through This Body” (2020).
³ This description of the experience comes from the contribution, “may we trust the futures that leak through our pores and spill into infinite oceans of wisdom.” from nènè myriam konate as part of “collective spells for felt futures” which was co-written friends, comrades, and creative co-conspirators who joined the virtual book launch and celebration on Tuesday, May 13, 2025.
⁴ "we begin by feeling" is a direct adaptation of the network principle "we begin by listening" by Allied Media Projects.