Dr. Barbara Condron oversees international education for the School of Metaphysics (SOM). On January 22 at 7 PM, 17 SOM branches around the country will host screenings and discussions of Amy Hardie’s The Edge of Dreaming (POV 2010).
I always look forward to Tuesdays. They’re my days in town with Hezekiah, our 15-year-old son who is a serious martial artist. So, as I stood in his kung fu class one Tuesday this past August, it would have been easy to let <a href=”The Edge of Dreaming POV broadcast pass by. Yet one of the abilities a metaphysician develops is the interpretation of energies that enables her to perceive lines of probability. Sound a bit lofty? It’s actually similar to how financial wizards note trends that tell them when to trade or how pilots adjust flight plans to changes in the weather or how your mom just “knew” you’d be on time, late or missing in action. All of these are examples of actions of the mind, operating behind the scenes of the people, places and things that fill our busy lives.
I didn’t consciously have any idea what The Edge of Dreaming was about, but halfway through kung fu class, I called one of my colleagues and asked her to stay in the office late enough to record it. I’m so glad I did.
As I said to Jamie Dobie, POV’s community engagement & education coordinator, it was as though Amy Hardie made this film just for the <a href=”School of Metaphysics. The film illustrates what is beyond the limits of our physical perception, affording the potential to open the mind to deeper understanding about ourselves, each other and life. I was struck by Amy’s transparency. Her forthright telling of what most people push away — thoughts of loss and separation, fears of ill health and dying — is without pretension or self-pity. She merely allows us into her thoughts, and then invites us to tell her what we saw that she did not see.
A few weeks after seeing the film I showed it to the Mind Linguistics class I teach at the College of Metaphysics. This class sharpens the student’s skill in mental perception through interpreting dreams received from people around the world through our website at dreamschool.org. After screening the film in class, I asked my students to perform a stream of consciousness exercise. This is a specific method for emptying the mind of thoughts accomplished by perpetual writing for a set length of time. Some of the students’ writings following the movie are posted on our website. After I read their words, I knew I wanted all of our teachers and students to see the film.
This is when I presented the case for School of Metaphysics sponsorship of Edge of Dreaming screenings. Our teachers agreed to host the film on the same date and time: January 22, 2011. On that day, The Edge of Dreaming will show on 17 screens from Chicago to Dallas, Cincinnati to Kansas City. People will gather at places like the Circle Cinema in Tulsa, the Hyatt Regency in Louisville, the All Souls Unitarian Church in Indianapolis and the Central Market in Dallas to see the film. Then, they will share their thoughts. We look forward to receiving those thoughts, and perhaps sharing them with you in the weeks to come.
When I first visited The Edge of Dreaming website last August, I read the many comments the film had generated since its airing. Most were favorable or supportive, a couple were disparaging, finding the film “hokum” or “junk.” In my post I wrote, “Self-disclosure is always the most challenging form of science, and the most polarizing, it seems, as evidenced in comments here. You have certainly stirred people’s thinking and that is the greatest accomplishment of your film.”
Much gratitude for PBS and POV for bringing us to The Edge of Dreaming!
A lifelong student, Dr. Barbara Condron began teaching adults the development of human potential in 1975. She is currently a professor at the College of Metaphysics in Missouri where she lives with her husband, Daniel, and their son Hezekiah.
For screening details please visit the POV Local Events Calendar.
To reserve a seat at one of the 17 screening locations, please visit The School of Metaphysics Bookit Page.