To facilitate spiritual and creative practice that develops and strengthens individual and collective potential and purpose by way of art, music, dance
and movement, language arts and drama
To build and sustain a community dedicated to spiritual inquiry, peace, tolerance, inclusion, and creativity
To offer support for those who feel a need to re-assess, re-group, and renew proactive strength, patience and courage in order to undertake necessary
and fulfilling life tasks
PRACTICE
Note to practitioners: If you would like your current or proposed work or project to be featured in this space, please email me with
information.
Previous experience with creative, spiritual or meditative practice is not necessary. Practitioners and clients share a deep knowing that the time has come to understand the nature of what is happening, personally and globally.
As we acknowledge the challenges of this time, we also honor a deep sense that reawakened tools and resources will help bring forth what is genuine and authentic in our being.
Expressive Therapies are designed to help you reclaim a grounded perspective and practice creative ways of knowing in the context of everyday
life. Each of us has a role to play in the Great Turning. We need to come into relationship with The Sacred if we are to hold our peace and hold our place in unsettling times.
Participants learn that everyday activities, infused with moments of stillness and creative expression, may be undertaken as spiritual practice.
Resilience as a creative process is a spiritual path. Along the way we cultivate and maintain the seedbed for new growth and energize necessary change and transformation.
You may have at least one deep (Essential) Question bubbling to the surface at this time in your life. It is tempting to seek the seeming
comfort of answers or resolution. Jacob Needleman asks: "What does it mean to have a serious question of the heart? And ask it from the part of ourselves that is able to cultivate what
emerges?" What we truly need to know can only be fully received in response to a heartfelt question.
Transformative practice enables us to engage and cultivate deep life questions and remain open to the lessons and energies that emerge. With a
clear intention to pay attention, we keep each other good company.
The Expressive Arts
in Group Spiritual Counseling
for Women
What is Spiritual Counseling? A collection of focused practices undertaken in an interfaith context that facilitate discernment of personal direction and sacred purpose.
From the work of Christine Valters Paintner: "A commitment to spiritual practice engages us actively in a relationship with the sacred dimension of our lives and also cultivates
particular qualities and ways of being in the world."
What role do the Expressive Arts play? Steven Levine teaches that expression is itself transformative; this is the message embodied in the creative process. In turning to
the arts for healing, we are rediscovering (and recovering) ancient tradition. In early societies and indigenous cultures, all healing took place by way of a communal process in which suffering
was given form, and an encounter with the healing divine was made possible.
Together we develop the capacity to take direction! Practice promotes this recognition: sacred direction is offered...sacred direction is helpful.
As the Spiritual Counselor guides participants to a deeper way of listening and seeking in order to recognize the presence of The Sacred in our lives, the support of the shared group experience
enables participants to reframe resilience, well-being and life purpose.
"Reading" the Word, "Reading" the World...everything is text!
Activities may include:
Lectio/Audio/Video Divina
Writing and Reading Short Poetry
Centering Prayer Meditation
Authentic Movement
Collage Art Journaling
Nature Walk/Talk
(Email me with questions, ideas and to request further information.)
Poetry For The Rest Of Your Life: A Workshop Series
Poets have used words to communicate the significance of human experience for thousands of years. All sacred wisdom texts include poetic language, and all
students encounter poetry in the academic study of language arts.
Outside the schoolhouse, how might we consider poetic forms and language that inspire personal and collective transformation? Throughout human history,
our poets have been rebels and revolutionaries. They have documented and preserved human experience by way of creative language.
At an extraordinary gathering in 2006 called Poetry and the Resilience of the Human Spirit, those of us assembled heard from men and women who used
poetry to endure life-threatening challenge. They wrote poetry in the Warsaw ghetto and after escape from the genocide in Rwanda, memorized poems in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp, vowed to
uphold their native identity and language in Iran and the Ukraine. One poet memorialized images he recalled from his youth during the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the single tree that
still blossoms on that forsaken ground to this day.
Their questions, their witness:
“How might the language of poetry work as a bridge when other language does not?”
“Is bearing witness (telling the story) part of building a bridge?”
“Perhaps poetry can soften us, prepare us for confession, for reconciliation.”
“Poetry keeps the wound…life…open. Like an x-ray, it keeps the reality in front of us.”
“Can poetry create a new story to get past what has happened? Can something as fragile as a poem do this?”
“Should poetry be political? Transgress a boundary? Address a prohibition? Or just be an art form?”
“Poetry teaches us to think farther than we usually do.”
Elizabeth Gilbert’s question: Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?
This workshop series is dedicated to reading and writing poetry in support of resilience. It is designed to meet weekly or monthly depending on the needs
of the group. Email me for further information.
The Womanspirit Retreat
Throughout human life on earth, women have sensed the importance of retreat. They gather in community and also practice solitude. In ritual women draw down the moon and summon the
muses. In stillness, they take stock of their lives. Emerging refreshed, energized, resolute, they are strengthened to take up the threads of their lives.
To do this we harmonize with the sacred energies of place. We balance our energy and intention by surrendering that which no longer serves our sacred purpose. We draw, we write, we
dance, we cook, we plant seeds of sacred intention, we cultivate, we pray.
Still Woman experiences may include expressive arts, community gathering, and spiritual/contemplative practice. Attendees are encouraged to participate to the degree each feels
comfortable. Within the schedule there is ample time and space for solitude, reflection, journaling, sketching, photography, walking, and meditation.
I am a strong proponent of learning by doing. To that end participants will take away at least one practice and something created during the
time together. The emphasis is on natural and authentic.
(This offering may be customized as half-day, whole-day or weekend experience for private groups and locations. Email me for further
information.)
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