On May 21, my friend Margaret Riordan and I will be teaching an all-day, no-holds-barred class, titled, “Writing the Creative Chakras.” Margaret’s got the woo-woo (as I fondly think of it), and I’m bringing the writing. We’ll mix in some art and walking and lots else.
I’ve been thinking (and thinking and thinking) about this class and what I want for the not-yet-defined people who show up for it. The best way to do that, I’ve found, is to imagine what I need at this point in my journey.
First, I want to continue getting unstuck and into flow; I want to LEARN and PRACTICE that. (I can break this down into a looonnng list of things-to accomplish!)
Second, I’d like each student to leave with a framed-up and partially fleshed-out project–writing if writing is the goal, but any creative endeavor can be substituted. This morning I came across this paragraph in Steven Pressfield’s blog, and it perfectly expresses WHY this is so important:
“This is why writing (or the pursuit of any art) is, to me, a spiritual enterprise. It’s an endeavor of the soul. The stories we write, if we’re working truly, are messages in a bottle from our Self to our self, from our Unconscious/Divine Ground/Muse to our struggling, fallible, everyday selves.”
My goals have everything to do with chakra work, as I understand it. I come at these things from a Christian perspective, but I think you can approach from any direction. Before it had names, it was all about standing still and listening. Anyway, I’m excited to learn more about how my body can help me make even more sense of it.
If you’re interested, email me at bethany.alchemy@gmail.com and I’ll send you the flyer. There’s a brief announcement (too) on my “upcoming events” page.
It’s still Mother’s Day (for a couple more hours) so I wanted to post a link to a new anthology with both a print and an on-line component in which my poems will appear — along with many other really wonderful poets worth visiting, or revisiting.
