Facing the Sun
Tools for creative aliveness
I am interrupting regular programming to announce that sign-ups are officially open for my upcoming workshop, Facing the Sun.
I have been hard at work putting together the content for this course, a process that is both very intense, and very rewarding. It feels much like the distillation of my entire life’s experience into a limited capsule, offered in what I hope is an easily digestible form.
These last weeks and months of rumination on this idea have led me to believe that there is perhaps no better way for me to capture all the lenses and layers through which I experience the world—words, imagery, other peoples’ ideas, prompts towards action, the delicate dance between dreaming and doing.
It has always been my aim to help people live more vibrantly, though the path towards that pursuit has never exactly been straightforward. My career has wound through many avenues, including community organizing/event planning, art direction and styling, floral design, book making, copywriting, photography, interior consulting, with lots of intermingling and other things in between. I’ve learned so much along the way.
There was a time when I thought I might become a counselor (I loved the idea of being a professional listener and question-asker) or spend a life philosophizing, but the artist pull within me has always been too strong to ignore. I have never, however, lost the urge to reach peoples’ lives with more immediacy; more hands-on energy.
Now, I hope to use what I have gleaned from all these past and ongoing pursuits to aid others in a direct, tangible way. This workshop creates a container for self-examination, and a gentle, playful approach towards re-inviting creativity into the marrow of everyday life.
My intention is to offer tools for flourishing. Tools for curiosity. Tools for aliveness. Tools for wholeness. Tools for delight. Tools for paying attention. Tools for connection to the earth. Tools for deeper understanding of oneself.
I believe if we all had more alluring resources for self-knowledge, self-exploration, and self-expression, we’d have so much more collective well-being in the world. If we each moved into and towards our deeply creative, intuitive, loving bodies (and out of our calculating, judgmental, fight-or-flight brains) we would exist in a much healthier, happier, safer place.
I trust in our communal creative potential for compassion, generosity, integrity, just as I believe every human has the power to generate more beauty, more light, more kindness in whatever sphere they exist in.
And so! I invite you to explore for yourself what this new offering is all about here. If even one person in your life comes to mind that may benefit from this experience, I would be so grateful if you might share it with them.
My desire is to become a source for empowerment and creative advocacy for as many people as possible. We are designed to invent, imagine, explore, divine, uncover, unfold, and unfurl the childlike spirit within—and my dream is to enable that expansion in “widening circles” (as Rilke says).
We are made to be creators, not consumers. Let’s create in communion.
Widening Circles
by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows
I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.
I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?
And now, a small teaser for my next post. I’ve been doing a deep dive on a long-time favorite of mine, Sister Corita Kent, and wow, she was prolific. I believe she never lost her own childlike spirit of creation and play. More to come soon, but here’s a snippet.
