A few weekends ago saw the end of a successful 8-week workshop, "Write to Reshape Your Life." It was a learning experience for all of us, myself included. We explored many ways to jounal and tell o0our stories, using writing, art, spoken word, laughter and yoga.
Most of us learned quite a lot about each other; we bonded over tea and tears. All of us came into the course with expectations, and I believe that those expectations were fullfilled in ways both expected and surprising.
I didn't know if I would succeed, and I knew that together we created a powerful synergy of wisdom . . .
Week 1:For our first class, we introduced ourselves, told a bit about our expectations and what we hoped to do within the workshop. I talked some about journaling, and then we spent time writing a journal entry. We discussed, "The Writing Diet," by Julia Cameron. The second hour saw us playing with paper--specifically, we made lifesized paperdolls to use throughout the workshop, coloring, collaging, decorating as we saw ourselves, or as we wanted to be. The last hour was devoted to asana and meditation, but because we spent so much time laughing and playing, we had a short practice. This would prove to be true throughout the entire workshop experience.
Week 2: This workshop fell on an old holiday, Candlemas, or Imbolc,which means in the belly. It celebrates beginnings, and the return of light. I asked everyone to write down 3 thing they wished to transform. We then burned each in a small bowl of sand and sage, watching as each wish or action transformed from paper into ash. In the second hour we did some journaling, some meditating and then I gave each woman a goddess alter ego to encourage and embrace. We then raided a coloring book from artist Sudie Rakusin for coloring later. We closed in the third hour with an asana practice. Much tea drinking during the entire workshop.
Week 3: I brought in some music therapy, offering some information about vibrations and waves--beta, alpha, gamma, theta and delta and how each state corresponds to a particular state of being, relaxing, creating, meditating, sleeping, working. I played Claude Debussy's, "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun," after which we discussed how the music made us feel, and what memories and emotions were evoked. In the second hour we played with paper and glue and listened to the first part of a playlist I created using songs given to me. Finally, we closed the day with asana practice.
Week 4: I began with a Kosha meditation and moved into a lecture about Koshas and our vibrational lives, the Chakras. I taught the seed sounds for each Chakra and we then chanted for a while--lam, vam, ram, yam, ham, om. Our second hour had us sharing body poems, and everyone had a wonderful poem to share. After a break we moved into asana practice.
Week 5: We revisited and reviewed Koshas and Chakras then I offered another way to quantify with an interpretation of IQ (intelligence), EQ (emotional intelligence),BQ (body intelligence), CQ (our cellular intelligence), and SQ (spiritual intelligence). After a tea break we shared more poems and journal entries. I reviewed the role of storytelling in our lives, how myths, fables, tales, memoirs, anecdotes and jokes all invoke memories and shared information via archetypes and tropes allowing us to convey information, conclusions, concepts, moral cautions, etc. I spoke of the importance of being witnessed and the value of being entertained and, finally, how stories teach us. We all took turns sharing one of the three stories from the list of assigned subjects. Some were quite funny, some sad, some chaotic yet heartfelt. We all learned from the stories. We closed the workshop with a lively and tearful talk, sharing memories and more stories. I closed the day with a meditation.
Week 6: This week we looked for our center, our spiritual receptor. After our opening meditation, I offered some details about the brain, the parts, the lobes and the location and function of each part, especially the parietal lobe and its value in our perception and experience of the divine, as well as how this part of the brain responds when meditating and praying. I explained the role of receptors within each cell and how every system of the body and mind communicates coming together in a mutually beneficial bodymind. It is within this cooperative structure that we find wisdom, intuition and are able to tap into our genetic memory and pool of knowledge. We had a short tea break andd then moved into sharing a favorite book, quote, picture or piece of art. Every picture had a story . . . after that, we practised some poses and a long Savasana with meditation.
Week 7: Since one of our women missed the previous week, I repeated and reviewed the brain and receptor information--always a good idea with such complicated machinery and operating instructions--and then I spoke about finding our center, our place of grounding. This led into a suggestion that we might be able to discover our spiritual receptor--something that resonates and sets our spiritual center vibrating and responding. Our hour of art incuded playing with medicine cards. We picked out one we identified with and then one at random. This is fun, scary and always enlightening. We closed the workshop with asana and meditation.
Week 8: I reviewed everything (please don't make me list it all again!)then spoke of the importance of finding and using our noetic selves (the use of knowledge that we have inherantly which lies beyond what our normal senses tell us. Wisdom, intuition, cellular memory and genetic knowledge, as Jung said, that vast reservoir of knowledge. In the second hour I read my story, "Bittersweet," offered below. We did a chocolate taste testing, unveiled our paperdolls and ended the entire series of workshops with a yoga nidra.
A good time was had by all.
Bittersweet, by Ma'lena Walley
One day the goddess Cocatina was bored.
"I need to make something," she said to herself, "something so delectable people would die for it."
Into her kitchen she went and she stirred and whipped, reduced and infused. She kept the ingredients simple: eggs, milk, butter, honey and as many giggles as she could capture with her net.
"This is a fine hummingbird souffle, but certainly not something to die for." Her kitchen seemed untouched, still clean.
From her garden she pulled and plucked, snipped and gathered up aromatics, flowers and seeds. She pounded leaves and mashed seeds; she poured sweat and silk. "Ah," she told her audience of sparrows, "this is wonderful lavender seed cake with nasturtium icing, but not quite . . . here," she offered it up, "eat and sing for me while I continue."
Next, Cocatna found some beans she'd been saving in a sack. She went to work grinding and mixing; folding in desire and pleasure, sugar and sadness, a bunch of yes. Almost as an afterthought, along with a dollop of cream, Cocatina added a pinch of eros.
“Oh, perhaps a bit more,” she said as she scooped a tidy handful. “This might do it.”
She heated and cooled, tempering her concoction, a ribbon as “dark as the new moon and as smooth as a velvet cloche. It smelled of yesterday and tomorrow. The taste? “Yes,” Cocatina murmured.
Tired, Cocatina took a nap and dreamed of poppies and bluejays, yolks and sunflowers, pigs and peonies. When she woke up she was ready.
“Taste,” she said to her neighbor, a man who wore blue and did something magical everyday with numbers. “Cal, if I told you that this would make you die, would you still eat it?”
Cal took a quantum bite and chewed. “Yes,” he told her. “I would do anything for more. Please?” He ate and sighed, ate and sighed. “This,” he declared, “is infinitely perfect.”
Pleased, Cocatina then found a woman who wore yellow; she fed birds and grew roses.
“Here,” Cocatina offered, “have some of this chocolate and tell me if you would die for more.” She handed the woman a glistening, dark bar of her chocolate. Cocatina thought she heard the chocolate call the woman’s name, Flora. So overcome by the richness of the substance Flora swooned into her bed of roses causing them to bloom.
“Ah,” Cocatina laughed, “that is answer enough for me.”
Next Cocatina approached Mystery, an aloof goddess who had the pinkest cheeks Cocatina had ever seen. “Would you die for another bite of this,” she asked, offering up a sleek bar?
Mystery nibbled a corner of the bar. “No,” Mystery said, “I would not die for this—or anything else.”
“You shall never have chocolate again, “ Cocatina proclaimed.
She returned to her kitchen and made more; enough for everyone—except Mystery.
Mystery was so sad it spilled into her last bite of chocolate, which is why some chocolate is bittersweet.
©Ma’lena Walley, 2009
I will be offering this workshop again in September. I am already coming up with new ideas and challenging ways to approach the way we use our bodymind. Since a few of the participants expressed a desire to take the course again (that is an endorsement, eh?) my task will be to reinvent it in a fresh manner. Reinvention.
