Where do you find refuge and belonging?

How do you access honest, artful expression?

Who witnesses you just as you are, uncontrived and uncensored?

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You’re invited to join me in meditation and creative training explorations, in community, where our practice is our life.

May we realize our original nature, enact our deep callings, and play our part fully in the liberation of all beings.

Awaken your potent, buzzing aliveness. Anchor your mysteries into the movement of your everyday.

 

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Discover deep meaning, interconnection, and your natural flow of creativity through embodied, wholehearted learning.

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Return to intimacy and presence with yourself and your life. Source your own direct wellspring of true wisdom and care.

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Let living language bring you deeply and playfully into coherence.

Feed and inspire your soul.

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10 minutes a day of Poetry & Meditation

An  on-demand video series
with Brooke McNamara

Each day for a month, enjoy a 10-minute video by Brooke McNamara that includes a poem shared aloud followed by a simple guided meditation. Investing in the nourishment of daily small doses of poetry and meditation practice, you might be astonished at what blooms in youand naturally serves others.

About Brooke McNamara

Artist. Teacher. Collaborator.

 

Appreciated for her capacity to transmit the sacred through accessible and digestible pieces of poetry and teaching, Brooke’s work is an emanation of her core longing to awaken, play, learn, and feed the soul.

 

I have practiced in the Zen tradition since 2009, and truly love the art of meditation. I also love exploring what it means to be human in community with others, and to live well together on this beautiful earth. I am a poet and have published two books, Feed Your Vow and Bury the Seed. I live with my huge-hearted husband and two adorable, wild sons in Boulder, CO.

I look forward to connecting with you!

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poet, performer, zen mama, monk

I have practiced meditation intensively in the Zen tradition for the past eight years, and been empowered by my teacher to instruct others in the art and practice of Zen meditation. I’m also a poet and published my first book, “Feed Your Vow,” in 2015. I live with my huge hearted husband and two adorable, wild sons in Boulder, CO.

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gently, 

allow your heart to hand you

every last piece

of who you truly are. 

 

B U R Y   T H E  S E E D by Brooke McNamara
poems for releasing more life into you

Bury The Seed 1

gently, 

allow your heart to hand you

every last piece

of who you truly are. 

B U R Y   T H E  S E E D by Brooke McNamara
poems for releasing more life into you

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Learn

Tasting Aliveness

A 3-Day In-Person Retreat

October 24-27 - Vancouver, B.C.

 

The TASTING ALIVENESS 3-day in-person retreat is an invitation to experience the vitality, creativity and wonder that is available to you in each moment. Designed to support beginners and seasoned practitioners alike, this retreat is an opportunity for you to come home to this very life in all of its beauty and messiness, and to anchor yourself in the steadiness of the breath, wisdom of the body, and the ever-present liberation we can always taste and realize here and now.

Learn

Art of Aliveness

A 7-Day In-Person Retreat - January 26 - February 1, 2025, Boulder, CO

Clarifying and claiming the potency of who you truly are.

The Art of Aliveness retreat is an invitation to come home to your true self, to the potency of reality as it is, and to creatively express the uniqueness of your being. It is an opportunity to connect with a community of others who not only support your practice, but who mirror the preciousness of this one life.

In collaboration with four transmitted Zen lineage holders, we will explore our innerscapes through seated and walking meditation, interpersonal practice, creative expression, work practice, and embodiment.

Learn

Art of Meditation

Seasonal 11-week Practice Series / Yearlong Program: ONLINE

Winter Series: January 16 - April 2 (no class January 30) | Spring Series: April 30 - July 9 | Fall Series: September 10 - November 19

The Art of Meditation Practice Series are an opportunity for you to come home to your life, awakening to who you really are and to the liberation and vitality that is available in each moment.

Learn

Awakening to the Poetic

A 9 Week Series of Meditation and Poetry

How do you awaken and tune to the poetic? Do you remember your ways as a child of connecting to this animate, breathing world?

 

In these times of rapid change, challenge, and opportunity, it is vital that we connect in brave, supportive community to remind ourselves of the nutrients embedded in reality – the powerful ways that pain and loss carve through our beings, the delicious refreshment of beauty in all its forms, and the ultimate satisfaction of resting as our true nature: vast, unborn, and indestructible. 

Testimonial

“These are gloriously urgent wake-up poems. McNamara is a modern Zorba. She urges us to stop, to rest, to listen to the life pouring through and over us, to steep ourselves in the mystery that we are, ‘the rapture of being just this.’”

 

 

Roger Housden

Bestselling author of the Ten Poems series

“Brooke’s poems act to awaken Supreme Identity—the unity of You and Divine Sprit itself—releasing the everlasting core of your very Being and endless Becoming. This is what Brooke does for us, for which we can all be truly, deeply grateful.”   

 

 

Ken Wilber

Integral Meditation

“Tender, erotic and wise, this book is a trustworthy companion in the journey of becoming human."

 

Diane Musho Hamilton

Author of The Zen of You & Me

“Brooke McNamara’s words fall like raindrops filled with light--fresh, gentle, nourishing, and utterly authentic.  Always, they invite us to wake us up to the infinite beauty of BEING here and now, completely human and completely divine.”

 

 

Dorothy Hunt

Spiritual director of Moon Mountain Sangha, author of Only This!, Leaves from Moon Mountain, and Ending the Search: From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness

"McNamara tricks marks on paper onto their feet so as to bring us to ours."

 

 

Charles O. Hartman

Poet in Residence, Connecticut College
testimonialflower

Stop

Stop. Stop working. Stop trying to stop working.
Stop trying. Stop being lazy. Stop searching for meaning.
Stop landing anywhere. Stop acting confused. Stop.

Stop locking up your mysteries. Let me in. Stop rearranging the surface features of your life. Stop thinking deep is deep. Stop thinking blood is red. Stop hoarding the blood-red wisdom unborn in you.

There’s got to be a better way. Do you love me? Stop loving me. Stop unloving me. Stop tearing me apart.
Stop with me. Let’s stop together. Six seconds.

Ready. Set. Stop.

Now let’s stop together forever,
and let the stopping go.

LISTEN: The Poetry of Reality and Mothering as Activism

Sharing:      How the birth is a psycho-spiritual death experience     The rich depth of postpartum experience     Practicing as a Zen Monk ...
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LISTEN: Funeral for the Future

On today's episode of The Radical Gentleness Podcast, Brooke speaks with Poet, Momma, Dancer, Monk, and Teacher Brooke ...
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Cultivate

CULTIVATE: Creative Practice in the Face of Uncertainty Round 2 ~ A Deeper Dive (prerequisite: round 1, or ...
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FeedYourVowWords

“Tender, erotic and wise, this book is a trustworthy companion in the journey of becoming human.”

Diane Musho Hamilton, Author of Everything is Workable

 

“Only a few lines in, walls are coming down, ears are perking up.”

Stuart Davis, Artist

 

feedbook

Poems for Falling into Fullness

Poems from the body of a dancer, mind of a zen monk, and heart of a mother. Open to timeless beauty through encounters with our everyday world, seen with fiercely loving eyes and a powerful, compassionate voice.