Summoning the Unseen:
Poetry and Meditation to Conjure Deep Support and Inspiration
An 8-week online workshop series
Fridays, May 15th - July 3rd
9-10:45 am PST/ 10-11:45 am MST/ 12-1:45 pm EST
with Brooke McNamara & Special Guests
Dave Rock, Erin Geesaman Rabke, & Rachel Blackman
“The poet is the priest of the invisible.”
~ Wallace Stevens
In these bewildering times, both our inner and outer worlds are undergoing rapid change and unraveling. So much is unknown and yet to be seen. We may fear becoming overwhelmed or disconnected from the emotional, relational, and spiritual resources we need most right now.
And so ~
Let us gather together around a fire of great wisdom and love, and become still.
Let us become concentrated and warmed by the flames, pulled into a heartfelt, coherent listening, born of a visceral longing for the Numinous.
When we listen like this, we effortlessly lean toward what we innately belong to, what wants to guide and inspire us from just beyond the veils of consensus reality.
Poetry can usher us into this realm of soul, imagination, and the liminal where we remember or sense things we didn’t know we knew. A realm where we can receive vision or calibration not available through thinking or the conventional five senses alone. Where we may court and be courted by our muse. And where we can unfold and reveal bits of magic and insight simply by showing up to listen or bring pen to paper.
Meditation can harmonize body, mind, and breath, allowing deep letting go of unnecessary tension and revealing an ever present Awareness. This deeper nature is our birthright to realize, is not separate from any moment or expression of life, and is refuge when old reference points fall away.
In these bewildering times, let us gather together around a fire to engage these sacred rites: of imbibing and creating poetry, of meditation and falling into intimacy with what matters most, and of being in community with the intention to be touched by sources of unseen support and inspiration.
Weekly Themes:
Week 1, May 15: Awareness & Intimacy
Week 2, May 22: Faith & Free-fall
Week 3, May 29: Poetry & Prayer with special guest Dave Rock
Week 4, June 5: Effort & Pleasure
Week 5, June 12: Receptivity & Expression with special guest Rachel Blackman
Week 6, June 19: Incipience & Impermanence
Week 7, June 26: Grief & Gratitude with special guest Erin Geesaman Rabke
Week 8, July 3: Intimacy & Awareness
You will also be invited to join a private Facebook group for members of Summoning the Unseen, in which to share poems, share your own writing and receive feedback, and generally explore together what comes up in the workshops.
Workshops will be recorded and sent to you within 48 hours, along with prompts and inquiries to consider in your writing and living between workshops.
SPECIAL GUESTS:
Dave Rock is a freestyle spoken word artist/prayer-poet and teacher of conscious creativity, who wants to live in a world where everyone lives their gifts fully and freely each day. Connect with him at www.flowspeaking.com.
Rachel Blackman is a Somanaut, Acrobat of the Heart, Somatic Educator, Integrative bodyworker, Facilitator, Artist and Theatre Maker. A long time ago in a galaxy far far away she was in a film called Matrix Revolutions, that you may have heard of. More recently in the time of Corona, she has become a planter of vegetables, a consumer of bird song and a hugger of trees. She was once described by a close friend as a ‘weirdly expressive introvert’ which felt uncomfortably accurate and kind of explained a lot. Learn more about her embodiment work at www.vibrantbody.co.uk, and most recent theatre project, “You Aren’t Doing It Wrong If No One Knows What You’re Doing” at www.tinyfailures.com.
Erin Geesaman Rabke is a Somatic Naturalist & Embodiment Mentor trained as a Guild Certified Feldenkrais® Practitioner, an Embodied Life Teacher, a Work That Reconnects Facilitator, and a Community Grief Tender. Over the past 25+ years, she’s been training in somatics and simultaneously in the Tibetan Buddhist traditions of Dzogchen and Lojong. Erin is developing a powerful body of work called Evolutionary Embodiment, which braids together mindful embodiment and contemplative practices with the powerful methods and perspectives of Deep Ecology and The Work That Reconnects. Find out more at www.embodimentmatters.com.
What people are saying about my online workshops:
"Wow, that was an amazing experience! Thank you for your skilled facilitation and incredibly thoughtful workshop design. I can feel how you have created this container with so much love and intention. I feel safe to let myself go to places I haven’t gone in groups before, allowing for deep releases and awakening interesting creative ideas and questions."
- Jewel Afflerbaugh, Photographer
"I loved this workshop! It was the perfect place for me to celebrate who I am as an artist and who I am becoming. It gave me new ideas, new exercises, new perspectives, and best of all new community for all my creative endeavors. Brooke and Lauren's facilitation was uniquely deep and relatable and wise. I cannot recommend this experience enough!"
- Lindsay Chrisler, Coach + Comic