What it is

Join Rachel Blackman and Brooke McNamara for a 2-hour workshop as we tend to the wisdom of our eyes and seeing. Exploring via gentle guided somatic practices and visualizations, nourishing community connection, and the potent emotional and imaginal medicine of poetry. In this workshop we will be honouring our incredible eyes and remembering the sacred potential of beholding.

Our eyes are our soulful portals into the world. Connecting us with colour, movement, orientation to everything and each other. They are integral to not only outer vision - what we see, but also inner vision, imagination and envisioning. How might it be to write from them?

Our eyes can give and receive, they can articulate our souls and our hearts. They express us. Let's tend to the aliveness of the eyes themselves, while also tending to how we offer our vision to the world. Let's find ways to let our vision speak!

For this workshop, come as you are. Whatever draws you here is welcome. Bring a paper, pen and comfortable clothes for resting in. You will come away some poetic treasures, rich human connections and a renewed relationship with the miracle of vision.

This is the second workshop of our new monthly writing membership. KIN: Writing From Connection With the Wider Web of Life. If you are part of our membership, you will automatically be granted access to this workshop as part of your package. If you'd like to simply sign up to this as a stand alone workshop, you can do that too. More info on that further down.

Our KIN space opens up again for new members from now until the 31st July and then closes again until the end of the year.

'Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking' 

~ Black Elk

Why this work?

We live in an era of a million things demanding to be looked at. Everything broadcasting an urgency. The constant self illuminating screens. Everything, the next most important thing. How might we cultivate discernment around this constant deluge of information wanting our attention?

Our eyes are mostly water, very soft, sensitive and with a deep receptivity to stimuli. They are one of the quickest places in the human body to self heal. If we were to get careful about what we let in and how we look, what then? What creative or poetic potential is there?

When we turn towards the world with wonder, how does that influence how we look? If we expand our vision outwards to take in the periphery and the larger field of attention, what gets included or embraced by our awareness? Maybe we could write some poetry from that place. From that wondrous, more expansive visionary perspective...

Let's play.

This workshop is an example of the kind of space holding and quality of exploration you can expect from the regular workshops Brooke & Rachel will be facilitating in the KIN membership program.
Read More about the KIN Membership
~ EYES ~

My most honorable eyes. You are not in the best shape.
I receive from you an image, less than sharp,
And if a color, then it's dimmed.
And you were a pack of royal hounds
With whom I would set forth in the early morning.
My wondrously quick eyes, you saw many things,
Lands and cities. Islands and oceans.
Together we greeted immense sunrises,
When the fresh air invited us to run
Along trails just dry from cold night dew.
Now what you have seen is hidden inside
And changed into memory or dreams
Slowly I move away from the fair of the world
And I notice in myself a distaste
For monkeyish dresses, shrieks and drum beats.
What a relief. Alone with my meditation
On the basic similarity in humans
And their tiny grain of dissimilarity.
Without eyes, my gaze is fixed on one bright point
That grows large and takes me in.

~ Czeslaw Milosz

Who is it For?

Everyone with a body and an imagination is most warmly welcome. No experience is necessary other than being a human.

This workshop might be for you if

- you are someone who is curious about how embodiment and creative practice and can assist you with visioning and the felt sense of your eyes as powerful portals for connection with the experience of vitality.

- You long for more of a vivid sense of connection with your inner and outer vision.

- You want to learn tools for giving your eyes a rest from glowing screens.

- You want to explore writing poems emerging from somatic process. Or explore somatics via the alchemical medicine of poetry.

- You love to be held as you explore expression through writing and sharing your writing.

- Or you are someone who is curious about how you might write from places in and around you other than your head.

This workshop might not be so relevant for you if you prefer to work cognitively rather than imaginatively. Or are not interested in writing as a creative form of expression.

To participate in the workshop, please bring a notebook, a pen, comfortable clothes you can move in, your own wild imagination and your curious eyes! Please note that you dont need to have any experience of somatics or poetry to be able to be nourished by this work.

USING YOUR EYES

~ by Brooke McNamara

It’s your choice how. Looking without looking, 
lost in a dream. Giving just what’s needed, 
under the words. Lasering into and taking. 
Open, gathering. When the Buddha held up 
one white flower in front of his assembly, 
nobody realized the meaning but one. Just one 
seeker used his eyes to leap into flower — fleshy 
petals, pollen, and stem. Naturally himself now, 
fully flowering, he softly smiled. And he received 
the Buddha’s Dharma eye. Anything can be 
the flower. Any one of these curling words. 


Whatever you look at next.

'The world is full of magic things patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.'

 ~ William Butler Yeats 

Flow of the Workshop

Opening Prayer & Intention setting 

Arriving in the body & an initial poetry prompt - Brooke & Rachel

Somatic drop in - Rachel 

Sharing Circle  

Poetic expression - Brooke

 Sharing Circle  

Onward Pathways & Worldly Actions

Closing

Pricing Options

There are two ways to pay for this workshop. For the same price you can either sign up to the workshop, or gain access to the ongoing KIN membership which includes this workshop and much more.

KIN: Writing From Connection With The Wider Web of Life, is a monthly animist writing club that includes weekly touch points on a Monday.

Please read the below items carefully to make your choice.

Workshop Only Ticket

You get the 2 hour live workshop, and lifetime access to the recording. Please note that pricing is listed in Pound Stirling. Amounts in other currencies will fluctuate with the market.

If you'd like to join and you are living in circumstances or places in the world that make this amount impossible, please be in touch.

Workshop + Kin Membership

This option signs you up to our writing membership. As part of the KIN membership these Somatics & Poetry workshops are included free.

KIN membership includes

- Everything in the Workshop Only ticket
- Free access to the bi-anual Somatics & Poetry workshops ongoing.
- 2 x co-writing spaces per month, hosted by Brooke or Rachel
- Monthly guided practice sessions facilitated by Rachel & Brooke.
- Seasonal deeper sharing spaces
- A monthly community play space.
- An off f-book private community space for sharing your work & connection with other KIN folk.

To read more about what the KIN membership gives you, go HERE.

To find out how this price translates into your local currency, go HERE.

KIN opens for new members twice annually. You can unsubscribe at any time with the click of a single button.