'Sometimes
if you move carefully 
through the forest,

breathing
like the ones
in the old stories, 

who could cross
a shimmering bed of leaves
without a sound,

you come 
to a place
whose only task

is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests,

conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.

Requests to stop what
you are doing right now
and

to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,

questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,

questions
that have patiently
waited for you,

questions
that have no right
to go away.'


~ From 'Sometimes', by David Whyte


What it is

This is a two hour workshop facilitated by Rachel Blackman & Brooke McNamara on the theme of protection, explored through the potent medicines of Somatics & Poetry.

Timed to co-incide with late Summer as the season tips towards harvest and there is a gathering inwards in the Northern Hemisphere. You are invited to explore with us: In a world that is, in many ways increasingly unstable, how might we work to support steadiness and defend nourishment? And what powers might we have, right here at our finger tips in the present moment to facilitate that?

We begin with a short awareness practice for arriving and settling into our bodies. We do a brief check in to welcome all who are with us, followed by some exploring of the theme. What brings you here today? What questions related to the theme are you sitting with?

Then we move into a deeper guided somatic visualisation or 'drop in' facilitated by Rachel. This will be followed by a bio break and some sharing. Then there will be an invitation to create some written expression from the information that came through from the drop in. this will be facilitated by Brooke.

Finally, we will make space for sharing. In this section, you are invited to share from your writings, or from your process or perhaps you may wish to offer reflections on the sharings of others.

'...
Now, I can't change the way you feel
But I could put my arms around you
That's just part of the deal
That's the way I feel
I'll put my arms around you


I'll stand in front of you
I'll take the force of the blow, protection
I'll stand in front of you
I'll take the force of the blow, protection...'

~ from Protection, by Massive Attack

Why this work now?

We are each a small, soft body in a world that would appear in many very real ways to be spiralling out of control. Big cultural forces are at work attempting to weaponise further division, polarisation and pouring millions into encouraging you to feel incrementally yet more unsafe and less trusting of life. So what does this word PROTECTION mean at this time? Is it about yet more surveillance and data harvesting? Or could it be something we could tend to at the level of our nervous systems, using ritual and harnessing the generative potential within creativity?

We don't want to be naive, bury our heads in the sand and pretend there is no threat. Nor do we want to be so defended we are shut off to life, or so beside ourselves with worry that we can't function. So let's explore via a third pathway. Let's see how Protection as a creative and archetypal force, wants to work through us via somatic explorations and poetic expression.

Let's play together. Let's see what poetry might want to come through us when we invite protection to be a robust ally.

How it works & what you need to participate

No experience of anything is necessary. You can be brand new to embodiment and poetry and still get plenty from it. Simply having a body and an imagination is all the experience you need. The way we will work with this more edgy material is going to be nervous system informed and grounded in ritual safety. Please do check out the section below titled 'Is this workshop suitable for me?' to support you in making an informed choice about participation.

To prepare, you need a quiet space with a door that closes for privacy, an internet connection and a notepad and pen. You may also wish to bring art materials.

You are warmly encouraged to join us either live or via the recording. Everyone who signs up has access to the recording for life (or as long as we are hosting it online). Recordings will be available within 48 hours of the live workshop.

All welcome. If you are a member of KIN, our animist writing membership, you get this workshop (and all our Somatics & Poetry workshops - usually 4 per year valued at £160 GBP.) included along with co-writing spaces most weeks, guided practice sessions, a seasonal deeper sharing circle, all facilitated by Brooke and Rachel. To sign up for that, choose the KIN subscription option below. Alternatively, you can just sign up for the workshop on its own.

'I think of the bones
of the unsung rib cage,
the way they protect
the heart. How bone,
too, is living, how it constantly
renews and remakes itself.
I think of how ribs engage
with other ribs
to expand, to contract,
and because they do
their solid work,
they allow the heart to float.
This is what I want to do:
to be a rib in this body
of our country,
to make a safe space for love.
There is so much now
that needs protection.
I want to be that flexible,
that committed to what’s vital,
that unwilling to yield.'


~ by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

~ 

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

Workshop Only Ticket

You get the 2 hour live workshop, and lifetime access to the recording. Please note that pricing is listed in Pound Sterling. 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 all Somatics & Poetry workshops (approx. 4 per year).
- 3 x co-writing spaces most months, hosted by Brooke or Rachel
- Monthly guided practice sessions facilitated by Rachel & Brooke.
- Seasonal deeper sharing spaces
- 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.

You can unsubscribe at any time.

Is This Workshop Suitable For Me?

This workshop might be suitable for you if:
~ you are a lover of or curious about somatics.
~ you appreciate and are drawn to poetry.
~ you are curious to explore the shadow in a safe, held, creative way.
~ You feel some curiosity arise as you read about this theme.

This workshop might not be suitable for you if
~ you don't feel curious about being in a body
~ you don't really enjoy poetry.
~ the theme makes you feel at all unsafe or on an unhelpful edge.


Please note that while this workshop might have therapeutic benefit, it is not a replacement for therapy. It's intention is self enquiry and creative expression. If working with these themes feels flooding or overwhelming for you, please trust your body and know that this workshop might not be right for you at this moment in time. It will be right for you if you can come towards the themes with a curiosity and resourcefulness.

More About Rachel Blackman

Rachel Blackman is a Somatic Coach and Trainer, a Theatre Maker, Ritualist and Feldenkrais Practitioner.

She has trains coaches to work with embodied intelligence and ritual technology at the School of Bio-Intelligence. Themes that really bring her alive include creativity and the Generative Principle, biological intelligence and supporting change to happen at the level of neuroplasticity.

She is an Animist and and loves to hold spaces that weave together connections between the sacred, the embodied and our biosphere.

Rachel works with people 1:1 and in groups, coaching and teaching embodied intelligence, Earth honouring ritual and creative practice. She is one half of The Aliveness Lab with Kate Daisy Grant, whose aim is making embodied practices that are normally only available in 1:1 contexts, more accessible. She is also the mama of an online space and art project called The Museum of Tiny Failures, which is all about taking the shame out of our non-award winning moments.

In her life as an artist, you are most likely to have seen her as Charra in Matrix Revolutions. She is also an award winning theatre maker and has created 5 full length original plays.

Rachel is down-lineage of - way back - European, Scandinavian, Scottish and English ancestry and more recently, a mixed bag of convicts and settler colonists to Australia, where her family now live mostly on the unceeded territory of the Bungalung and Yugambeh Nations. She is now based in south east England where she lives with her husband Shad and bonus son Akash by the big wild Mama sea.

www.rachelablackman.com

More About Brooke McNamara

Brooke McNamara, MFA, is a poet, creativity coach, meditation instructor, and transmitted Zen teacher and lineage holder.

She has published two books of poems: Bury the Seed and Feed Your Vow. She loves to create poems from 3 main ingredients: the raw material of everyday life, wholehearted and visceral listening, and the mind of meditation. For her poetry, Brooke is the recipient of the Charles B. Palmer prize from the Academy of American Poets.

A dancer and writer since childhood, movement, meditation, and poetry have always been her way of sensing meaning in this wild world. From Tinkerbell to Clara in the Nutcracker to some mind-boggling, experimental contemporary performances, Brooke loves engaging mind, body, soul, and spirit to seek and ignite connection on many levels. From 2003-2018, she danced professionally with Malashock & Dancers (San Diego), LEVYdance (San Francisco), Sweet Edge Dance (Denver), and in extensive collaboration making dance-theater duets with Lauren Beale (Boulder).

Brooke has taught at Naropa University in Yoga Studies and at the University of Colorado, Boulder in Dance. She is president and a founding teacher at Dragon Lake Zen, and teaches in-person and online courses and retreats to facilitate the awakening of innate wisdom, compassion, artistry, and play. She continues to study and deepen with her Zen teacher, Diane Musho Hamilton Roshi.

Originally from San Diego, Brooke now lives in Boulder, CO on the unceded territories of the Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe people, with her husband, Rob, their two sons, Lundin and Orion. They continuously teach her every day how to live in love.

www.BrookeMcNamara.com
www.DragonLakeZen.org