Hosted by Audra Carmine
Mondays, April 6th to May 11th
917 SW Oak Street, Portland, OR 97205
Mirror (Suite 400)
Writing has long been a practice that supports truth telling, insight, courage, capacity, and connection. It’s a place where what lies below the surface of awareness can emerge as insight and often meaningful change. In this workshop, open to women and non-binary identifying humans, we will add the layer of group process and meditation where listening and being seen set us up to live freely and wholeheartedly. Writing, mindfulness, and group therapeutic experiences are all supported by clinical research as tools through which we can gain strength and steadiness through which to meet our days. Let’s gather together and see what’s possible. As Anton Chekhov says, “Art prepares us for tenderness.”
In my writing practice, I find myself confronting what is true, versus what might be the more palatable performance of truth. The question: am I really allowed to say this? comes up all the time. Writing pushes me to wonder about who’s voice that is? Who is that voice protecting and why? And, when I am brave enough to say the thing, to write what’s real, I set myself free.
“Writing is a form of freedom more accessible than many and there are forces at work that would like to withhold it from those whose stories most threaten the regimes that govern this society. Fuck them. Write your life." ― Melissa Febos, Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative
There has been no meditation or compassion practice more potent than writing the most awful, awkward, and wonderful truths. I learn by writing. I use my secrets to make something beautiful. I create a home for myself through writing. I see my own patterns and judgement rise up again and again so that I can place my flawed humanity in the family of things and call myself whole. I watch as the way in which I tell the story ebbs and flows like an ocean, opening my heart and mind to something that simply wasn’t there before, something new. There is no more potent—or accessible—medium through which to meet each other. Let’s write together as a form of resistance, as an act of courage, and as a way to practice listening and being witnessed.
Online version is on Tuesdays, April 7th to May 12th. Noon to 1 pm via Zoom.