Creative Workshops 2006
November Writing Newsletter
“…and there comes the knowing that in me there is space
for a second, large and timeless life” (Rilke)
Dear writer
Expansiveness
In the Bigger You workshops, we have been
playing with the idea of how writing leads to an
expansiveness. We inhabit a larger space. Through attention to words, through our creation of images we are brought into a presence, into a possibility as we
witness our lives.
We become larger than life as we sit in the theatre dark and watch the flicker
enlarged on the screen.
Mystery
moves in this alchemy. As Wallace Stevens poet says, “We entertain the fantastic in order to
understand the actual.” Taking it further, we transform the actual. In writing we build our house, cultivate a garden - make what I
call our joy-loss habitable.
With Rumi “I have told so many tales that have
become fiction.”
…and words are sounds… so the rhythms,
music, cadences amplify this largeness…
In line with this theme here is a recent
poem:
Increase in a
Word
like gas, a word
expands
from its container page
to fill a space, a cavity.
even one-beat words -
walk sing, bird, love, tears -
seep through many osmoses
across membranes
spine to skin, porous mouth
to larynx, lung to heart.
the desert shrinks. we wander
out of exile into irrigation.
our properties expand
to make us neighbours.
the word draws promised lands
and constellated stars
into its cursive script
and signs its largeness,
verses it, in a letter flourish.
A word about craft. In writing the poem, I
discovered that osmosis has a plural –
osmoses. Is this too unfamiliar? Am I’m
taking it too far by playing on this word and moving into a Moses scenario in
the second verse? Poetic time will tell. If I’m trying to be too clever then
the Osmoses will have to go. What do you think?
Evette Weyers, the
sculptor, has a passion for poetry and lives as a poet does. She organised a
Sufi poetry evening at
In the future we know meanings of all
words so that poetry, a word art, once more carries news, real news. People use
poetry to speak and listen to new creation. Here is a sample intercepted by our
spy from the future.
But here, time is more fluid
like blue sea water, like
plankton gardens shining
iridescent forms of thought
and in that dense water,
like love, a liquid so alive
we drink sea wind and sea water.
We start to see from all
directions of time.
Congratulations
to Susan Mann whose novel One Tongue
Singing has been translated into French and Swedish, while a second novel is at the proof stage of publication. Susan came to a workshop eight years ago
–her first week end in
See Anni Snyman’s Memories of
Water at the Univ of Johannesburg’s Art gallery
in Nov.
My Site
Thank you to
Erna Buber-de Villiers for a creative site… and for the new look
on its way. I appreciate your caring suggestions. zakerna@cyberserv.co.za 016 454 9316
Organisational/Corporate Work
In November
Elma and I are facilitating UNICEF AIDS writing workshops for 260 children in
the care of two organisations - ChrisTanna
(Upington) and Simunye (Nelspruit). Story-teller, Philippa
Kabali-Kagwa, joins us for the Nelspruit
round. Zanendaba, (Bring forth the Story) NGO are our
apprentices to the writing trade.
Expanding
the life of the one who goes to work, expands the work. In Nov I’ll be offering
two corporate workshops at The Learning Centre in Tokai,
Words at Work, a writing workshop to enrich corporate work - 7 Nov
The Halo and the Noose: the Power of
Story-listening and Story-telling in Business Life (with Graham Williams) - 8
Nov
If you wish
to run either of these in-house, please contact me.
The second
WWW folk (Aug- Nov) have a month to go. They have recently written an assignment
listening to Mozart’s music: Krystyna’s
words relate to our expansiveness theme this month:
The conductor’s
baton now spears the air, injecting strength and energy into the timpani and
wind sections…. cuing us in, demanding what we know he expects … nuance, speed,
tone, mood.
Soundlessly he plays the orchestra, sweeping up our music in his
energetic arms and throwing it out into boundless space.
Can we
invoke the conductor archetype in our writing too - the Bigger You who conducts
the music?
The next WWW
(Feb- May 07) is filling up. Hazelle, an ex-South
African who has lived in
Mentoring
Each mentoring
becomes a companionship in the way of words. Each one has its own pace, terrain
and rhythm. There is a triangle here –
the writer, the mentor and the work. Jean Miller, whom I mentored, has
self-published Walking though the Clouds,
Living with Manic Depression - her
personal journey of courage. Phone her
on 031 564 1851 if you’d like a copy.
Workshops the last two of the year…
Egoli The Bigger You: Writing, Longing and Belonging R390
Sun 5 Nov 09.30 – 16.00 (a gift session with Karin at 08.30 if you are an early yoga
bird) (
When we
write, we move into a space where we discover our ‘larger’ self. Other
possibilities open to us. We live more abundantly. This workshop explores how
we can bring our creativity and imagination to our writing and so engage our
potential. The workshop also explores how writing can open to a life-long love
affair with ourselves.
The Helderberg Writing Escape (
14-19 November (see Nov 06
Join Johanna Castro and me for our five day writing extravaganza. We’ll be
writing and mentoring at a wine farm and in the Helderberg Nature Reserve. The
escape offers exploration and discovery and personal
attention as we live the life of writers. Johanna is an international
freelance journalist who coaches in the genres of magazine writing, travel and
copywriting.
In Jan 07
…..I’ll spend two days as Writer in Residence at St Mary’s DSG, in Kloof. In one of her poems, “Moments” Juliette Jooste
who teaches there writes of “ripe pomegranates giddied by light.”
Writing Opportunities
See Mandy Swinburne’s
(Bikini Beach Books, Gordon’s Bay) site. Why not submit articles and
stories to www.WhySpirit.com email yellow@whyspirit.com?
This is about conversation, expansiveness, and publicity rather than payment.
Tredicis in the
Paul and Fadelah host Hugh Hodge’s Off the Wall Poetry readings - last Wed of every month.
(hahodge@gmail.com). I’ll be it 29 Nov. Reading from my about to be published Drawing Water. Remember the Between the Covers Story-Telling evening
first Thurs of every month. Philippa Kabali-Kagwa will be a-telling and a singing on 2 Nov.
19.30 Both these evenings begin with an invited poet / story-teller then it’s
open mike time. And that cuisine…
Other Workshoppers who raise us up (does that make us workshoplifters?)
Bob Commin (poet,
writer, storyteller, pastor…..)
021 447 9550 (h) 082 2025303
bcommin@netactive.co.za
Poetry Writing Day 2 Sat 4 Nov 9.30 – 4.00 pm R250 Deposit
R100)
…and I went on my way
deciphering that burning fire
and I wrote the first bare line
(Pablo Neruda)
For those who love poetry for those who write or would like to write. You will
be introduced to wonderful poetry. We will explore methods of writing. We share
our wisdom and writing (if we wish). We explore rhythm in poem. We have space
to walk and reflect….no pressure on people to produce writing.
Gillian Barton
(ex Findhorn, Psychosynthesis counsellor,
Sandplay therapist)
022-492-2562 072-206-0594 gbarton@worldonline.co.za
Stories in the Sand
A one-day workshop for writers of
children’s stories, poets and for people wanting to open up to the world of the
imagination.
Sandplay uses a tray half-filled with sand and a
variety of miniature figures, animals, houses, symbols etc. The sand can be freely
molded and anything from the array of figurines can be chosen and placed into
the tray to create a picture.
Venue: The Towers Farm, Darling.
Gillian and I will be running a “Sand Words” workshop early next year in
the Darling country side.
Conscious Living Diary
In 2001, after
a workshop I facilitated (at the Consciousness Film Festival in Stellenbosch) five
women - Lucille Valentine, Lindi-Ann Hewitt-Coleman, Debsalem Bloom, Shelley Maisel
and Jeanette Gevint - bonded and got to work. Linda Rutter
joined, a 6th member. They still meet regularly as a
writer’s group and to create their Diary:
Here is diary
to inspire your
inner life, your outer life, your ecological life, your angelic life and
support your organised
life…. Planting guides, moon, phases, moon signs and a space for gratitudes
on every day. Recipes, poems written by local poets, spiritual practices and
play dates. 100% recycled paper. R130 (excl VAT) direct from
us on consciousliving@mweb.co.za or at
all good book stores.
May you life expansively in and through ripe pomegranate words.
Dorian
PS Thank you
to all those who circulate this letter. Sign off if you need to. (I still receive ‘unsubscribe’ from
people not on my sending list???)
PPS Please note change of address below.
Dr Dorian Haarhoff
021 852 7587 / 082 873 6802
http://dorianhaarhoffwriter.homestead.com