Creative Workshops 2007
November
Writing Newsletter
Ever been to Hogsback? now is your chance.. see below.
Do not give up your loneliness too
quickly. Let it cut deeper (Hafiz)
Dear writer
As writers we deal with apparent loneliness
with only the midnight candle or coming dawn for company. The reader hides on
the other side of the future page. Trust Sufi poet Hafiz to turn this into an
opportunity and a blessing.
We also entertain aloneness.
An anthropologist, stalking through the
forest in
"Pardon me, old woman, but what are
you doing alone in the forest?"
With an even more puzzled look the sage
replies, "Pardon me young man, what makes you think I'm alone?"
Ken Wilber in his book, No Boundaries,
reminds us that every time we draw a
boundary between us and other people or life energies, we create a potential
battle line. For the
anthropologist, only human beings are
inside the circle. For the old woman, nature is included in the circle of
belonging.
As a ritual, writing invokes the
silent community. This act links us to those who wrote before we arrived and to
those who will write after we rest our pens and the clicking key board. And we
are also in the realm of the other selves who rise to meet us, let in at pencil
point. As white light passing though a prism fans into the spectrum, so
entering our text we meet our selves. As Ray Bradbury suggests, “I do not
write. The other me demands emergence constantly.”
At a recent metaphor and therapy
workshop with psychologists in
Summer Workshops
Egoli…stop press. this Sun. The
Cottages,
Sun 28 October 09h00-13h00
We discover meaning by creating a work or
doing a deed, by experiencing… goodness, truth and beauty … nature and culture
or by encountering someone and lastly, by the attitude we take toward
unavoidable suffering. (Viktor Frankl)
We explore the meaning that is unique to
you, through the art of creative writing. You will be guided to seek your
creativity and imagination and find words to tell your story… to infuse that
story with meaning and make it more alive.
The workshop also focuses on how to be present in our writing and engage
readers and ourselves as part of a great conversation that opens into mystery.
Coral Wilder coralw@telkomsa.net
011 622-8793 083 450-9148
My Nov.
offerings are thin as I will be workshopping in
one beeeeg event is……
Hogsback Poetry Retreat…
Wed eve 21-Sun lunch 25 Nov R1950 (accommo, meals and travel own expense- we cook together, can share lifts from PE or EL)
Join East Cape poets Cathal
Lagan and Brain Walter and
Poem Poem Poem (PPP) Making Poetry (Dorian/ Bob Commin )
The poets bring forth the poet hiding inside. Slowly folk are
learning to slip past there critic to the fields that Rumi
sings of – “out between ideas of right doing and wrong doing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.” Next course Feb. 08. Beginners welcome.
The
Poet’s Voice: Advanced Writing Course (Dorian and
Bob
Commin)
The apprentices master
the trade…a few lines from Anne-Marie Moore - in preparation for her daughter’s
wedding:
Bells beckon
choirs descant
well-worn
tunes.
as her shadow
fills the arch
guests bedecked
in silks and satins
turn
the purple
garbed priest
raises his arms.
Next course Feb. 08. Flyer on request.
Write Write Write: Writers’ Development:
Email Course (WWW) (repeat notice)
Elma Pollard, whose weekly earth column in the Bolander, is getting much acclaim, facilitates most of this course. There have been requests for follow-up
courses so Elma has created wwwfollow1. Want to craft stories? New intake every month.
Elma combines life and writing coaching - an enabling process. (starlight@wol.co.za. 084 868 2908) see her new site www.greencoach.co.za courtesy of my son Dominic.
Workshops/Literary Events with other Folk
Heart of Rumi - 15-17 November
We are the
mirror, as well as the face in it
We are tasting the taste this instant of eternity
We are pain and what cures pain both
We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.
2007 is Rumi's 800th birth
anniversary. International
Rumi lovers, Duncan Mackintosh and Ashley Ramsden (storytellers, teachers) bring Rumi's
inspiration to
Presentations 15 /16 R65
Workshop
Sat 17 Nov @
Rumi’s poems and stories are passionate, beautiful, wise,
yet also precise in their guidance. In the workshop we will take some of Rumi’s texts and allow their profound metaphors and wisdom
to illumine aspects of our personal experience. We may also bring some
poems and stories to life by entering and finding our way to speak/tell them.
Bookings: Antonet-Nirvana 082 569 3567 021 713
1397 erin-hall@intekom.co.za
Bob Commin (poet, creativity coach
, storyteller and pastor) runs poetry courses/events in the Southern Suburbs (Obs to Fish Hoek) (h) 021 447 9550 082 2025303 bcommin@netactive.co.za www.making-poetry.com Shed some old skins
There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far too deep for that. (Hafiz)
May your loneliness, aloneness lead you to the many selves
hiding between within the words.
Dorian
PS
Thank
you to all those who circulate this
letter.
Sign off if you need to. (I need your name please to deregister you)
Dr Dorian Haarhoff
021 855 3937 / 082 873 6802/ fax 086 511 4751
http://dorianhaarhoffwriter.homestead.com