"Blessings on you as you take the next steps on your path. May beauty and strength walk with you. May the winds and rains anoint you. May you experience all creation as friend and may gratitude be your constant companion in the dance of life." Pat Bergen, CSJ ~ Ministry Of Arts     WABI-SABI WRITING Developing Compassion For Self & Others Through Writing   With Maitri Libellule and Henry, Grey Parrot & Cottage Muse You can read more about Maitri by clicking on her name above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is Wabi-Sabi Writing ? Wabi-Sabi writing is soul work. It is not creative writing (although it certainly IS creative in its way) but more therapeutic writing, it is about learning to use writing as a *practice* like meditation or yoga is a practice. It takes you through many levels and layers of your subconscious mind, unravelling layers of your life, opening your heart to a kind compassion for your own life and the world around you through timed-writing exercises. I always use, in the first class, which is longer than subsequent classes because I introduce the process in depth, a quote from Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, "We must open in the face of tremendous opposition. No one is encouraging us to open, and still we must peel the layers of the heart." My role is like a midwife, helping my students birth their own true inner selves, develop kind compassion for their lives, and help them unravel the knots of their lives. For over 20 years now my classes have been filled with artists, writers, and musicians who took my classes to help them open themselves up to their own true material; housewives and people from all walks of life, including many people sent to me from therapists, ministers and counselors of all sorts who believed what I did with their patients/clients was the perfect addendum to their therapeutic process; to all manner of people hoping to learn to use writing as a spiritual practice to see them through life. I have taught this process in colleges, in adult education programs, women centers, privately, and more. I have worked privately with a Yoga Therapy practitioner and she and I have talked extensively about how beautifully my Wabi-Sabi Writing process and yoga go together. Yoga opens you up, and thoughts float through, realizations, but they can be vague. The same is true with meditation. Writing helps open further, to concretize, make tangible, those things that come up in meditation and yoga.   Wabi-Sabi Writing is about opening up our hearts with gentle compassion to our own lives and the world around us, softening our hearts to the things we have felt imperfect, perphaps beat ourselves up over, struggled with, as well as to celebrate and truly understand all the beauty that truly is present in our lives, and to help us live more fully and openly with it all.

 

 

 

How do the Online Classes work? To begin, each class is sent out every Monday morning in three parts. The first two sections function as an actual at-home class. It will be lengthy and will take roughly 90 minutes to do, (and can be broken down into two parts). This gives you one time a week when you will be doing an extended writing practice. You will be doing series of 10 minute timed writings, and you will be guided through them with inspirational material, quotes, and thoughts about how to establish a writing practice. The third e-mail functions as the *handout* I would give you if you studied with me in person, has further thoughts about how to establish your practice and guides you in a daily practice session, with a week's worth of writing exercises. The material is geared toward a group, and while you are doing it at home alone you will have the feeling of being part of a larger consciousness, working together, from wherever you are. The exercises are more general in scope, but designed to bring up, for you, whatever is deepest and most important for you in the moment. Once you begin writing, you come up in your own pool of consciousness, just exactly where you need to be. The classes will be mailed out each Monday morning, and are $50 per month, with discounts when you sign up in multiples of six or 12 month periods. The first class contains a long introduction to the process and is much longer than any other class, hence you get 5 e-mails the first week. Some classes are longer than others and require 3 e-mails for the main body of the class. I used to try to send them out as attachments in MS Word, but too many people had trouble opening them, so now I send them in multiple e-mails. I encourage my students to print them out when they arrive, three hole punch them and put them in a binder. This way you can work with the material at your own pace, there is never any pressure, and you will have it easily organized to return to whenever you want to.   The classes are based on 4 week months and are started the first Monday after your payment arrives at my PayPal account with your e-mail of intent. You should renew before the 4th week to keep your lessons coming without breaks in between.

 

It's time to peel the layers of the heart, and find the hidden treasures that lie within. If not now, when? Prices For Classes One Month -- $50 for 4 classes Three months -- $150 for 12 classes Six months -- $300 for 24 classes

 

 

 

 

 

 

How To Pay For The Classes...   To make your payment, choose your payment option, for one or more months, and then click on the link to take you to PayPal below for payment. You will have to register with PayPal but it is a free service for you and you can then use it all over the net. I have used it online for almost 5 years with confidence! Your class will begin on the first Monday after payment clears.   OR TO REQUEST MORE INFORMATION WRITE TO: WABISABIWRITING@AOL.COM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The blog and series of new books celebrating tea in all it's aspects, the tea ceremonies, and living in loving-kindness..   TEA MIND, BE KIND

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eastbay Athletic

 

 

 

 

 

 

Entire website contents copyright 2000-2006 Maitri Libellule