Creative
Workshops
June\July 2010
Writing
Newsletter
Re-story and re-imagine
your Life and Work
Dear writer, storyteller, reader, word watchers…
mutato nomine de te
fabula narratur
All
you need do is change the name and it's about YOU, this story’ (Horace)
This
month three stories - fiction, it happened in a therapist's rooms and I found
it in a bookshop. The story:
The
Empress approaches the Sage, “You speak of inter-connectedness. What is this
thing?” The Sage leads her into a hall
covered with mirrors - ceiling, doors, walls, floor.
He hangs a crystal ball from the ceiling and lights a candle near it. The light
reflects in the crystal, both reflect in the mirrors, travel to infinity. A
thousands Sages and Empresses fly out in all directions, diminishing and
returning, increasing in size. The Sage turns to his companion, “That, Empress, is just a hint of inter-connectedness.”
When
we hear or tell a story, we enter such a hall. We set up crystal and lit candle
then swirl around them. We see other possibilities that seem independent of us
yet belong to us.
As
stories go, I shared space in a room a few nights ago where a psychologist, Janne Dannerup, invited me to
share with her clients, a ‘magic of story’ evening. Twenty-one people, through stories and props
such as a piece of fabric, entered such a hall of mirrors, calling forth
creativity, imagination, memory - creating characters from the fabric and
placing them in a story. The room expanded as it hummed with energy.
Strangers,
became ‘real’ as they listened and told. As in The Velveteen Rabbit where Skin Horse tells Rabbit, “…by the time you
are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you
get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter …
because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't
understand."
The
following morning, browsing the Jo’burg Hospice
bookshop, (as stories go) a book fell into my hands. “Choose me,” this
seductress whispered as she nibbled my ear. So Stories for the Third Ear, Using Hypnotic Fables in Psychotherapy, (Lee
Wallas,1985) slid into my
arms. Wallas mentions how, at the age of six, she discovered
stories –“ and all of them were about me.”
She quotes Nietzsche who coined the phrase - “with the ‘third ear’ that
we hear the metaphorical language of our intuition. We dream in metaphor and in
our deepest levels we dialogue in metaphor.”
Stories
induce a mild trance in both teller and listener,
writer and reader. Mystic poet Rumi evokes this third
ear when he calls us to “listen with the ear in your chest.” In such a space
we, entranced, are able to catch the reflections, possibilities, dimensions and
inter-connectedness and place ourselves in the endless circles of belonging
where, as Hermes Trismegistus suggests of the Divine. “…the centre …is everywhere, the
circumference nowhere.”
This
month may you inhabit such a hall of metaphoric mirrors.
Dorian’s June/July Storyshops/ Writeshops/Conversations
If you want
any of these workshops in your area speak speak.
No J’burg or
Aug events in KZN and J’burg
will be in end of June letter
….To respond to two oft asked questions –
No workshop is
ever the same. No one jumps into the same river twice.
I invite
people to read their writing only if they wish to –noooo
pressure
Western
1. West Coast
Langebaan Country Estate
Clubhouse
Sat 12 June 10h30 for
11h00 Lunch at 12h30
a. Bosman (oom Scalk)- a Story
Brunch (R100 includes lunch -Cash Bar)
It
is not the story that counts. It's the way you tell it (Oom
Schalk Lourens)
Join
us for a morning of fun, laughter, and lunch with Herman Charles Bosman stories. Listen to ‘Oom
Schalk’ narrate stories of love, leopards, peach brandy, concertinas and
psalm singing. “An unforgettable event”.
To book: Lindy
b.
Place, People and Personal Stories: A
West Coast Writing Workshop –
Sun 13 June 09.00 –15.30 R380 (R100
includes lunch -Cash Bar)
Come and celebrate living along the West Coast. Write your
stories of nature, characters and memories. Write of the rich fossil past. Find
the writer inside you. Explore your creativity and imagination, and learn how
to be at home with words. Participants can write in English or Afrikaans.
“Beginner” writers are welcome. Elma
Pollard joins Dorian for this event.
Elma
Pollard deel
haar passie vir die aanwending van die skryfkuns om
ons samelewing te inspireer om
meer kreatief en bewus van die aarde te leef. Sy
lei eko-skrywers op in ‘n kursus
“Write for Earth” en is die skepper van ‘n groen publikasie, The Green Times (www.thegreentimes.co.za)
To book: Lindy
2. Stellenbosch ,
Beginning Again: An Evening of Poetry R80… includes a glass of wine
Sat 19 June 19.00 – 21.00
[
I believe that poetry is a
primal impulse within us all. I believe we are all capable of it and … that a
small, often ignored corner of us yearns to try it (Stephen Fry)
For many of us poetry was made
difficult at school. We had to guess the meaning
of obscure texts. Yet we can all enjoy reading and writing poetry.
This evening is about recovering this simplicity and opening
ourselves to the joy poetry can bring. Poetry is another way of paying
attention, listening and observing the world.
With Wordsworth, ‘we see into the life of things.’ Poetry opens us to our creativity
and imagination. It cultivates a sense of belonging. I encourage participants to bring and share
poems they love.
Venue: Seaton,
Contact: Katharine Berger kath.m.berger@gmail.com 084 568 6439
3. Somerset West
Sat 3 July 09.30 – 13.00
How to be at ease with words: a U3A (University of the Third Age) workshop – for U3A members. Elders teaching elders. Free… venue 59a
New Street Som West
4.
Beginning Again: An Evening of Poetry R70… includes a glass of wine
Sat 17July 19.00 – 21.00
See blurb for
2 Venue: TBA
Contact: Evette Weyers emoyeni @mhws.co.za
5.
Conversations with Nature - A Story,
Land Art and Writing Retreat
Fri 20 (18.00)
– Sun 22 (15.00) August (I join land
artists Leli Hoch and Andree Bonthuys)
see site
freewheeling.co.za and
What did the
grass below the koppie say
Stranger,
the yellow grass, when you looked around,
Then
hastened on? Of shadows on the ground
the long grass spoke... (Veld Secret : Bosman)
Writing and Story Component
On this retreat we explore our life stories through our connection
to nature. We draw images and symbols from natural life and the landscape
around us . We create and craft our writing journey.
We celebrate our belonging to the universe and to
·
find your
voice
·
connect to
creativity
·
connect
inside to outside
·
let the
imagination lead
·
cultivate
powers of observation
·
increase our
listening to ourselves, each other and to nature
·
play ( what
Jung called ‘serious play’)
·
tame the
inner critic
Ongoing activities (some repeat info)
Email Courses: Writer’s/ Poet’s Voice Course – one-on–one
tuition
Some folks respond to structure, assignments… if so,
ask and it shall be negotiated. Here is one possibility: Do you love reading and writing? This one-on-one apprenticeship
aims to take you further up the writing mountain and offer you a deeper
engagement with your craft. This course is structured in the nature of an
ongoing conversation with a few chosen writers or poets, (ancestral or alive)
with me and with yourself. I encourage you to keep a journal to record your
observations and reflections.
Speaking Engagements
Be still when
you have nothing to say but when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got
to say, and say it hot."( D. H. Lawrence) I’m building up this aspect of my work.
Development Work
During 2010/11
I will be again be working alongside Dr Laura Campbell of the HSRC
facilitating training of home-based
caregivers and grannies - - through
stories and creative play - who care for children who are dying.
Bosman and
Nasrudin under starlight
This summer season I will be a story-ing
…an evening, wine, cheese, breads and tales for the telling. This kind of
evening is a bit like the old days -
singing around the piano at home. -Except I use stories and creative
activities to get folk interacting and to prompt conversations.
Themes… Chinese, South African,
Mentoring – one-on-one (repeat info)
“You make me sound like myself” (various clients.)
Walk with me in words. You put on one shoe, I wear the other. Memoirs, mindfulness
adventures, work in the word… genres tumbling out of folk on the one-on-one
path. Such a richness of story here.
5-
Corporate Work
The Halo and the Noose, the Power of
story-telling and story listening in Business Life R195
Want to source
a 100 plus stories? co-written with Graham
Williams (Graysonian Press). We run corporate story
workshops based on our book. Roma Howard, a training
practitioner in leadership and team effectiveness, writes:
I was
utterly captivated by The Halo and the Noose, and now regularly recommend it
when I am facilitating my Train the Trainer & Presentation Skills
courses. )
For orders:
from the authors or Graysonian Press Inspirational books that change
the world www.graysonian.com 0836101113
We've established a website in order to offer The Halo and the Noose as an eBook, and to create a Member's
facility for those who are serious about their story-telling and listening
prowess in business. Members can access various resources, audio streams,
article archives, their own newsletter, questionnaires, communicate with the
authors and will get ongoing offers. The site is http://www.haloandnoose.co.za (The
.com version will be up soon).
In response to a growing demand we will very soon be
offering an eWorkbook,
discounted to members (Story Matters @ Work) that contains many new stories and exercises covering
elevator, personal, business issue, corporate, crucial conversation and other
stories.
The Stone on the Stomach - a Poetry CD
with 30 of my poems old and new read
by me and by my son Dominic… R120
Friends at Work and Play
Aneta Shaw:
Creative relaxation in a small group context
Enhance personal growth and honour your soul through creative techniques.
Aneta is a clinical psychologist and hypnotherapist, has integrated years of experience and life
in other countries with ancient ways of being in this world.
Aneta
082 686 8118 or 021
8555415 aneta.shaw@vodamail.co.za
Peter Fox : Embracing the Grief Response at the Time of Life’s
Surrender
A
Workshop for Clergy, Pastoral workers and Counsellors
Fri 4 June: 9h00 – 13h00
An opportunity to understand the possibilities of a healing and
transformative dialogue happening at the time of death.
Presenters: Rev Peter Fox,
Rev Nicky Ing and Mrs Chris Barry
Venue:
Cost: R280.00 p/p cash, EfT or cheque (Refreshments, handouts included)
Peter Fox is an ordained Presbyterian Minister seconded to St
Luke’s Hospice as
the Spiritual Care Co-ordinator. He is the co- author of “Dying-A Practical
Guide for the Journey” 2005. He runs a private practice working in loss, grief,
marriage and spirituality.
RSVP – Olwyne 021- 797 5335 Ext
111 / olwynek@stlukes.co.za
Writer-sites
and News (see site news on my web. see new web address
dorianhaarhoff.com
May your third ear open.
Dorian
PS Thank you to all those who circulate this letter.