Selected some oracle cards prior the workshop. The Pure Dream card speaks of “following your intuition, developing your imagination, dreaming big and thinking about things with an open mind, connecting to the inner child and being naive”. The second card -Instincts - chimes with that and the third, speaking of embracing every lesson every moment, also attunes with the concepts of writing for well-being, of allowing the words to flow onto the page.
Today’s workshop was a smaller group than anticipated and it was more like meeting friends around a coffee table and doing some writing together and sharing and chatting. It felt very natural and quite freeing, even via zoom.
We explored the theme of “going away“ and produced a word cloud (shared with permission of participants).
The writing brought up recollections of places lived in, places travelled, places to revisit or to explore as well as things that have been bought while away and what we’ve done with them (or not at the case may be). We talked about the idea that it can seem so easy to purchase something while away with the intention of doing something with it when we get home and perhaps, on reflection, realising that it has been sitting in a bag for quite "some time".
We talked about how we prepare ourselves to go away and how we are while we’re away, meeting the people we meet, also the dilemma of wishing to make the most of the place we’re staying, such as a hotel or B&B, but then perhaps wishing to keep to ourselves to avoid using shared tables or eating spaces and all that goes with that.
There was food for thought as to which writing exercises could be used or developed afterwards as well as sitting with some of the material that came up and possibly exploring further.
Feedback: Asked if there were something that you would take away from today and practise at home, what in particular would that be and how might you use it?
Definitely the Wordcloud. I really enjoyed this and would like to use it for my own personal free-writing and possibly when explaining journaling techniques such as ‘clustering’ to others. Also I like the idea of writing from Oracle cards. I have a box of angel cards at home and I think I might pick one daily for a week as inspiration for some morning free-writing. (Laura Merritt)
