ABOUT WORKSHOPS

TRANSFORMATIONAL PAINTING WORKSHOPS

Transformational Painting Workshops at Anavami Center use movement, writing and theater to access images of the psyche in a safe and engaging way. Each participant decides their level of participation and to what degree they want to reveal their personal relations. Painting is the centerpiece of this transformational work and often complete in itself.

Workshop podcast: www.coreawareness.com/podcasts/creativeprocessmajio

AUTHENTIC SELF EMERGES AS WE UNDERSTAND OUR PERSONAL MYTHOLOGY

Our personal mythology is the infrastructure of how we perceive the world around us. It is the stories of our fundamental belief system, which supplies the navigating tools for our decisions. To be conscious of our mythology is to illuminate causes of conflict within ourselves and on our planet. It allows us to understand our lives in a larger context, giving meaning to how we define ourselves and is our model for organizing every aspect of our feelings, thoughts and actions.

This inner work aids us in becoming conscious of our personal myths, identify those that are no longer productive and recreate a personal mythology that is more congruent with our authentic self opening to fuller creative potential.

PREVIOUS WORKSHOPS

Wild Woman Workshop Theme, Skeleton Woman

In this workshop we considered the Inuit story of SKELETON WOMAN as a guide for creative process. Creativity can be sustained and is most inventive when the feminine principle is in balance with the masculine. In the story there are underlying themes of trust and expectations around relating to the masculine principle. This is reflected in our personal stories, but also most dramatically in the world in which we live.

To be clear, it is not male but the masculine part of all of us that holds the structure of the rational, expediency and the material. The feminine principle brings in the heart and the intuitive. Both are needed to cultivate and sustain creative process.

In Skeleton Woman, a father throws his daughter into the sea or the unconscious out of anger or in some stories he sacrifices her to save himself. In our world the feminine has been sacrificed in the name of production and commodity and we are paying globally for that imbalance of resources of the planet.

Through the Skeleton Woman story, we will explore our relationship to the internalized masculine qualities, which do and do not support our creative process and what it takes to trust and be supported by the masculine principle. Myths, fairy tales and stories are a powerful way to explore and update our own mythology in an engaging and imaginative way.

Our workshops require no experience or skill in the arts, only the interest in reflective play and willingness to step into your authenticity.

Wild Woman Workshop Theme, The Ugly Duckling

We have all been Ugly Ducklings, in our self-exile or imposed exile. It is much like the Hero’s Journey in that it often develops our finest talents. But it can also leave an gaping hole until we find our tribe. The outcast parts of us needs to find that affirming reflection of those who see and match our authentic self.
Below are some of the paintings in various stages of process from participants in the Wild Woman Workshop IX. Some refer to the developing poem of our journey of exile which began with quickly gathered printed images, one aspect of the weekends visual poem of our individual Ugly Duckling Stories. Expressive movement, music and written poetry leverages the images of the psyche in the adventure of integration, healing and consciously creating stories with a greater context.