Workshop Examples
Here are just a few of the workshops I facilitate, in-person as well as online.
Other workshops can be designed to custom fit your group’s needs.
Please contact me to discuss what those needs are.
Some workshops are designed to be taken once, while others are part of a series.
Workshops are available in English and Spanish.
This is a workshop to explore identity in a fun and gentle way: via doll-making! As in all the workshops, this is not about creating “perfect” art, if such a thing even exists. This is about discovering: what you are carrying and want to let go of, what you want to take with you, and what you want to share with the world.
Take a look at your own journey via the power of dolls. Workshop includes writing, reading, music, and drawing activities as well as sewing.
Undiagnosing Distress Via Art
“Sick” is one of the many labels that has been given to those of us with the experience of HUGE feelings and intense emotional distress. But there are numerous ways to look at and learn from these feelings. From ancient wisdom from cultures the world over to modern-day criticisms of the western medical model, there are many ways to see ourselves and our experiences. Who would you be if everything that you have been told was wrong and broken inside you was relabeled gift? Come explore via art and writing!
This reading/writing/drawing workshop is a 16-part series (about one short chapter per session), based on the spiritual, philosophical allegory The Life of Zerah. Zerah is a seed who dreams of becoming a Great Tree in the hopes of receiving the love he needs. But when the Wind carries him from the soil in which he is about to root himself to the desert, a journey unlike the one he had carefully planned begins. Zerah’s efforts to become a tree take him through cities and fields, from valleys to mountaintops, from the depth of an ocean to the depths of his heart. Come explore the questions humans have asked for centuries but from the perspective of a seed:
Why do bad things happen to good seeds?
How do you go on after you have been broken?
Is the Wind kind, cruel, indifferent, or nonexistent?
What is the purpose of one’s life?
The book text is provided via PDF.
From Shel Silverstein to Andrea Gibson to Hafiz and more: poetry can change our lives. Let's share some transformational poetry via group readings. And then, via writing and art activities, let poetry help you discover your rainbows after the rain.
We are all bridges connecting different people and experiences. Who and what have you been a bridge for? Who and what has been a bridge for you? What bridges are you seeking? What chasms do you need help crossing? Come explore together.
This reading/writing/drawing workshop is based on the children's book for all ages, Nikolas and the Misfit Shapes Find Their Place. Nikolas is a shape who doesn't seem to fit with the seemingly perfect circles, squares, and triangles all around him. But he's certain that somewhere in the world, there is a place just for him, so he sets off to find it. Along the way, he discovers other "misfit shapes" also seeking belonging. What they find fills their hearts with happiness...but it is nothing like what they expected.
What shape are you? And where might you truly fit?
The book text is provided via PDF.
Far too often, internal struggles are viewed as though they are a problem with our individual brains, completely separated from social and historial contexts, as though systemic oppression does not exist, and as though if we "fix" everything inside us, everything outside us will get better as well. So how do you claim your power while also recognizing, everyone and everything else has power as well? How do you move from the paralysis that hopelessness, pain, and injustice can create, to the actions that transform ourselves and the larger world? Are we just a drop in the ocean? Or the entire ocean in a drop? Whatever we are, how do we move through this world? How do we want to move? What happens when we move alone? What happens when we move together? What is stopping us from uniting?
This is a two-part workshop about the names we use to refer to others and the world around us, and the names we call ourselves. When we use different names, do we see reality differently? Do we see ourselves differently? Do we genuinely recognize injustice and harm? And if we don't, how can we possibly prevent these things? Or heal from them? Is "beloved" a true synonym for what we call ourselves? And if it's not, how can it become one?
For those learning English as an additional language:
While it may seem more challenging to talk, listen to, write or read about emotions and life journeys in a language that is not your mother tongue, there are actually benefits to doing so. I know this on both a personal and professional level.
Without the familiarity and comfort of our first language, sometimes we are able to explore the unfamiliar and uncomfortable in different and better ways. And true growth, transformation and magic often happen in those unfamiliar and uncomfortable places.
