November 3-5, 2006
This is the workshop description from Deena’s workshop at Rowe in November 2004. The currently scheduled workshop will be similar in content, and an updated description will be posted as soon as it is available.
Each of our stories is a universe, as unique, and complex as the universe itself. Each one of us is living a story that has psychological, political, ecological, spiritual, and mythic implications. To discover its shape and essence is essential to healing and soul making.
The psyche is a protean entity, elusive, mutable, shimmering, in constant transformation from one element to another. Any event or experience can be a nexus point for a multitude of time lines converging in that moment to reveal profound meanings. To know this is to understand Story, and to follow Story is to understand the direction and path of healing. The task is to step into the stories that we have been given to live, to honor them by investigating their form and meaning. We can understand what they say to us about the direction of our lives and the nature of healing. We can discover the way that story is a path, opening the future before us, individually and collectively.
We will be carefully guided through a series of writing exercises into the heart of the creative process. We will be invited to discover the meaning, necessity, healing potentials, and beauty of our own tale. This workshop is for writers and non-writers alike, for the shy and the courageous, for all those interested in story, language, creativity, healing, awareness, authenticity, and rigorous interchange with the true self. Before breakfasts, an optional dream group will be offered with Deena and Valerie Wolf, a traditional dreamer in the Nez Perce tradition. This retreat is for women and men who will be encouraged and guided to claim the vast field of the imagination as their territory.
We will begin a process of discovering the richness of our real natures, which incorporate all of human history and futures, the personal as well as the mythic. Nothing is required but paper and pen and the desire to see clearly and deeply and to know oneself and the inner world. The world of possibility is dazzling. We can know ourselves, the inner world, and the great world. Deena Metzger is a compassionate healer, passionate woman, political activist, spinner of myths, spiritual explorer, novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, lecturer, educator, and psychotherapist, She is concerned with the ecological relationships between nature, psyche, politics, spirit, and imagination. She has been leading journal and writing workshops and working as a psychotherapist, medicine woman, and healer for 20 years. Recently, she has been training healers and working with physicians on the spiritual, creative, political, and ethical of healing for the 21st Century. Her most recent book is The Ghost River: Meditations on the Theory and Practice of Healing, and the forthcoming Doors: A Fiction for Jazz Horn. Her many books include Writing For Your Life, Tree: and Intimate Nature: Women’s Bond with Animals. Her workshops are powerful and deeply moving, as is Deena herself, and we’re honored to welcome her back.
Deena Metzger is a compassionate healer, passionate woman, political activist, spinner of myths, spiritual explorer, novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, lecturer, educator, and psychotherapist, She is concerned with the ecological relationships between nature, psyche, politics, spirit, and imagination. She has been leading journal and writing workshops and working as a psychotherapist, medicine woman, and healer for 20 years. Recently, she has been training healers and working with physicians on the spiritual, creative, political, and ethical of healing for the 21st Century. Her most recent book is The Ghost River: Meditations on the Theory and Practice of Healing, and the forthcoming Doors: A Fiction for Jazz Horn. Her many books include Writing For Your Life, Tree: and Intimate Nature: Women’s Bond with Animals. Her workshops are powerful and deeply moving, as is Deena herself, and we’re honored to welcome her back.