Courses offered by Heather Blakey
Working with the Everyday Goddess
Last week in the Great Escape – Intensive Journal Writing session we invited a Goddess to step forward to support and guide us. We used a deck of cards that feature the exquisite work of Susan Seddon Boulet.
Since then I have been exploring further and I have been pulling out a selection of resources to help expand our work with the Goddess in our journals.
This week we will be working with the Katharina Rapp’s Everyday Goddess Cards a friend lent me. With a delicious and slightly wicked sense of humour Rapp’s paintings take a light-hearted, yet compassionate look at the lives of everyday women. While her cards are out of production you can visit Studio Rapp in Castlemaine and immerse yourself in the world of this talented artist.
Intensive Journal Writing Course Begins with an Invocation
Mother, mother, what ill-bred aunt
Of what disfigured and unsightly
Cousin did you unwisely keep
Unasked to my christening, that she Sent these ladies in her stead
With heads like darning-eggs to nod
And nod and not at foot and head
And at the left side of my crib?
-Disquieting Muses 1957 Sylvia Plath
Back in the day, when I first began running writing classes, I used to invoke the Muse by setting up an altar, burning sage and having everyone actually imagine they could hear the rustling of gowns as the muses came to join us. Ask anyone who participated at that time and they will leave you in no doubt that the Muses were responsive. These wild women were overjoyed to be invited, having felt that they had been all but forgotten for centuries.
At this same time, I was establishing the Soul Food Cafe and one of the early sections I built was The House of the Muse. As a part of this feature, I gathered a collection of hymns to the muse. Then, when my late husband and I travelled throughout Europe for six months the absolute highlight was finally reaching Delphi, Mount Olympus and other sanctuaries in Greece. At Delphi, I called upon the Delphic Oracle and all but plunged myself in the famed waters of Castalia. I bought back bottles filled with water from the Castalian Spring, decanted the magical water into smaller bottles and gave these to those willing to anoint themselves and experience a heightened sense of creativity.
Time has passed and I have never forgotten these big-hearted muses who were so responsive to my call for support. Perhaps it was these heavenly spirits who gently reminded me that there is a whole cast of female mystics who would willingly give their time to massage the creativity of those who feel that it has waned a bit.
Little wonder that, seemingly by chance, I came into possession of Mirabai Starr’s ‘Wild Mercy – Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Female Mystics’. It is the perfect text to introduce early in my Great Escape – Intensive Journal Writing Class.
To learn more about what we did in this class and to engage online you need to subscribe to Trains of Thought. To get the key to Trains of Thought choose the amount you are able to afford (no more than $40 in your currency), pay heatherblakey@fastmail dot fm via PayPal and contact her with details of your WordPress account. It is very easy to acquire an account with WordPress and you may choose to keep your intensive journal online in a private blog. Once you have subscribed, email me your WordPress account email and I will add you to the site. This is intended to become a collaborative blog and you will be able to post and comment.
Wild Food for the Creative Spirit
The bodhisattvas are beings who have realized enlightenment but who remain active in the world, appearing in many forms to help others and lead them to enlightenment. They are venerated and called upon for help in time of need. Creative people are known to suffer from periods where they feel that the spirit of creativity has gone walkabout and abandoned them. At such time Quan Yin may be just the deity to turn to.
One of the deities most frequently seen on altars in China’s temples is Quan Yin (also spelled Kwan Yin, Kuanyin; in pinyin, Guanyin). In Sanskrit, her name is Padma-pâni, or “Born of the Lotus.” Quan Yin, alone among Buddhist gods, is loved rather than feared and is the model of Chinese beauty. Regarded by the Chinese as the goddess of mercy, she was originally male until the early part of the 12th century and has evolved since that time from her prototype, Avalokiteshvara, “the merciful lord of utter enlightenment,” an Indian bodhisattva who chose to remain on earth to bring relief to the suffering rather than enjoy for himself the ecstasies of Nirvana. One of the several stories surrounding Quan Yin is that she was a Buddhist who through great love and sacrifice during life, had earned the right to enter Nirvana after death. However, like Avlokiteshvara, while standing before the gates of Paradise she heard a cry of anguish from the earth below. Turning back to earth, she renounced her reward of bliss eternal but in its place found immortality in the hearts of the suffering. (Read More)
One of the challenges of keeping a journal is deciding what to write about. In my Great Escape – Intensive Journal Writing course I provide stimuli which will induce a flow of words. I have a collection of oracle cards which I encourage participants to draw from. The Wild Kuan Yin Oracle set by Alana Fairchild is one pack that I have found feeds the creative spirit.
In a journal writing class, I remind you that within you beats a wild and compassionate heart, alive with fierce optimism. You have the courage to walk a path of transformation. You will not be tamed by convention. You are not afraid to be different, to take risks for what you love, and most of all, to keep hope in your heart. You are one of the wild ones.
Drawing a card from this deck can help when the Spirit of Creativity appears to be distracted and wandered off. This oracle deck channels the energy of the Divine Mother to bring you comfort. She’ll remind you of your fire, your boldness, your unique beauty, your passion, your courage. She’ll guide you through even the darkest trials into the blessing of new life. She’ll open your heart and mind to untold possibilities and assist you to live your highest destiny with fearlessness and joy.
Intensive Journal Writing – Give Voice to the Sacred Fool
It is time for play. The more bizarre, left field, unexpected and apparently ridiculous the better. This may not feel safe or appropriate at first. That is okay. That is good actually. It is a sign that you are breaking with your self-imposed conventions. It is time to move beyond them now because a bigger life adventure is calling you.
Sacred Rebels – Alana Fairchild
The Great Escape – An Intensive Journal Writing Course begins on Wednesday the 16th of October at the Castlemaine Community House.
This is a time when we can unleash and play with the Sacred Fool. The fool is a great rebel, able to thwart conventions and tell the truth without restraint.
Our journals provide a safe space to let the fool, who does not give a hoot about what the mind is saying, have free reign. In an intensive journal writing class, we do not have to worry about being socially acceptable or what others may think of us when we sit outside reading children’s books to the trees.
The day time class provides the opportunity for us to sling our creative medicine bags, filled with supplies, over our shoulders and wander around Castlemaine. For example, in order to position ourselves in the now, we may take time to visit the nearby collectible place and see what items demand to be given a voice within our journals. We may sit outside the nearby coffee house, visit the art gallery and step inside artwork, check out what is going on at the Railway Station or just wander down some streets and see what endless variety of nothing turns out to provide a rich vein of gold.
For details check out the Castlemaine Community House. Alternatively, if you are interested in joining a small evening group in a private home, contact me for details.
The Great Escape – Intensive Journal Writing
“I looked at other journals, notably those of Dostoevsky and Anaïs Nin, and I could see that, for them, the journal was a vehicle that led to greater creativity. But I found that a good many other journals were just diaries: without a project to be done, people’s diaries just went around in circles.”
Ira Progoff
Everyone has a life and that life must be his or her great work of art. There’s an underground stream of images and recollections within each of us. The stream is nothing more or less than our interior life. When we enter it, we ride it to a place where it wants to go. It is within this interior world that we can come to identify who we really are and what our big project is to be.
Cast aside any preconceived ideas you may have about journal writing. Take the quantum leap! Select a journal, pack a creative medicine bag and prepare to go deep within.
Intensive journal writing is quite different from diary writing. There are many good reasons to make the commitment to find sanctuary and to work within a journal. Keeping a journal provides you with the opportunity to
- make it a habit to work with your personal creative partner
- establish a playground for your right brain
- exercise all your senses and draw from the well of unconsciousness
- resolve writer’s block
- position yourself in the now
- appreciate how creative you actually are
- identify where you fit into the wheel of life.
This journalling course will help almost anyone who wishes to go deep within and explore his or her life as a work of art. Everyone ends up with a journal full of stories and recollections and often surprising new insights about the most fascinating mystery of all: themselves and their relation to the world around them. To engage you don’t need to be a mystic or perceive yourself to be incredibly creative. All you need is a life!
Check some samples of Intensive Journal Writing activities.
If you are interested in engaging in this course you can make enquiries at the Castlemaine Community House. Alternatively, you can contact heatherblakey@fastmail dot fm to subscribe and join Trains of Thought, a site containing resources and prompts. Contact Heather Blakey for details.
Lived Experience Narrative
During these sessions, we will work collaboratively in a safe, supportive environment. We will pursue the idea that everyone has an important story to tell. We will spend time yarning with one another, extend our reach and interview people from diverse walks of life. We will also build up personal dossiers of our lived experiences and explore how to share our stories safely, for the benefit of ourselves and others.
A minimum deposit of 25% must be paid before 18th July to secure a place in this course.
Date: Thursdays, 25th July – 12th September (8 weeks)
Time: 6.00pm – 8.00pm
Where: Castlemaine Community House, 30 Templeton Street.
Cost: $200 (Full) or $180 (Conc. or Early Bird Discount. EDB available until 4th July)
Tutor: Heather Blakey
Writing for Wellness
Are you interested in writing for self-exploration? Would you like to enhance your own personal or professional development through creative writing?
This 8-week course, led by Heather Blakey, guides students in creating a mindful writing practice, exploring therapeutic and reflective writing, through a variety of techniques.
A minimum deposit of 25% must be paid before Thursday April 18th to secure a place in this course.
Date: Wednesdays, April 24th – June 12th (8 weeks)
Time:6.30pm-8.30pm
Where:Castlemaine Community House, 30 Templeton Street.
Cost:$200 (full) or $180 (Early Bird Discount, available until March 27th)
After a highly successful inaugural class, I am also offering Drilling Down: Writing For Wellness 2. Experienced writers seeking to ignite the creative flame, or those who engaged in my Travels with A Donkey Course may also enjoy this group.
The other class I am offering is Stories by Me, a course specifically designed with children in mind. But it would be fun to have some adults and children engaging simultaneously.
While Waiting For Godot 