Write to the Heart Workshops
From Heart to Mind
Ray offers a variety of workshops and design other workshops for specific audiences by request. These workshops include;
- Write To The Heart,
- Write From Within,
- The Poem Within: Honouring and Expressing Your Truth through the Aliveness of Language,
- Write Way To Wellness,
- Simple Living Journal,
- Writing the Sacred: A Psalm-Inspired path to Appreciating and Writing Sacred Poetry,
- Language of the Land: Poetry & Nature Walking,
- Writing Through Grief and Loss,
- Prayer Writing
- Exploring the Mystery of Life through the Poetry of Meister Eckhart and Hafez
Write To The Heart
Adapted from the Journal To The Self, created by Kathleen Adams. Learn over 16 techniques including captured moments, springboards and clustering. These and other proven writing activities that help overcome writer's block, help you access your inner wisdom, befriend your journal, safely release strong emotions, heal relationships and clarify goals. You'll emerge from this workshop with a tool kit of writing activites to help you creatively pursue your own diary writing for your own enhancement. You'll find in this workshop peer support for personal journal work in a nurturing and supportive writing environment.
Write From Within
To be a person is to have a story to tell. Explore your own mythic journey, the quest of saying yes to yourself and becoming more fully alive. You'll write about different memories from the tapestry of your life.
Some of the themes that occur over a lifetime may include maintaining peace of mind, moving at the pace of guidance, practicing certainty of purpose, loving the people in front of you, opening to others naturally, important mentors, friends and companions, nurturing your passion for life.
Through a variety of step-by-step writing exercises, you'll learn outsmart writers block and deal with your inner "critic." You'll write from within, expressing what have been the significant markers of the life you've lived and the crossroads you find yourself at now.
Using the "spiritual quest"as a metaphor, participants are encouraged to discover new meaning to the unfolding story that is their life. Drawing on a splendid range of stories from a variety of spiritual traditions and literature from around the world, participants are treated to stories, exercises and guided imagery to deepen wisdom and achieve a greater sense of what thread unites the myth that they have been living.
The Poem Within: Honouring and Expressing Your Truth through the Aliveness of Language
Every person is creative and has something important to express. This workshop will help you unlock self-expression, your truth and creativity through Poem-making. You'll rekindle a place for poem-making in your life; Reconnect with your natural creativity; Experiment with the delights of language as play; Discover the healing power of poetry and its ability to speak to the ordinary in your life.
Participants are reintroduced to their poetic voice, its unique ability to mend what is broken, and to give expression to your own truth. Attention is given to mastering sound, imagery, metaphor, rhythm and other elements that explore the unique perceptions, feelings, and visions that make us who we truly are.
Write Way To Wellness
Adapted from the work of Kathleen Adams, this workshop covers a carefully chosen, well-crafted series of questions, story invitations, techniques and evocations that will place your feet on a healing path.
You'll discover how writing in a journal can be a powerful ally for anyone on a healing journey, whether adjusting to physical, emotional, mental or spiritual health challenges and transitions. Discover journal writing approaches for self-care, stress, managing grief and loss. Explore how qualities such as love, forgiveness and compassion can accompany the healing process.
Simple Living Journal
Whether you are looking at small solutions for cutting down stress in your life, or taking a leap toward the simpler life, this workshop draws upon inspirational stories of real-life people who have slowed down, overcome obstacles and created richer lives. Using the journal as a practical tool, you'll discover simple living approaches to time, money, inner simplicity, work, simple pleasures, families, health, housing and other parts of life that are potential sources of a joyful life. Based on the work of Janet Luhrs, author of the Simple Living Guide. No previous writing experience necessary.
Writing the Sacred: A Psalm-Inspired path to Appreciating and Writing Sacred Poetry
At a workshop modeled on Ray McGinnis' first book, Writing the Sacred: A Psalm-Inspired Path to Appreciating and Writing Sacred Poetry, you are invited to play with words and rediscover your connection with the sacred through the aliveness of language. Through sensory and poetic exercises you are invited to explore some of the poetic forms, such as simile and metaphor, present in the Psalms and other poetry. A splendid range of other poets including Rumi, St. Francis, Mary Oliver, Rilke, Emily Dickinson, Leonard Cohen and others are heard to expand our imaginations as we contemplate what we want to express about gratitude, joy, ecstasy, love, lament, wisdom, vision and other spiritual themes that are emerging for us. This workshop requires no familarity with either the Bible or poetry. Both seasoned writers and those who have never put pen to paper are welcome to explore the thin spaces where creative writing and spiritual self-expression meet.
Language of the Land: Poetry & Nature Walking
Earth offers us powerful images and metaphors with which to tell our stories. Rather than thinking of the earth's resources as commodities like oil and wood, poetry suggests we consider the more intangible qualities which nature offers us, such as beauty and spectacle, turmoil and order, mystery and predictability.
In this workshop we will go for walks along trails. We will look at what is underfoot and on the horizon. We will take time to write, infusing our poetry with earth imagery as a way to help reveal the unique voice and imagination of each one in our writer's circle.
Writing Through Grief and Loss
Prayer Writing
Most major religions include the practice of prayer as a devotional activitity, both for individuals, in small gatherings and for the purpose of worship. Prayer, directed toward the Divine in a worship setting may include requests for guidance, assistance, for confession, thanksgiving or to express one's thoughts and emotions. Thus, people pray for many reasons such as personal benefit or for the sake of others in a local community, nation or across the globe.
While many people participate in prayer, for some the idea of leading prayer in public worship is a challenge. This Prayer Writing workshop introduces participants to some basic poetry devices that are present in the Lord's Prayer, the 23rd Psalm, and other devotional writing. Through simple step-by-step exercises participants are given guidance and instruction to craft their own prayers. This is a workshop for anyone who seeks to gain confidence and skills in writing prayers for public worship.
Exploring the Mystery of Life through the Poetry of Meister Eckhart and Hafez
Meister Eckhart and Hafez were mystics in the 13th and 14th centuries. Their innovative, playful and timeless poetry is like a distant mirror. Their poetry helps us see images we hold of ourselves, our world and our God in new and liberating ways. Meister Eckhart and Hafez lived in times of social chaos, war and disease. Yet, their poetry offered their contemporaries seeds of imagination. Their poetry offers us clues for providing a meaningful way to celebrate ourselves and our world in this new century of trouble and beauty. In this workshop you will hear selected readings of the poetry of Eckhart and Hafez, have time for conversation. You will be gently led to write new poems in response to what has opened in you. Come and have a fresh encounter with poetry's potential to be a companion on your own spiritual journey.
