Writing to Deepen Inquiry: The Pursuit of Happiness

Now through February 13th! All Winter classes 20% off
or two people attend for price of one!

register and/or pay for program

Join Abbe Blum in an exploration and inquiry into how to open life up to more knowing through writing, feeling in the body and asking questions about the things in our lives – unfinished projects, favorite mementos, recurring thoughts. Abbe will lead you on a very personal journey, where you may understand better where you’ve been, and discover where you want to go. Bring your memories and dreams, your body, a notebook and pen, and your curiosity.

Writing and inquiry grounded in the body lets us begin to question our usual ways of occupying space and partitioning meaning—the stances that keep us both from tapping into our own deepest wisdom and taking the next right steps. Through skillfully listening to and actively engaging with the body, we can transform the action blocks that hold us captive, and in the process discover unexpected sources of inspiration, sustenance, and wonder.

Do you have an as yet unrealized creative or personal project like:

• writing your memoirs
• planting that barren patch in your yard,
• learning Thai and teaching English as a 2^nd language in Bangkok
• painting landscapes
• addressing a nagging health issue with compassion and effectiveness?

There may be something you just haven’t been able to start, or finish, or that has bogged down around the middle. This class provides new tools for realizing cherished and delayed inquiries and activities, visions and goals. And these tools emerge from within your own embodiment.

During each of these six weeks, we shine the light on stories that reveal the plots and narratives we habitually draw upon, and that enforce the unproductive division of inner and outer life. Each class also includes exercises and discussion to support class members’ ongoing projects.  We will use a wide array of writing and multi media creative exercises, simple meditations, and body practices that enhance deep embodied listening. The intention is that you begin to develop several practices that really fuel your inquiry and support the rhythm of your own creativity.

Required Texts

David Brooks, selections from The Social Animal

Tarthang Tulku, Knowledge of Freedom, “Pursuit of Happiness.”

Leo Tolstoy, “The Death of Ivan Ilych”

Margaret Atwood, “Happy Endings”

Cathy Davidson, Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention will Transform the Way We Live, Work, Learn

Joseph Arpaia and Lobsang Rapgay, Real Meditation in Minutes a Day