UPCOMING WORKSHOPS

TBA 

PAST CLASSES, WORKSHOPS, PRESENTATIONS

ART, SYMBOLS AND SPIRIT

ONLINE: APRIL 24 & 25, 2020 | 2-4pm
This workshop explores cultural and personal symbols with a focus on the power of symbols to guide one’s spiritual journey. Through contemplative meditations and creative play students will explore chosen symbols and their multi-layered levels of meaning. A materials list will be send to participants before the first meeting.

Center for the Arts and Religion, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA Cost: $100

https://www.gtu.edu/careworkshops

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THE ART OF SACRED CIRCLES
The circle is an ancient, devotional form that interweaves spiritual, psychological, and symbolic aspects of personal and cultural beliefs. World religions are filled with imagery that incorporates the circle in various fundamental ways. We will explore this potent image as an energy from which growth towards a state of wholeness originates. Through creative processes using visual art, movement, and writing students will engage with the circle form as a centering and restorative practice.

ART AND SYMBOLIC PROCESS
When the Soul wants to experience something she throws out an image in front of her and then steps into it. Meister Eckhart The course Art and Symbolic Process explores archetypal symbols (such as the circle, cross, spiral, and triangle) and personal symbols with a focus on accessing and articulating the multi-layered levels of meaning and transformation inherent in our relationship with their spiritual and material expression. Through individual and group creative practices, each student creates a unique body of artwork in response to a personal symbol, revealing deepening information relevant to the individual. Research and reflective writing regarding the metaphorical significance of symbols, cross-culturally and historically, allows a deeper investigation into the function, nature and power of symbols to guide one’s life and unfolding spiritual journey. Fall 2018 Center for the Arts and Religion, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA

CREATIVITY AND CONSCIOUSNESS
The role of the artist I now understood as that of revealing through the world-surfaces the implicit forms of the soul, and the great agent to assist the artist was the myth. Joseph Campbell
 This course explores the impact that myth, psychology, spirituality, and culture have on the embodiment of the individual creative process. The focus of the class centers on how archetypal energies of creation are explored in cultural cosmology and mirrored in personal creative practice. Experiential creative exercises, readings, discussion, and personal studio work will offer a deepening experience of this primal and powerful vitality. 
Winter 2018, Counseling Psychology-Holistic, John F. Kennedy University, Berkeley, CA

THE ARTS AND HEALING
This course is an overview of the powerful role that the arts can play in fostering well-being and wholeness. Research documents connections between creative engagement and pain management, recovery, stress reduction, and resilience. We will survey the writing, visual, theater, and music programs being used within hospitals and healthcare facilities. Experiential creative exercises will allow participants to experience their own movement toward a fuller living experience.
Spring 2018, The School of Applied Theology, Oakland, CA

OUTSIDER ART/VISIONS OF SPIRIT
”My work has a spirit in it. God brought these visions upon me and I have these visions and have to tell 'em to somebody and this world is all I got to tell 'em to.” Howard Finster.
This studio course is a survey of self-taught and visionary individuals who engage in creative activity as an expression of spirituality. Their art work offers unique perspectives in contemporary spiritual expression. Many of these artists make use of discarded materials to create their imaginative realms thus making the ordinary shimmer with extraordinary spirit. Through their hands, creativity becomes a pathway to an embodied relationship with the Divine and ultimately with our world. An on-going creative practice in a variety of mixed media will be engaged with in each class. A modest materials fee will be assessed for this course.
Winter 2018, Center for the Arts and Religion, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA

ART AND NATURE
The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence, there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop…Pope Francis.
This workshop explores the intersection of nature and spirituality. Through writing, art-making, and movement we enter into a contemplative, relational experience of nature.  
Spring 2017, The School of Applied Theology, Oakland, CA

SACRED ARTS: MANDALA
The nature of God is a circle of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere, Empedocles
The mandala is an ancient, sacred, circular symbol that interweaves spiritual, psychological, and metaphoric aspects of personal and cultural beliefs. In many traditions, the mandala diagrams the origins of creation and is an organizing force through which spiritual energy is accessed. 
The psychologist Carl Jung explored this potent form as the central energy from which an individual’s growth and movement toward wholeness originate. We will be exploring the mandala form as a centering device for personal and spiritual development through creative and contemplative processes including the use of visual art, movement, and writing. No art experience is necessary. The course is focused on internal growth and development of the individual. Each student will apply the course content to their own spiritual orientation and personal needs. Areas of focus include: Centering in Creation, Centering in Nature, Centering in Spirit, Centering on Earth and Centering in Community. Ancient and contemporary images will be presented and the history of the mandala form in cultures across the world will be considered. 

VISIONS OF NATURE
This presentation will explore the ways that contemporary artists and poets around the world are seeking to illuminate the beauty, spirituality, and challenges of our human relationship with Nature. An experiential creative exercise will be included in the presentation. No art experience is necessary. 

SACRED ARTS: THE BOOK AS SPIRITUAL VESSEL
This course explores the book as a receptacle for personal and cultural sacred knowledge. A global perspective is emphasized and serves to introduce a wide variety of devotional book forms and materials that have conveyed spiritual expression throughout history. Through a variety of transformative exercises, meditation, and writing prompts students will translate their spiritual energy into the forms, materials, and content of devotional books.

INTERNATIONAL EXPRESSIVE ARTS THERAPY ASSOCIATION REGIONAL GATHERING
Spring 2016, John F. Kennedy University, Berkeley, CA (presentation)