writing as a spiritual practice   
w/ nina schnall
​friday - sunday, july 20-22​
weekend immersion
Fri 7-9pm
Sat 1:30-6:30pm 
Sunday 12:45-3:45pm 
$195  before 7/13: $225 afterore 7/13 •  $225 afte

A Note from Nina
(about writing, from Paris)

This summer I carved out three weeks to return to Paris and stay at a friend’s flat in Montmartre. I was a student and intern in Paris in my early 20’s, a lifetime ago. Paris is where I first began writing as a path to self-healing and self-awareness — the seed of “writing as a spiritual practice.” 

I was grieving the death of a beloved grandfather, far from home and the people I was close to. My notebook became my most intimate confidante. In my notebook I wrote poems, confessed, philosophized, dreamed. I learned the art of turning straw into gold. My practice has grown then and continues to deepen. Returning to the place where it started is giving me insight into who I was then and who I want to be. 
Travel can light our creativity; breathing help us to slow down and become receptive.  I invite all of you to join me for a weekend of slowing down and connecting with your creativity in my upcoming "Writing as a Spiritual Practice" weekend immersion at Mountain Yoga.  In addition to doing light yoga, breathing and meditation, we will also:

  • Work with dreams. Those shards of our unconscious, paintings from our dreaming selves.
  • Write from the body. Creating awareness of our bodies helps us relax and bring together body and mind. Our writing is better when it’s embodied and visceral.
  • Write from the senses. When we write from the senses we become alive to the sensual world around us and helps our writing come alive.
  • Write toward our higher selves. We’ll be drawing on practices to fortify our gratitude, love and compassion. The more gratitude and love we have, the more we want to honor ourselves and the world we live in
  • Receive the support of good company.  "To stand guard over the solitude of the other." (— Andre Gide)

I hope to come bearing some pearls of wisdom from Paris. I will visit the gardens and ateliers of artists and writers to glean more from them about the creative life: the Left bank writers of the 20’s like Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Stein and the writers of the ‘Belle Époque:” Marcel Proust, Andre Gide, Victor Hugo. These creators needed solitude to work, but they ultimately needed and sought out the company of like-minded souls. In Letters to a Young Poet, Andre Gide wrote that love: “is to stand guard over the solitude of the other.’ It’s this kind of love we share when we come together to write in community.

Hope to see you there — registration below!
​
 Love,
Nina