Mysticism & Symbolism:
adding magic to Memoir
An 7-session writing exploration
w/ author Laura Lentz
BEGINS LATE JULY 2021
Writers ask me all the time – Did that story really happen to you? And the answer is both yes and no. Stories are puzzle pieces we extract from our memories, and how we put them together – what we choose to show or not show, is what engages a reader. Writers pull the magic details stories from place, symbols and mystical elements, then weave them in a way that is both grounding and metaphorical. A good story will mean something different for each reader, as each reader brings their own life to every story they read.
A compelling essay or memoir has all the ingredients of an unplanned recipe that turns out pefect – it’s a mix of the sacred, synchronicities and symbolism, mixed in with the unique moments that define us all on our life journey.
In this next six week writing course, writers will explore and practice writing stories that lure the reader like a beautiful sunset that suddenly emerges from underneath a dark cloud, surprising even ourselves with the recall of an event, and eploring all the wisdom that was there all along. Poet Jane Hirshfield writes in her Book Ten Windows, How Great Poems Transform the World:
Many good poems have a kind of window-moment in them –
they change their direction of gaze in a way
that suddenly opens a broadened landscape of meaning and feeling.
The gesture is one of lifting, unlatching, releasing;
mind and attention swing open to new-peeled vistas.
Good essays and memoirs have the same window-moment described by Jane Hirshfield. In this six week course, I’m inviting writers to tap into their own held places of wisdom, which are attached to light, sense, sound and air – to ocean, earth and weather. Your body holds all the wisdom you need to write compelling stories, all you have to do is invite the magic to show up on the page.
Two online Sunday evening Classes – the Saturn Return and the Major Arcana
In addition to five small group live online sessions (and one night in my living room on Kauai!), writers will get to write with all the writers taking this course in two online sessions with me teaching beside Dr. Jan Seward, astrologer (where we will write to our Saturn Return), and also Tarot card expert Jeanne. Students will get to write and read the will teach all the students taking this class in two separate online sessions. Explored with Jan will be our Saturn Return, sometimes tumultuous, other times life affirming, we will explore the opportunities and challenges as Saturn returns to the place in our birth chart on the day we were born. Jeanne will use the Tarot as a symbolic tool to explore aspects of hte Major arcana, and teach us how a card can take us deeper into story.
“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you
because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.
Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
―
TOPICS EXPLORED IN THIS CLASS (Subject to Change due to Inspiration):
Mystical Places – We will summon coordinates from a place of personal history, a place that changed our lives. Places often serve as thresholds, awakening us through landscapes or vistas or even a kitchen or a bedroom.
Ceremony – Ceremonies in life happen daily, though we rarely think of them as ceremonies. They also happen at pivotal moments and ages throughout our lives. Ceremony grounds us in who we are are and invites us to who we were meant to become. We will involve talismans, chants and clothing into this exploration.
The Mystery of Time – Thich Nhat Hanh says “the past and the future both lie in the present.” Even though the past has happened, we can transform it for a more hopeful future. We will practice reframing our past for the sake of a better future and write to the mystical nature of time.
Wisdom Keepers – Throughout our lives we meet people who impart wisdom on us just in the moment we seem to need it most. – both literal and metaphorical – we call in the wisdom sometimes man years later. In this class we explore how to drop into the character and the moments when the earth angels and sages blessed us with their wisdom, even it was just a brief moment in time.
Ancestral Mythology – The stories of our ancestors become a teachable mythology
The Tarot – There is nothing more powerful than the Tarot to feed us ancient images to tell a new story of our lives. A useful, ancient form of storytelling, we will learn from Tarot reader Jeanne Adwani how to create your own stories from the images and invite the ancient wisdom in through cards in the major arcana. Writers will explore the Shadow cards of death, the falling tower and the devil as well as light cards.
Your Saturn Return – I call the first Saturn Return a bitch slap from the universe. Astrologer Dr. Jan Seward will guide us through our Saturn returns, helping us understand when they occured and write the stories of what we went through during these times that asked us who we wanted to be. Saturn stirs the pot, and we will re-stir the pot through stories!
About the Workshop
By participating in these live classes, you learn the art of writing by practicing, deeply listening, reading out loud and hearing what is good in your story reflected back to you.
LEARN IN A SMALL, LIVE GROUPS
Each week you will take the class with the same 8-10 writers from all over the world, writing together and sharing your stories in a 2 hour to 2 1/2 hour class.
Writers work closely together for six weeks, deeply bonding and supporting each other’s creative leaps. Writers who must miss a class may audit another live class on the schedule.
If you have to miss a week, you can audit the class with another live group on another day, or receive the class via Keynote. Writers learn from the curriculum, but also from the positive feedback received from other writers. When we focus on what is good in writing, we develop an ear for inviting more of what is good.
CREATE CONTENT FOR A LARGER BODY OF WORK
Though writing is a practice, in this group you have the opportunity to create content if you are working on a book, a blog, poetry or essays.
Many of our students have gone on to publication through this process of writing every week, and many of our writers are authors often writing beside writers who are new to the practice. We all learn from each other’s work each week.
DEVELOPED CURRICUM - INSPIRATION TO WRITE
Every series is a carefully developed curriculum to go with the theme of the class. As part of the themed curriculum, we read carefully chosen poetry, watch videos, read excerpts out of memoirs and philosophy to support the theme of each class, and bring inspiration preparing us all ready to write.
Pre-writing exercises often lead us into a longer write.
After, we share our stories and deeply listen with positive feedback. Writers in each intimate group of 8 to 10 students become part of a larger Facebook writing community with other writers taking the same curriculum. Throughout the weeks, writers share and comment through the Facebook community.
Through this practice of creating and deeply listening, writers begin to uplevel their writing, and bring poetic form into their work.
Educator: Laura Lentz, author
Laura Lentz is the author of STORYquest, the Writer, the Hero, the Journey. Laura is a writing coach and developmental editor, teaching creative writing workshops online and on the north shore of Kauai for ten years. Her workbook helps writers write to every stage of their story inspired by the Hero’s Journey through 12-weeks of writing prompts and examples out of best selling memoirs and poetry. Laura helps writers create content and expand their body of work through unique methods – offering challenging and thought provoking writing prompts inspired by poetry, mythology and segments from literature.
Laura creates the curriculum for the 6-week writing workshops also taught by Guest Teachers.
Her exploratory writing workshops include The Grace of the World, soon to become an anthology of the best of her student work publishing in 2021. The book of essays written during Covid is like a love letter to our beloved earth.
Laura’s 6-week workshops are online and on the north shore of Kauai. Laura serves on the faculty of The Kauai Writers Conference and is conducting a Master Class for writers who want to write in sacred places on Kauai and allow Kauai’s beauty to influence their work.
Educator: Robin Gadient
Meet Robin Gadient – Teaching Friday and Saturday
Robin Gadient, teacher of STORYquest, the Writer, the Hero, the Journey has developed a following as both a writer and a teacher. Robin has been writing in Laura’s writing groups creating poetry and heart opening stories for several series. Sometimes the student becomes the teacher right before your eyes. Robin graduated from UCSB with a BA in literature. Robin has the uncanny ability to hold space for all writers and respond in a way that creates the needed energy to create her community within a larger community.
Meet Our Guest Teachers:
Dr. Jan Seward is a beautiful essayist, crafting stories that add the magical and mystical and still ground us in the every day. Jan has the unique background of being a licensed Psychologist, Creative Arts Therapist, who has studied and incorporated energy healing, astrology and the IChing into her word as a Divination practitioner. Jan will be inspiring us all to write our Saturn Return stories and bring those stories to the page, those moments when Saturn returns to in your chart to the moment you were born. I’m excited to work with Jan as a guest teacher in this series.
Jan’s Session is Sunday, August 1st
4 p.m. PST / 7 p.m. EST
Jeanne Adwani is a poet, creatrix, Priestess, and metaphysician living in Ypsilanti, MI. Jeanne has been working the Tarot card most of her adult life, and her collection of her cards is enviable! Jeanne invites us all to the Tarot card images to honor our own wisdom of what each card means. Jeanne will be addressing speaking about the Major Arcana and will invite us into our own wisdom. Jeanne tells us “you are your own oracle.” She nurtures, thrives and flourishes in a spirited, eclectic community that seeks to create an atmosphere of creativity, joy, intention, hard and easy conversations, and self-sovereignty.
Jeanne’s Session is August 15th, Sunday
4 p.m. PST / 7 p.m. EST
Classes Taught by Laura Lentz are Sold Out:
Registration for this class series is available – Friday with Robin Gadient
Thursday Online
SOLD OUT
with Laura Lentz
– 7 sessions –
July 29, August 5, 12, 19, 26
Guest Teachers:
August 1st & 15th 4 p.m. PST
Video w/ Guest teachers available
4pm PDT / 7pm EST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$220
Sunday Online
SOLD OUT
with Laura Lentz
– 7 sessions –
August 1, 8, 15, 29, Sept. 5
Guest Teachers:
August 1st & 15th 4 p.m. PST
Video w/ Guest teachers available
10:30 a.m. PST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$220
Monday Online
SOLD OUT
with Laura Lentz
– 7 sessions
August 2, 9. 16, 30, Sept. 6
Guest Teachers:
August 1st & 15th 4 p.m. PST
Video w/ Guest teachers available
4pm PDT / 7pm EST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$220
Tuesday Online –
SOLD OUT
with Laura Lentz
– 7 sessions –
July 27, Aug. 3, 10, 17, 24
Guest Teachers:
August 1st & 15th 4 p.m. PST
Video w/ Guest teachers
available
4pm PDT / 7pm EST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$220
Wednesday
Living Room
Kauai & Online – SOLD OUT
– 7 sessions –
July 28th, Aug. 4, 11th, 18th, 25th
Guest Teachers:
August 1st & 15th 4 p.m. PST
Video w/ Guest teachers available
5:30 p.m. Hawaii / 8:30 p.m. PST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$220
Classes Taught by Robin Gadient
Saturday Online
SOLD OUT
with Robin Gadient
– 7 sessions
July 31, Aug.7, 14, 28,
Sept. 4
Guest Teachers:
August 1st & 15th
4 p.m. PST
Video w/ Guest teachers available
10:30 a.m. PDT
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$220
Friday Online
2 Spots Available
with Robin Gadient
– 7 sessions –
July 30
August 6, 13, 20, 27,
Guest Teachers:
August 1st & 15th
4 p.m. PST
Video w/ Guest teachers available
11 a.m. PST / 1 p.m. EST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$220