Dear Friend of Poetic Medicine ~

"Our souls endure the cold sleep of winter,

their colors subdued to dull browns of

late November, taking on faith

that warm life - small

and insignificant as

earthworms - still stirs

at their core."

~ Gary Schmidt & Susan M. Felch

from Winter, A Spiritual Biography of the Season (Click Here) 

What follows below is the schedule that has been established so far for my public programs.

You will notice offerings include opportunities to learn and experience poetic medicine from varied perspectives.  There are programs for people involved in: education, medicine, spiritual practice, social justice & peace, psychology, pastoral care and personal transformation through creative expression.

One thing I am particularly happy about is the chance to collaborate throughout the year with superb individuals.

Sally Hare, Director of still learning inc., and I will weave together the Circle of Trust work of Parker Palmer and poetic medicine. The workshop in May at the gorgeous Kirkridge Retreat (Bangor, PA) is our 7th collaboration.  Sally is so gifted in her capacity to help people ask the essential questions of their lives, and in that gradual process make contact with their wholeness.  

This work is also about connecting soul to "role" in the world.  You will meet, in Sally and me, a great encouragement to do that connecting for yourself - and if that connection is already strong, a chance to renew it in a circle of trust.

In June I'll collaborate with Janet Childs, for the first time, to present When Someone Deeply Listens to You.  Although that is the title of a signature poem in my work - I'm smiling right now to say that it has never been the actual title of a workshop!!

Suffice to say that Janet, whose work you can read about in the schedule to follow, is one of the very best listeners I have ever met.  That's why I'm glad she and I are placing our intention together on this.  If you would like to explore and be present with the experience and practice of deep listening, please consider attending this for yourself.  

At Dominican College in July, I'll join with long-time friends David Watts and Joan Baranow, producers of the PBS film Healing Words: Poetry and Medicine  (Click Here) to serve on the faculty (for the 8th time!) of The Healing Art of Writing conference. The deep rooting of "medical humanities" into the medical field through writing is an ongoing part of my work.  I'm lucky to be a part of this team dedicated to the same.  I hope to see you there.

This schedule is, as I said, what has been established to date.

There are plans being made for public programs in June with Hospice of San Luis Obispo (CA); a retreat coordinated by Agata Dichev in Atlanta GA; as well as a workshop coordinated by Marna Hauk in Portland, OR in late autumn.  Please stay tuned! 

There are always new things The Institute for Poetic Medicine has to share with you:  On the IPM website we have added book reviews about the healing applications of poetry (Click Here) and stories of people joining our "Community of Poets" pages (Click Here).  Book reviews include issues like overcoming eating disorders, care for people with Alzheimers, the loss of a spouse, and haiku about intimacy and the love of the heart.  You may also visit our Constant Contact archive page of previous newsletters & journals to read about various resources that may interest you (Click Here).  Additionally, we are building a poetry therapy/poetic medicine resource bank.   

In a few weeks look for our online spring edition of The Poetic Medicine Journal - where we will share news of our poetry partner program and especially feature the work of poetry therapy in hospice and end-of-life care.  All of these are significant parts of the IPM story! 

We welcome your questions and input.  If you know of a place where "poetic medicine" could be of use, please write to us.

Photo Credit: Ed Skillin WAE Center, NJ (Click Here)

Kind Regards,

John Fox, CPT

P.S.  We want to be sure you are able to easily read and enjoy our Constant Contact e-mails to you!  If you have difficulty with images not appearing or text appears scrambled, please see and try the message at the very top of this e-mail that reads:

"HAVING TROUBLE VIEWING THIS E-MAIL? CLICK HERE!"   

The longer we listen to one another - with real attention - the more commonality we will find in all our lives.  That is, if we are careful to exchange with one another life stories and not simply opinions.

~ Barbara Deming

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment;

cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment is intuition.

~ Jalal-uddin Rumi

March 16-18, 2012  

San Rafael, CA   

Songs of the Soul:

Poetry & Sacred Music Festival 

Location:

Embassy Suites

101 McInnis  Parkway

San Rafael, CA  94903 

Fee:   Pre-register by March 14th to receive discount

Friday Poetry & Music:  $20/online; $30 at door

Saturday Panels, Poetry & Music)*:  $70/online; $90 at door

Sunday Panels, Poetry, Music, Sufi Zikr:  $70/online; $90 at door

Sat. & Sunday Panels, Poetry, Music:  $130/online; $160 at door

All Events (Fri-Sun):  $150/online; $180.00 at door     

*Note:  John Fox will be presenting on Saturday, 3/17  

               from 2:45-3:00pm.  (Moderator will be Jamal Lawrence

               Granick, PhD, LMFT)

Partial scholarships are available for the festival - Call 415-472-6959     

For Registration and Questions:

Phone:   (415) 472-6959 

Website:  www.ias.org  

To Download a Flyer:   CLICK HERE 

To Download a Registration Form:   CLICK HERE 

To See Information About this Event on the International  

     Association of Sufism's Website:    CLICK HERE 

April 11, 2012 

Akron, OH 

 John Fox's Poem "Lift Up the Banner of Your Heart" is included 

in a card selection in the Healing Stanzas Collection, 

a collaborative project between Kent State's Wick Poetry Center  

and Glyphix design studio.   (CLICK HERE)  

Wednesday, April 11, 2012:  8:00am - 12:00 noon

John Fox is keynote speaker for this annual conference that focuses on humanism in medicine.  The conference will also feature a poetry reading by Summa Health System care providers who have participated in Wick outreach writing workshops.  There may be an opportunity for attendees to write with John and facilitators from the Wick Poetry Center.  Please contact Wick or Summa to find out more.     

Location:

Summa Akron City Hospital

Raymond Firestone Auditorium

55 Arch St.

Akron, OH

To Register: 

This conference is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

Please call Summa Connections at (800) 237-8662 to reserve.  

 To Visit the Wick Poetry Center Website at Kent State     

     University:    CLICK HERE

April 13-14, 2012

Shaker Heights, OH 

Poems of Witness: 

Living with Compassion In a Conflicted World 

It is a challenge to find language in American culture that offers a humane and noble way of responding to seemingly intractable problems like injustice, economic disparity, and environmental destruction.  Media and political gamesmanship often focuses on surface issues, controversy and divisive tactics to replace the listening, dialogue and self-reflection that encourages people to truly examine life, discuss issues, open to collaboration and create something new.

How can we learn and practice a language that helps us to bear witness to the real needs of the world?  That process often includes the necessity of attending with care to our own wounds.  It may include finding help through a connection to what Quakers call the "still small voice within" or in whatever sacred name and practice is true to your spiritual call.

How can we listen to one another (and within ourselves!) in a way that allows for honesty, deep trust, connection, compassion and playfulness?

Creativity offers a pathway.  John Fox has worked in every area of the United States and in many other countries showing people, adult and children alike, how they can use their inherent creativity through writing to explore these questions.  No experience with poetry is required!

Truthfulness, honor, is not something which springs ablaze  

of itself; it has to be created between people.

~Adrienne Rich 

We will draw upon the power of poetry to build community, attend to wounds and reclaim a language of the heart.  We may explore poems by Marge Piercy, Pablo Neruda, Langston Hughes, Lucille Clifton, Nazim Hikmet, Yehudi Amachai, Naomi Shihab Nye, William Stafford, Maya Angelou, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Thich Nhat Hanh, Mary TallMountain, Denise Levertov, young children from around the world, among others.

But we have only begun

To love the earth.

We have only begun

To imagine the fullness of life.

How could we tire of hope?

-- so much is in bud.

~Denise Levertov

from Beginners 

We will explore how deepening a connection with this awareness empowers us to treasure differences and, paradoxically - even mysteriously, stand together on common ground.

"What John Fox brings to this topic of poetry as healer  

is potentially life-changing."

~ Ralph Day

  Cleveland, OH

A Community Celebration for Peace and Justice Through the Arts, Music, Poetry and Dance

Saturday, April 14, 2012

7:00pm - 8:30pm

with Internationally Known Poet Therapist and Author  

John Fox, CPT

Joined by Young Poets, Community Artists,  

Dancers and Musicians 

 Heights Christian Church

Shaker Heights, OH

During his visit to Cleveland, John will be working with young people at Fernway Elementary School on poems that reflect upon peace and justice.  At this Saturday evening celebration, some of these young people will join with workshop participants and others attending to read their poems.  People will share ways to bring civility and compassion to a conflicted world through all of the arts.  There will be banners displayed, created by students from Shaker Heights students. 

Please join us for this free community event! 

Location of All Programs:

Heights Christian Church

17300 Van Aken Boulevard

Shaker Heights, OH  44120 

Fee:   

Friday Evening:  $20.00 

Saturday:  $45.00

Both Events:  $60.00

Saturday Evening Only:  This event is free of charge 

For Information and To Register:

Phone:  Call Heights Christian Church at (216) 561-4800

E-Mail:  heightschristian@sbcglobal.net  

To Register:   Your check may be made out to Heights Christian Church and mailed to:  17300 Van Aken Blvd., Shaker Heights, OH 44210.

Space is limited, so please register early!

Deadline for registration and payment is Monday, April 9, 2012. 

To Register Online Through Heights Christian Church:

     CLICK HERE

To Download a Flyer/Registration Form:   CLICK HERE 

April 27-29, 2012   

San Diego, CA   

My Heart Broke Loose on the Wind:

Recovering a Sense of Freedom & Surprise

In Your Creative Expression and

For Living Your life 

Presented by John Fox, CPT  

Poetry is practiced best and is of most optimum use in our quest for wholeness and meaning when it is deeply treasured and respected for its essential wildness.  When your writing is met deeply and allowed to flourish in ways thoughtful people develop - with extravagant permission and genuine support to risk and try things out, when all of your feelings are welcomed - poetry as healer can take deeper roots.

Creativity does not work well when put into a cage; people might pay to visit a zoo animal in a cage, but everyone knows something isn't quite right.  Those cages are, in this sense, usually constructed of self-judgment and diminishment or the judgment of others built upon hierarchies of arbitrary evaluation.

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

~Rumi

This workshop is not a place to put on display one's literary and analytical acumen - although we will bring to the circle our love for and curiosity about literature, especially poetry.  We will likely meet our doubts about the value of our writing, but as a community we shall help each other to open to the surprise, songs and secrets that emerge from the page.

John Fox will share a holistic vision of poetry as healer that values this wildness and freedom, community and as always, deep listening.

I don't know how or when,

no, they were not voices, they were not

words, nor silence,

but from a street I was summoned,

from the branches of night,

abruptly from others,

among violent fires

or returning alone,

there I was without a face

and it touched me.

~Pablo Neruda 

Location:

Home of Lynn Pollock & Ilan Awerbuch

2546 Deerpark Drive

San Diego, CA  92110 

Fee:  

Full Retreat (Fri-Sun):  $165.00*

A deposit of $40.00 will reserve your space 

*Note:  Some partial scholarships are available  

For Information:

Please contact John Foos at: 

Phone:   (760) 672-7680  

e-mail:  johnfoos1@gmail.com   

To Download a Brochure/Registration:   CLICK HERE

About John Fox and the Workshops:  

When I set out for the

workshop, I had no idea

I would be so completely

changed or become so

completely myself again

because of poetry and

you.

~ Shannon Klassel

a very sincere thank you

for being what you teach... embodying the juice!

the mystery is waking up

the rain is falling

everything smells better

time is stopping for these precious tears

it was a gift of good medicine!

~ Risa Diaz 

May 11, 2012  

Seton Cove Spirituality Center   

Austin, TX    

Sponsored by Seton Cove

a Member of the Seton Healthcare Family  

The Soul's Language

A Talk, Conversation & Mini-Workshop  

About Sacred Poetry 

Presented by John Fox, CPT  

Meeting the sacred in the world, in nature, within yourself or another person, is difficult to express in words.  Your deep breath, a look of awe, the upwelling feeling of love from a deep inward place, a shattering of old ways of thinking, the caring embrace of another, tears streaming down your cheeks or simple silence opening out - all these are sometimes the only way to  express this ineffable, wordless space.  This is when your experience...

... all of a sudden

turns to a surprisingly vibrant sky

as your eyes widen ever-so-slightly

in a recognition that shimmers

under your skin, wells-up

into a calm line-of-sight

that is your own and goes on

almost forever...

~ John Fox from "Consider What Happens"

Another way to revive this connection to Spirit is through poetry.  Poem-making is a language of the heart and can be accessible to each of us.  Through the poetry of Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry, Rumi, Jane Kenyon, young children, Mary TallMountain, Zen poets, and Psalms of David, we will explore poetry that tune us to a sacred presence and inspire our own writing.  John  Fox will share what he has learned over a life-time of inquiry about poetry's spiritual capacity to inform, salve, heal and serve as a generative and transformational force to uplift and empower people. 

Location:

Seton Cove Spirituality Center

3708 Crawford St.

Austin, TX  78731 

Fee:  

There is no fee for this program, however pre-registration is required. 

For Information & To Register:

Please contact Seton Cove at: 

Phone:   (512) 451-0272   

e-mail:  setoncove@seton.org

Office Hours:  Monday-Friday; 9am-5pm    

To Visit Seton Cove's Website:     CLICK HERE   

To View Seton Cove's Other Luncheon Program Offerings:

     CLICK HERE    

(John's talk may not yet be listed on the Seton Cove website.   

Please check back!)  

May 12, 2012  

Way of the Wolf Retreat Center   

Fredericksburg, TX    

 My Heart Broke Loose on the Wind:

Recovering a Sense of Freedom & Surprise

In Your Creative Expression and

For Living Your life 

Presented by John Fox, CPT  

Poetry is practiced best and is of most optimum use in our quest for wholeness and meaning when it is deeply treasured and respected for its essential wildness...     

 (See San Diego Retreat Description Above)  

Location:

Way of the Wolf Retreat Center  

458 Wolf Way

Fredericksburg, TX  78624

(In the beautiful Texas hill country!)

Fee:  

$55.00 

For Information & To Register:

Please contact Lianne Mercer at: 

Phone:   (830) 997-6467   

e-mail:  lmercer5@austin.rr.com    

Registration is limited to 18 participants.  Refreshments will be provided.  Please bring your own lunch.  Microwave available. 

Although this is a one-day retreat, Way of the Wolf is a Bed & Breakfast and you are invited to inquire about the possibility of extending your stay before or after attending the workshop. 

To Download a Brochure/Registration:   CLICK HERE

 To Visit Way of the Wolf's Website:     CLICK HERE   

May 16-19, 2012  

Kirkridge Retreat Center   

Bangor, PA    

With John Fox, CPT  and Sally Z. Hare, PhD  

Labyrinth at Kirkridge Retreat Center (photo from website)

 Some things have to be believed to be seen.

You have to know they exist -

or you won't see them.

~ Sally Z. Hare

from I'll Meet You in the Field:

The Intersection of Education and Community

Wednesday, May 16, 2012:  Retreat begins with supper  

Saturday, May 19, 2012:  Retreat concludes with lunch 

In this unique retreat, poet John Fox and teacher Sally Z. Hare come together to explore the intersection of their work. They invite you to experience a circle of trust, grounded in Sally's many years of working with Parker J. Palmer's circles of trust theory, and the healing power of writing, based on John's own work in poetry therapy.

Of course, we haven't really lost our hearts, our true selves, our sense of passion for our lives and work. But the pressures and hectic pace of our modern lives too often cause us to stop believing - and we can no longer see what has always been there. Those of us engaged in organizational leadership, teaching, psychology, pastoral care, medicine and other service professions, in community service and social change, know the challenge of sustaining ourselves and our commitment to deeply held values and beliefs.

In this retreat the skilled facilitators will help create a quiet, focused, respectful space, in which the noise within us and around us can subside, and we can meet stillness. In large group, small group, and solitary settings, we will explore the intersection of our personal and professional lives, making use of stories from our own journeys, as well as insights from poets, storytellers, various wisdom traditions - and inviting our own writing and poetry to emerge.  Stillness is where you meet with the essence of things...  

In stillness we can begin to let go of external voices, stereotypes,  

and clichés that crowd out original, personal and internal voices.  

Those discordant outer voices fade away in stillness.  

Stillness is a place of rooting oneself in a much larger field of being.    

~ John Fox

from Poetic Medicine 

Celtic Cross at Kirkridge Retreat Center (photo from website)

Sally Z. Hare, PhD, is a teacher and a learner. She is the Singleton Distinguished Professor Emerita at Coastal Carolina University, where she served for many years as Dean of the Graduate School and Continuing Education  and was the founding director of the Center for Education and Community. During her Kellogg fellowship in the early '90s, Sally had the chance to meet Parker Palmer as she was exploring the concept of community. Parker invited her to work with him as he created The Courage to Teach. Since that time, she has worked with the national Center for Courage and Renewal and facilitated COURAGE TO TEACH® and COURAGE TO LEAD® and CIRCLE of TRUST programs in South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Georgia, Oregon, and Kansas, and leads circle of trust retreats nationally with educators, physicians, community leaders and other professionals. 

To Visit Sally's Website:    CLICK HERE 

Retreat Location:

Kirkridge Retreat Center

2495 Fox Gap Road

Bangor, PA

To Visit the Kirkridge Retreat Site:    CLICK HERE  

Fee:

$425.00 includes all meals, lodging, and the teaching fee.

To Reserve:  Please send $213.00 as a deposit.  If we do not receive two weeks' cancellation notice, deposit is nonrefundable. 

To Register:

*To Register Online at Kirkridge:               CLICK HERE 

*To Download Brochure/Registration:    CLICK HERE

For Information Please Contact Sally or John: 

Sally Hare at: 

    e-mail:  Sally@coastal.edu 

John Fox at:

    Phone:   (650) 938-2717  

    e-mail:  john@poeticmedicine.org   

Kirkridge Retreat Center (photo from website) 

May 24-31, 2012   

Canyon de Chelly, AZ    

June 14-16 2012  

Vallombrosa Retreat Center 

Menlo Park, CA       

With John Fox and Janet Childs   

~ Brenda Ueland

Thursday, June 14 - Saturday, June 16, 2012

(Retreat begins Thursday evening, all day & evening Friday,
all day Saturday & concluding at 5:00pm)

John Fox and Janet Childs have given their adult lives to learn about the practice of listening - to honing it - and they will, for the first time as co-leaders, bring their skills and gifts to bear upon how listening is essential when addressing personal questions and existential issues, to the grief and doubts that people grapple with in their professional practice and personal lives.

We are particularly interested in tapping into the creative and spiritual dimensions of mutual listening in a way that welcomes a transpersonal and self-actualizing awareness that awakens us to a much larger fabric of being.

We will consider how poetry as healer helps to hone intuition, self-honesty and discernment.  We will, practicing together through the medium of poem-making, observe when listening becomes clouded and distracted.  We are interested in tapping collaboratively into the creative and spiritual dimensions of mutual listening - in a way that welcomes a transpersonal and self-actualizing awareness that awakens us to a larger fabric of being.

Working together as a group/community/circle, in deep self-reflection and within dyad and triads, we will explore the experience of deep listening.  Some of the themes we will address as essential to the practice of listening are:  openness, respect and attention.  We will do this through poem-making, ceremony, music and community building.  

Janet Childs, M.A., A.A.E.T.S. (American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress) Diplomat has been actively providing crisis intervention in counseling and education focusing on the dynamics of loss, illness, crisis and grief since 1972.  Combining her love of music with her personal and professional experience with loss, she creates a safe and healing environment to gently examine these difficult life issues.  Janet is the Director of Training and Critical Incident Stress Management at the Center for Living with Dying, a program of the Bill Wilson Center in Santa Clara, CA.  Since early 2006 Janet has served on the board of The Institute for Poetic Medicine.  

  

To Download a Brochure/Registration Form:  CLICK HERE 

To Visit the Vallmombrosa Retreat Center Website:

     CLICK HERE

To Visit The Center for Living with Dying Website:   
    CLICK HERE  

 

July 8-14, 2012 

    San Rafael, CA      

The Healing Art of Writing:

A Workshop Exploring Creative Writing and Healing

at Dominican University of California  

 The Healing Art of Writing is published from talks & workshops from

the 2010 Conference at Dominican.  CLICK HERE for ordering information. 

Sunday, July 8, 2012 - Saturday, July 14, 2012

Prose workshops meet from 9:30 to noon each morning. Participants will meet with a different leader each day. Two to three manuscripts will be treated at each session.

Poetry workshops will meet from 9:30 to noon each morning. Workshop members and leaders change daily so that all may experience a variety of styles and voices.

Daily Talks and Panels with discussion on craft, editing, publishing, ethics and other subjects that address the particular concerns of writers.

The Healing Art of Writing began as Writing the Medical Experience, a conference that first met in 2003 as part of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers in the breathtaking Sierra Nevada.  The conference continued for four years on the campus of Sarah Lawrence College, attracting participants from all over the country.   

Past faculty members have included notable writers and poets such as Richard Selzer, Frank Huyler, Courtney Davis, John Fox, Ted Kooser, Donald Hall, and Alicia Ostriker.  Now we are pleased to bring WME to Dominican University of California, with a new title intended to reflect more closely its aspirations.

Our conference offers a unique experience in bringing together caregivers and patients who share a passion for writing about the mysterious forces of illness and recovery.  The conference fosters communication between the two worlds we are all born into, described by Susan Sontag as "the kingdom of the well and . . . the kingdom of the sick."  A belief shared among all the participants is that being cured of the disease is not the same as being healed, and that the writing of poetry and prose brings us to a place of healing.  Our subject is the body, our medical experiences widely diverse, our goal to express through literature what happens when a physical or mental anguish disrupts our lives.

Since participants are exploring intimate subjects, the conference fosters mutual support and friendship.  The campus of Dominican University provides a secluded retreat, yet lies within easy distance to San Francisco for those wishing to venture forth.  Wednesday afternoon of the conference is non-scheduled to allow participants to explore the Bay Area, socialize, or take time for quiet reflection

(John will offer early morning workshops throughout the week.)    

Location:

Dominican University

50 Acacia Avenue

San Rafael, CA 94901

For Information/Registration, Contact:

David Watts and Joan Baranow, Conference Directors

Writing the Medical Experience & Perspectives in Medical Humanities

Phone:  415-485-3264 

E-Mail:  joan.baranow@dominican.edu 

To Read About the 2012 Conference on Dominican    

    University's Website:    CLICK HERE

To Read an Article About the 2010 Conference in the Marin    

     Independent Journal:    CLICK HERE

To Visit the Healing Words Production Website:  

    CLICK HERE

Comments from Past Conference Participants:

"I am in awe at the details, organization, quality of faculty and participants, and the graciousness of all involved."

"The writer's conference was an outstanding experience for me.  My goal is to try and keep up my energy level and translate that into more and better writing." 

"After attending this conference, I'll never practice medicine in the  

same way again."  

July 19-22,2012 

The Summer Institute at Sophia  

   Oakland, CA     

My Heart Broke Loose on the Wind:

Recovering a Sense of Freedom & Surprise

In Your Creative Expression and

For Living Your life

Poetry is practiced best and is of most optimum use in our quest for wholeness and meaning when it is deeply treasured and respected for its essential wildness...  

(See San Diego Retreat Description Above)

In this afternoon Summer Institute mini-workshop, John will make sacred time for you to glean what is essential for you.  We will deeply consider how to bring creativity forward into our daily life. 

For More Information & To Register:

Please contact Grace Lara at The Sophia Center:

Phone:  (510) 436-1046 or 1-800-794-8813

E-Mail:  Sophiactr@aol.com 

Location:
The Sophia Center
3500 Mountain Blvd.
Oakland, CA  94619 

 

To Download a PDF Flyer:     CLICK HERE 

To View More Information About this Event (Forthcoming)

    on the Sophia Center Website:     CLICK HERE 

  

August 15-19, 2012

Rivendell Retreat Centre 

   Bowen Island, British Columbia     

My Heart Broke Loose on the Wind:

Recovering a Sense of Freedom & Surprise

In Your Creative Expression and

For Living Your life 

Presented by John Fox, CPT   

Poetry is practiced best and is of most optimum use in our quest for wholeness and meaning when it is deeply treasured and respected for its essential wildness...

(See April 26-27 San Diego Retreat Description Above) 

 

Location:
Rivendell Retreat Centre

Bowen Island, British Columbia (Canada) 

 

Fee: 

$650.00 includes full retreat, all meals and lodging 

 

To Register:  

*A nonrefundable check deposit for $100.00 is required.   

*The $550.00 balance is due at time of workshop.   

 

To Download a Brochure/Registration Form:  CLICK HERE  

 

To Visit Ray McGinnis Website:    CLICK HERE 

To Visit the Rivendell Retreat Centre Website:  CLICK HERE

 
Barbara McEnerney, in her wonderful poem As They Are, reflects upon giving her words the freedom and support they need to flourish, as children flourish when treated with curiosity, attention and room to breathe.  She invites herself - and us - to consider those kinds of words:

Instead, could I let 

them ramble along weedy 

paths only they know? 

Lean close to hear 

them whisper secrets, 

learn what they 

need from me? 

Could I love them 

as they are, 

give them room 

to grow, a chance 

to shine?

~ Barbara McEnerney 

from As They Are

CLICK HERE  

To Print and Read a Brief Letter From John Fox   

About  IPM's Work in 2012! 

Donations to The Institute for Poetic Medicine   

are Tax-Deductible.

Please Make Your Check Payable To:

The Institute for Poetic Medicine

Mailing Address:

The Institute for Poetic Medicine

P.O. Box  60189

Palo Alto, CA  94306

Acknowledgement of Your Contribution for the IRS Will Be Provided

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