What's on at Anam Cara in 2016?
Individual Retreats and Residential Workshop Retreats 

Individual retreat residencies as well as places in the following workshop retreats are available throughout 2016.  If you would want to make certain you get the dates, the room and/or the workshop you most interested in, think about booking early.  You might also want to book a creative retreat for a loved one as a holiday gift.  For more information or to make a booking, contact Sue at [email protected]. If you are interested in either Sharon's, Evelyn's or IONE's workshop retreat, contact each of them directly.
FEBRUARY 2016
A Poetry WeekendLeanne O'Sullivan
Retreat Leader:  Leanne O'Sullivan
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Arrival: Dinner, Friday, 29 January 2016
Departure: Afternoon, Sunday, 31 January 2016

From Leanne:  "Please join us for this St. Brigid's Day weekend workshop at Anam Cara during which we will invoke the creative and healing powers of this ancient deity.  Saint or Goddess, Brigid has always been associated with healing, poetry, fertility, fire and nurture, and during this weekend we will be working towards clearing any barriers that are keeping you from writing the poetry you want to write.  We will also be visiting some of the more ancient sites on the peninsula such as the Cailleach (The Hag of Beara), and using these as starting points for our work.  Whether you are lost, searching or just in need of nurture, this workshop will provide a safe space where you can take risks, steeped in the wisdom of poetry and traditional story, and renew a curiosity for your own work that will keep you writing with energy and confidence."
MARCH 2016
Singing Over the Bones
Retreat Leader:  Sharon Blackie (www.sharonblackie.com)
Arrival:  Sunday, 6 March 2016
Departure:  Friday, 11 March 2016
To book, contact Sharon at sharon@sharonblackie.net

Returning after an incredible  'Singing Over the Bones' creative retreat for women writers and artists at Anam Cara last October, Sharon is once again bringing her unique workshop retreat to the beautiful wild Beara Peninsula, the home of the Cailleach Bheara, and a place steeped in myth and story. 
     From Sharon: "During 'Singing Over the Bones' retreats, we explore the ways in which we can bring into our writing and other creative work that uniquely female sense of wildness that so often remains unawakened or suppressed. We do this primarily by working with wild myth and archetype and by mapping and storying our connections with the natural world. The approach is grounded and embodied; it is rooted in sensory experience, as well as in the poetics, dreamings and storying of the land and its inhabitants. It is about re-enchantment, for sure -- but it is also about  quickening.
     "We aim to create a warm, supportive but creatively challenging and transformative atmosphere in which we spend time indoors and outdoors, exploring a unique combination of practices -- writing, storytelling, creative imagination as well as crafting and artwork techniques -- to deepen our connectedness, catalyse our own personal metamorphoses, and enrich our creative practice.  There is free time for private creative work, walking, and relaxation, and the evenings after dinner are devoted to conversation, readings and to myth- and storytelling by the fire."          
APRIL 2016
"What do I Mean by Creativity?": A Proprioceptive Writing Retreat
Retreat Leader: Ginny Keegan, Proprioceptive Writing Teacher, Artist,        Writer and Long-time Student of Buddhist Meditation
Arrival: 16 April 2016, Departure: 23 April 2016 

Because of the success of this workshop retreat in 2015, Anam Cara is once again sponsoring a week exploring this unique approach to writing.
     "How does Proprioceptive Writing (PW) promote creativity? People have blocks to creativity for all kinds of reasons. These may reside in our memories, in our emotions, and in our attitudes, values, and belief systems. By bringing these into the open through attention to our ideas and feelings, the PW method begins to break up these blocks. Through PW, people increase their creativity and feel their minds expand, one of life's greatest pleasures. 
     "Without the practice of PW, I would not be an artist today. Convinced (since that day in First Grade when everyone laughed at my picture) that I had no ability, I closed my paint box for 50 years. In 2000, while on a PW retreat at Anam Cara, I was invited into a watercolour workshop that was in process. Daunted by my encrusted view of 'no talent in this lifetime,' I moved from my PW writing paper and pen to watercolour and brush and began to paint.  A magical new world became possible."    
     Today, Ginny is a founding member of Artisans Collective-Yarmouth, Maine, USA. (www.ginnykeeganwatercolors.com)

MAY 2016
David Hazard

Writing with Fire:  Creating Works That Rivet Your         Readers
Retreat Leader: David Hazard
Arrival:  Saturday, 30 April 2016
Departure:  Saturday, 7 May 2016
 
"The week will help you find or further explore your voice as a writer. Voice is the edge every acquisition editor and contest judge looks for, beneath the writer's technical skill.  Your voice - your fire, if you will -- is what gives your writing, from first to last, its true and lasting brilliance.
          "Great writers... successful writers... learn how to speak with what I call, "the voice of the soul, and the voice of the body." Power is released into your writing when you open these energies. Whether creating a novel, a memoir, or essays, fresh, riveting voice is essential."

* * * * *

Painting the Wild Coast of Ireland: A Watercolour      Painter's Idea of Heaven  
Retreat Leader: Evelyn Dunphy               (www.evelyndunphy.com)
Arrival: 28 May 2016
Departure: 4 June 2016 
To book, contact:  Evelyn at [email protected]  

This year will be the third group that Evenlyn as brought to Anam Cara for a delightful week of painting with her excellent insturction in situ.
     From Evelyn: "Join us as we experience the haunting beauty that surrounds Anam Cara. The lengthening spring days offer plein air opportunities in the colorful village of Eyeries, the nearby strand, and mountains. I will lead you in painting the wild, rugged coastal views of this ancient landscape. Brightly colored cottages wind their way down the lane and the misty foothills of the Macgillycuddy Reeks overlooking Coulagh Bay reveal themselves in the ever-changing light -- it's an artist's paradise.
     "This workshop is designed to expand your knowledge and ability with plein air painting, accompanied by studio work that will underscore and re-enforce the field work. I hope that the combination of this and a new landscape will prove a winning combination."
     Evelyn Dunphy offers clear, concise methods of looking at the complexities of nature and choosing the major and minor "chords" that enable her students to express their personal excitement about the landscape. Her analogies to music are especially enlightening: "a staccato of brushwork against the long rest of a graded wash."
 
JULY 2016

Memory, Secrets and Immortality:
A Crucible for Creativity
A Women's Writing and Visual Arts Retreat
Retreat Leader:  IONE (www.Ministryofmaat.org)
Arrival: 23 July 2016
Departure: 29 July 2016
To book, contact: IONE at
womensmysteries@gmail.com

Women may work on new or pre-existing projects. 
Meditation, guided meditation, discussion and copious free creative time and sharing of work as desired are a part of this gentle and restorative retreat.
     IONE is an author/playwright/director and an improvising word/sound artist. Her works include the critically acclaimed memoir, Pride of Family; Four Generations of American Women of Color, Nile Night, Remembered Texts from The Deep, Listening in Dreams & This is a Dream!   Her anthology, Spell Breaking; Remembered Ways of Being also features up to 18 participants in a vibrant Traveling Show. A second volume of Spell Breaking is currently in progress. 
      A specialist in dreams and the creative process, Ione conducts retreats throughout the world. She is Deep Listening Certification Instructor with The Center for Deep Listening at RPI, Troy,NY and Director of the Ministry of Ma�t, Inc. Both organizations act to foster harmonious world community. 

AUGUST 2016

Leanne O'Sullivan
Lining Our Thoughts: A Poetry Writing Workshop      Retreat
Retreat Leader:  Leanne O'Sullivan
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Arrival:  Saturday, 30 July 2016
Departure:  Saturday 6 August 2016

"This workshop is for those who would like to begin to write poetry or those who would like to develop poems they have already started.  The main aim of my workshops is to encourage writers through discussion, exercise based and free writing, while also allowing them to take risks in a supportive environment. Each session will focus on a different topic, such as imagery, perspective, storytelling, rhythm and form. Everything a writer needs is inside of themselves, and it's my goal to help them refine the effectiveness of how they communicate their subject matter.
      "Morning sessions will include a reading of poems by established writers (which will be supplied) with discussion of what makes these poems effective, writing exercises and also excursions to some sites in Beara that have given inspiration to my own writing.  In the afternoons, I will be available for one-to-one sessions and this will also be free time during which participants can enjoy the creative peace of the retreat and do some writing."

Announcing the competition for a place in Leanne's workshop retreat:

Since our workshop will take place on the magical, mythical Beara Peninsula, it is very fitting that our poetry -- which is, after all, a concentrated imaginative and intellectual response to our experiences and contexts -- will seek to possess something of the essence of this very special part of the world.
     As an entrant to this competition, you must write a poem (max. 40 lines) based on or inspired by a mythological narrative. Your narrative may be updated into a modern context if you wish, though the bones of mythology should reside. Please submit your entry as an attached word.doc without personal information on the poem to Sue at [email protected].
  
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