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In the Client's Words
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"What a wonderful time I had at the workshop this morning. I just came from visiting with a neighbor who said I was positively glowing. Is there a better recommendation for your workshop than that!"
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Gratitude & Compassion Practice
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Take five minutes a day to identify one beautiful thing that emerged since waking. Share one of these with a trusted friend.
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Jennifer J. Wilhoit's Books
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Common Ground Between Crafts Collectives and Conservation
Weaving a Network
Order through Amazon or your local bookseller |
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TEALarbor stories'
mission is to compassionately support people as they discover & convey through writing their deepest stories.
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Greetings for the new year!
I trust that the holiday season held you close; I know that so many of you who receive this newsletter traversed difficulties in recent weeks and months. May 2016 call you deeper into yourself, this pulsing earth, and thereby root you ever-more-firmly in the soil of shared connection with all beings.
TEALarbor stories navigated some major shifts in the end of 2015; we have reestablished our office in the luscious Pacific Northwest...a place I have called "home" for nearly thirty years. This change of geography, combined with a letting-go ritual of an icy swim in Puget Sound on New Year's Eve (with the local "polar bear club"), returns me to a deeper experience of interconnection with all beings...a rekindling of the significance of "home," "fireside," "warmth," the burning of passion and compassion. This cycling back to the place of hearth also returns me to the most vital need to re-member my connection with each of you - Client, Friend, Sister, Brother, Red Cedar, Sapsucker, Otter, Sunset, Saltwater, Mud... And as I do so, I find "home" again.
Paul Hawken writes, "When we listen to people, our language softens. Listening may be the cardinal act of giving...it is the source of peace." By writing, by moving through our conflicts, by sharing our stories, by listening to the power of deep stories - as well as by listening to our hearts, to the call of beauty, to the natural world - we are made whole and return again to the hearth of ourselves. May this year find you softening as you give yourself the gift of listening to your own deep story.
TEALarbor stories is excited to offer another year of soulful listening, powerful story guiding, compelling writing, fastidious editing, peaceful mediating. We have new collaborations, new venues, new offerings that deepen the storywork - written, creative, and oral - in which we've become established.
Blessings,
Jennifer Wilhoit, Writing Mentor, Guide, Mediator
TEALarbor stories
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TEALarbor stories' newsletters offer inspiration, encouragement, & beauty; inform about the connection between story, the natural world, & all things writerly; & promote professional writing, guiding, & mediation services.
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Stories: Hearths, Written & Lived
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I am reminded that the word "hearth" - for me, synonymous with "home" - is comprised of the very words that are at the core of TEALarbor stories' work: "Heart," "Art," "Earth." When we come from a place of compassion, that creative spirit within us, we become whole, reconnected with our own nature, which then reconnects us with the natural world around us. We live our way back to a sense of home and all that it implies - return, completion, safety, nourishment, rest, and natural cycles.
What sense of home do you seek in 2016? Is it a physical place, geography-based? Is it a practice you want to begin anew or step into more regularly in order to feel more rooted in your life? Is it something that calls to you without shape but which opens your heart as it lingers, whispering? I trust that you will listen compassionately to your own story during 2016, hearing the nudges, needs, passions, and teachings that it offers.
Please email to learn more about how TEALarbor stories can support you as you move forward with your writing projects, as you traverse a life transition, or as you face a difficult situation of conflict.
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Announcements
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Hearty congratulations to one of my dear clients who has just this week finished the complete draft of a memoir! We still have the editing journey to traverse together, so I do not yet have to say 'fare thee well' to our regular meetings. I have had the abiding privilege of guiding this client through the "wide swath" of TEALarbor stories' offerings - working from the seed, an idea for a book, to completion of the full book manuscript. This person does not claim to be a writer, has had many incredibly challenging life situations that have arisen coincident with our mentorship/client time together, and works full time. Yet it is done! I honor this client's tenacity, am filled with gratitude for being asked to guide the writing journey, and - most of all - am moved to tears by the incredibly powerful story that has been lived, been written, and been lived again through the writing of it. This takes courage! To my intrepid client-now-friend: so many blessings to you as you usher your story out into the world, that others may be transformed by the hope you offer! Thank you so much for trusting me; most of all, thank you for trusting yourself.
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News & Updates
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I'm excited that my online course for the Charter for Compassion's Education Institute is in the final stages of completion. A Natural History of Compassion: Growing Tenderness for Self and Other via Writing and Ecology should be open for registration in the next couple months. These offerings are accessible to an international audience who is already demonstrating vast participation in the first institute offerings. Please stay tuned for start dates and registration details.
Mary York, founder of the Windows Within Project, interviewed me a few months ago and her beautiful write-up is scheduled to come out in February. This national project seeks to highlight, disseminate information about, and offer insights into the work of hospice volunteers; it aspires to offer "gifts of grace and beauty, honoring what it means to be human." There is special emphasis on educating the public about death and dying through the volunteer's perspective as s/he sits by the bedsides listening to the life stories and sacred wisdom of people who are dying. I will publish the link here and on the News page of the website as soon as the interview becomes available.
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Workshops & Events
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Stories of Conflict: Writing for Insight as a Tool for Mediating - Community Boards Mediation Clinic
Tues, Feb 2, 2016, 6-8 PM. Hosted by JAMS: Two Embarcadero Center, San Francisco.
TEALarbor stories' workshops are coming soon to the Pacific Northwest! Keep an eye on this newsletter each month for updates.
If you have a venue and a group (large or small) that you would like to see participate in a TEALarbor stories workshop, please email me. With a particular quota of confirmed registrations, you can attend for free!
Popular workshops include:
* Writing the Inner/Outer Landscape (introduction)
* Writing the Inner/Outer Landscape (five part series)
* Grief and Writing
* Writing for the Equinox/Solstice
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Did You Know?
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TEALarbor stories presents at a variety of venues throughout the year. You can arrange to have Jennifer present her work about writing and the inner/outer landscape, or conduct a workshop tailored to the needs of your group.
The work of deep storying that is at the center of TEALarbor stories has served individuals and groups on all seven continents. (Yes, even Antarctica.)
© 2016 TEALarbor stories - Jennifer J. Wilhoit, PhD
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