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In the Client's Words
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"I have experienced great revelations when ideas are presented to me in spaces that are not my own."
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Gratitude & Compassion Practice
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Compassion and gratitude extend beyond the social human realm. With what nonhuman species will you make gentle contact: extend a caress, an open palm, your gentle spirit?
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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!
I returned last night from a powerful experience facilitating a training for a small group of mediators in the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco's bustling financial district. The evening's focus was "Stories of Conflict: Writing for Insight as a Tool for Mediating," during which I invited participants to explore various Writing for Insight© practices that they could employ in mediations, or in other professional and personal settings.
I was at first surprised, and then deeply moved, that
TEALarbor stories' work can touch lives in such a variety of locations: in natural places outside, in homes and offices, in hospice settings, within holy places and at conferences, as well as high in the sky above the second most densely populated city in the U.S.
We convened in a beautiful conference room on the fifteenth floor, halfway up the skyscraper, with stunning views of the bay at sunset. I was struck by one man's exclamation, "Symbols!", when he saw the dirt-caked, sandy objects from the natural world that were humbly laid out on the polished surface at the end of the huge conference table. His instant recognition that a stone, piece of bark, feather, moss and lichen, shell, or clump of seaweed might somehow help him dig deeper into his own process during the writing task was very heartening. Using these found gifts from nature, photographs taken in natural areas on seven continents, and symbolic storytelling, participants experienced what it means to write for insight.
There are symbols like these surrounding us all the time. To which ones might you begin to pay closer attention? Which might feed you, your work, your engagement with life? In the past eight weeks since returning to the Pacific Northwest, I have been compelled by the natural edges that reside here: saltwater to pebbles, treetops to clouds, wind to rain, and sky back to sea again...and I see how they animate my movement through the day, enliven my work, nourish my spirit.
Please read the boxes below for important announcements about upcoming workshops and other offerings, including the first Puget Sound workshop of 2016 happening in just a few weeks. There is also a link to the interview about my hospice work, updates on work in progress, and other items of note.
May you find the symbols that hold and guide you as we move one step deeper into 2016.
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: Symbolism, Written & Lived
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Hieroglyph. Labyrinth. Compass. Painting. Photograph. Memory. Documentary. Fear. These are symbols that communicate to us.
If you've spent more than a few minutes listening to me talk about words, stories, life transitions, or even conflicts and disputes, you will recall my mantra: these are just pointers, symbols, not the phenomenon itself. Words are not the tangible thing you're writing about; they're a description or symbolic rendition of it. We use writing, made up of the smaller symbols - words, to convey those experiences and feelings and stories that have woven themselves into our being. We express ourselves in words, paragraphs, loud arguments, quiet tears. These can light the path forward, even as they root us to the moment.
TEALarbor stories' signature practice, Writing for Insight©,
offers people opportunities to use symbolic images and objects, particularly from the natural world, in order to weave their way back to wholeness with self and other. This aids our writing, another symbolic act. It strengthens our feeling of connection to the natural world. It reunites us with a sense of wellbeing so that we may endure crises or challenges with others. We can use tangible objects to connect with our deeper selves because they share in common "the language of symbolism."
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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News & Updates
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Sound Spirit, a nonprofit associated with Suquamish United Church of Christ, "seeks to support individual exploration of spirituality." They have graciously offered to host an introductory workshop to TEALarbor stories' services, "Writing the Inner/Outer Landscape." Click here for more info.
I've just been asked to present my work again this year at the Association for Dispute Resolution of Northern California Annual Conference, coming up in mid-March at the University of San Francisco. I'm excited to offer "Transforming Conflict, Transforming Lives: Re-writing & Re-rooting Stories."
The Tulpehaking Nature Center in Hamilton, New Jersey has invited me to write a piece for their Questions for a Tree Project, a collaborative community endeavor combining visual art, viewer-derived questions for a tree, and the written word. My piece will be among those read at a benefit in late April, close to Arbor Day; the event will celebrate trees and the natural world.
My online course for the Charter for Compassion's Education Institute is nearly complete; upon submission, it will be reviewed and then scheduled. A Natural History of Compassion: Growing Tenderness for Self and Other via Writing and Ecology will be accessible to an international audience already eagerly participating in the first institute offerings. Please stay tuned.
The Windows Within Project, a national initiative that seeks to offer "gifts of grace and beauty, honoring what it means to be human" interviewed me a few months ago about my hospice volunteerism. The beautiful summary of the interview, written by founder Mary York, is now available; click here to read it. She's entitled the piece, "Jennifer Wilhoit & Discovering the Natural Landscape of Death & Dying, A Hospice Volunteer Spotlight: The Peace of Integrating Death Into Life."
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Upcoming Workshops & Events
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Writing the Inner/Outer Landscape.
Fri, Feb 19, 2016, 10 AM - 12 PM.
Hosted by Sound Spirit, Suquamish United Church of Christ. Please contact Jennifer for more info.
Transforming Conflict, Transforming Lives: Re-writing & Re-rooting Stories.
Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM.
Presentation at ADRNC Annual Conference, Univ. of SF.
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 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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