Workshops: creativity, grief, exploration...

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The following Mother Henna and KotaPress
Home Workshops are now open for registration:

How do Home Workshops Work?

Testimonials

"Kara is an awesome facilitator!! I have personally attended Kara's workshops and was really impressed with her abilities. It's well worth the money to have her nurturing guidance on your creative journey."
~L.L., Washington

"I just listened to the [materials]. Wow!! Beautiful!! ...I can already feel the blending of energies and archetypes that are flowing within you and flowing out to us...everything looks so professional and is so professional and wonderful all at the same time. You...done good!!" ~J.M., Texas

“Knowing I could email you day or night for [duration of class] was like having a private poetry therapist. ...I would not have gotten near as much out of it had I not felt that you were there..." -CJInk, Washington

 

Take a Home Workshop Today

  • Home Workshops are available on an on-going basis throughout the year.
  • To register, you simply click the PayPal button to pay for your participation.
  • You get access to all materials upon completed registration and can download copies to your local computer to use at your own pace.
  • Workshops are online so you can participate from any geographic location, any time of day or night.
  • There is no requirement for previous art experiences. Our offerings aren't just about art, but rather about the heART of Creative Living and BEing.

Take a Home Workshop PLUS Group Coaching

The heART of Life & Death

WHY take this session:

  • Do you feel your life is dis-jointed since your loss?
  • Do you feel unsafe all the time since your loss?
  • Are you shadowed by guilt, shame, jealousy, envy?
  • Are you uncomfortable with issues of mortality?
  • Do you feel you have to grieve in a prescribed way?
  • Do you feel judged and judgmental all the time?

Join us and find out how to creatively find solutions for all these and more!

FREE SAMPLE: Right mouse click [ctrl + click if on MAC] here to save your free copy of our MP3 "Creative Approach to the New Normal" as a sample taste of what this session offers.

What: Self-Paced Workshop
Group Opens: As soon as you register
Materials: Videos, PDFs & MP3s are available online upon registration
Place: Connect in from wherever you are whenever it is convenient for you
Price: $35/person

"So long as you haven't experienced this:
to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth."
~Goethe

Materials Include:

  • Blessing to Open Class
  • Intro/Relaxation Meditation
  • Meditation II: Adding to the Noisy Breath - Face Drop
  • Introduction
  • PDF Supplement exploring Creative Supplies
  • MP3 & PDF on creative approach to Trauma
  • MP3 & PDF on creative approach to Re-member-ing
  • Video on 1 Minute Meditation for Day of the Dead/Full Moon
  • MP3 & PDF on creative approach to Safe Space
  • Video on 1 Minute Meditation for Being Safe & Sacred While the World Still Turns
  • MP3 & PDF on creative approach to Defining the New Normal
  • Video on 1 Minute Meditation for Breaking Our Fast with Kindness & Abundance
  • MP3 & PDF on creative approach to Shadows & Monsters
  • Video on 1 Minute Meditation for Gaining Perspective
  • MP3 & PDF on creative approach to Living with Curiosity instead of Judgment
  • Closing Blessing
  • Video on 1 Minute Meditation for Seeing Beauty Wherever You Are
  • Supplemental Video, Art How-To: Creating a MiniBook for journaling or arting your workshop experience

Participant Benefits include

**NEW Benefit: Anyone taking a Home Workshop, can now add Group Coaching for 25% discount.
Click here for details on Group Coaching...**

* Learning to Create & Live with Curiosity instead of falling victim to self-sabotage of judgment
* Conscious Participation in the experience of everyday creativity while at the same time making peace with fears about grief, death, dying
* Deliberate Consideration to keep or drop driving myths about grief, death, dying
* Tending to Your Best Self with time dedicated to your creativity
* Fuel for your creative projects
* Practice with new self-care tools to integrate grief & create balance to everyday life
* Discovering your own, unique Safe Space
* Exploration at your own pace throughout the six week session and beyond
* Materials to inspire other concurrent, self-development coaching or therapy you are doing
* Open to all regardless of where you are on the path. Grieving, loving, practicing, hurting, healing, in any circumstance, any background or education or art experience level. All are welcome.

About heART of Life & Death

The heART of Life & Death is a six week participation for those who we are learning how to live one's most creative dreams while becoming familiar with the stories we tell ourselves about grief, death, dying. We'll get curious about prevailing cultural myths that drive beliefs about "how to grieve" or any imposed or prescribed rules such as "stages of grief" and more. Consciously or unconsciously, we are all living out the stories of Self within a cultural context. When we choose to do this consciously though, we are less likely to feel "victim" over and over again. In this creative exploration, we'll explore integration of Life & Death using creative tools. You will discover that, if you choose to be conscious of your story and the culture surrounding you, then you can go beyond self and society imposed limitations, shed the "rules" that don't fit, and begin to choose your own unique ways of creative living.

Each week's materials explore a particular topic: trauma, re-member-ing, safe space, the new normal, shadows & mosters, and living every day with curiosity instead of judgment.

No previous art, coaching, or meditation experience necessary. Some participants just use the process for self discovery and relaxation practice. Others use sessions to fuel writing memoir, novel, short stories, poetry, making art, journalling, collage, painting, scrapbooking or other expressive arts. It's entirely up to you.

During the first six weeks after the date of your registration payment, you will also have unlimited email communication with Coach Kara to share responses, ask questions, explore what comes up for you in working through the materials. Emails are normally answered within 24-48 hours of receipt. After the first six weeks, participants can option to continue working with Coach Kara through personal coaching online, in tele-sessions, or in person, offered at her regular hourly rate.

Grief: Finding Our Way

WHY take this session:

  • Do you feel isolated and alone in your grief?
  • Do you feel you have to grieve in a specific way?
  • Do you have difficulty expressing grief?
  • Is it too overwhelming to look at your grief experience directly?
  • Do you feel you have to wear a mask to hide your grief?
  • Do you feel impatient, judgmental, isolated?

Join us and find creative solutions to these issues and more!

FREE SAMPLE: Right mouse click [ctrl + click if on MAC] here to save your free copy of our MP3 "Relaxation Introduction" as a sample taste of what this session offers.

What: Self-Paced Workshop
Group Opens: As soon as you register
Materials: Videos, PDFs & MP3s are available online upon registration
Place: Connect in from wherever you are whenever it is convenient for you
Price: $35/person

"...I will use these tools forever..."
-Grief: Finding Our Way participant

Materials include

  • MP3 Blessing to Open Class
  • MP3 Intro/Relaxation Meditation
  • MP3 Meditation II: Adding to the Noisy Breath - Face Drop
  • PDF Introduction
  • PDF Supplement exploring Creative Supplies
  • Video Supplement: Art How-To: doing tape transfers
  • Video Supplement: Art How-To: creating a mini-book to document your workshop experience
  • MP3 Mapping Meditation: Exploring the Center
  • PDF Rock Exercise and Mapping The Journey
  • Video: 1 Minute Meditation on gaining perspective
  • MP3 Mapping Meditation: Exploring Sacred North
  • PDF It's written in your bones... and Switching Hats and Voicing Story
  • MP3 Mapping Meditation: Exploring Sacred East
  • PDF Shadow Issues and Be Still
  • MP3 Mapping Meditation: Exploring Sacred South
  • PDF Layered Living, Dia de los Muertos, Musical Influence and Nouns & Verbs
  • MP3 Mapping Meditation: Exploring Sacred West
  • PDF Witness the Animals and Mindfully Mundane
  • MP3 Mapping Meditation: Supplemental Discussion and Close
  • Video: 1 Minute Meditation on touching base with self no matter what else is happening
  • MP3 Closing Blessing
  • PDF Consider Form and Let It Blossom and Resources

**NEW Participant Benefit: Anyone taking a Home Workshop, can now add Group Coaching for 25% discount.
Click here for details on Group Coaching...**

Participant said, they have

  • become conscious of grief's affect on self-story
  • discovered balance and sacred space
  • found tools to integrate this "new normal"
  • released expectations and disappointments
  • begun to learn to live life again after loss
  • felt permission to feel all their feelings
  • tapped into fuel for creative thinking and being

About Grief: Finding Our Way

It might be the written word that leaps out and pulls us back to life after grief shatters everything. It may be that we have to learn (or re-learn) that art is as present grief, and then allow the art to reshape us as readily as grief destroyed us. The path from the moment of crisis and loss back to some sort of transformed life will not look exactly the same for any of us. But the tools for creating our unique paths are available to any and all of us. We must make the choice and commitment to pick up the tools, try them out, cherish what works, and let go of what does not work.

This does not mean we "get over it" or "find closure" or forget what happened. It simply means that we find ways to use creativity to integrate grief experiences into our everyday lives. We learn to live again after death. We learn to prosper again after total loss. This grief coaching group is all about trying out various tools, playing, finding our way. It isn't just "rebuilding brick by brick". This session is about finding the grains of sand that can become pebbles, that become rocks, that become cement, to make the bricks with which we can rebuild one by one.

No previous art experience necessary. Some participants just use the process for self discovery and relaxation practice. Others use session materials to fuel writing memoir, novel, short stories, poetry, making art, journalling, collage, painting, scrapbooking or other expressive arts. Some use materials in partnership with concurrent self-development practice such as therapy, coaching, or support group. It's entirely up to you.

During the first six weeks after the date of your registration payment, you will also have unlimited email communication with Coach Kara to share responses, ask questions, explore what comes up for you in working through the materials. Emails are normally answered within 24-48 hours of receipt. After the first six weeks, participants can option to continue working with Coach Kara through personal coaching online, in tele-sessions, or in person, offered at her regular hourly rate.

Take a Hero's Journey: heART of the Hero, Dance With Shadow

WHY take this session:

  • Do you feel cut off from your true purpose?
  • Do you feel called to do something more?
  • Do you feel ravaged by grief energy instead of energized by life experiences?
  • Do you find it impossible to follow your intuition?
  • Have you had a loss that leaves you feeling isolated?
  • Do you regularly experience envy, jealousy, guilt, shame?

Join us for this session and find creative solutions to these issue and more!

FREE SAMPLE: Right mouse click [ctrl + click if on MAC] here to save your free copy of our MP3 "Using the Face Drop as lead into heART visualizations" as a sample taste of what this session offers.

What: Self-Paced Workshop
Group Opens: As soon as you register
Materials: Videos, PDFs & MP3s are available online upon registration
Place: Connect in from wherever you are whenever it is convenient for you
Price: $35/person

"...The Hero's Journey is not another self-improvement project. It is an aid in finding and honoring
what is really true about you..."
-Carol Pearson, Awakening the Heroes Within

Materials include

  • MP3 Blessing to Open
  • MP3 Intro/Relaxation Meditation
  • MP3 Meditation II: Adding to the Noisy Breath - Face Drop
  • PDF Introduction
  • PDF Supplement exploring Creative Supplies
  • Video: Supplemental Art How-To: doing tape transfers
  • PDF Creating Safe Space
  • MP3 Sacred Space/Hero's Journey
  • Video: 1 Minute Meditation about getting present
  • PDF Discovering Hero
  • MP3 You Are Your Own Hero
  • Video: 1 Minute Meditation on gaining perspective
  • PDF The Call, Shield, & Guide
  • MP3 Meeting Your Guide
  • Video: Supplemental Art How-To: Creating a Mini-Book to Journal or Art your experience in workshop
  • PDF Instrument of Power
  • MP3 Finding Your Instrument of Power
  • Video: 1 Minute Meditation on the power of the ordinary
  • PDF Discovering Shadow
  • MP3 Hero & Shadow Summit
  • PDF Transformed When We Return
  • MP3 Transformation
  • Video: 1 Minute Mediation about seeing the big picture
  • MP3 Blessing to Close
  • Art How-To Supplemental: In some of our in-person Hero's Journey session, we do a henna body-art ritual at the closing of the workshop. This allows people to create some meaningful symbol, have it henna'd on the skin, and then walk forward into the coming week with that touchstone to their Journey. For those of you in our online version, if you are interested in learning to do henna yourself, we offer this very special Henna How-To post.

**NEW Participant Benefit: Anyone taking a Home Workshop, can now add Group Coaching for 25% discount.
Click here for details on Group Coaching...**

Participant said, they have

  • discovered renewed creative energy
  • resolved shadow issues they didn't realize were at play
  • gotten conscious about self-talk and self-story
  • found new perspectives on issues that previously felt "stuck"
  • begun to allow themselves to feel what they feel without judging self
  • given themselves permission to play and dream again

What the heck is a Hero's Journey anyway?

You are your own myth. We often forget that what is happening to us is not us. We make up stories about what is happening and begin to put on these stories as if they are the very essence of who we are. But these are all just myths. If you could just drop the story you are currently telling yourself, who would you be? If you let go of all the myths that previously defined you, who would you be?

A Hero’s Journey happens when you answer the call of your BEING. When you are willing to be conscious of the myths you dress up in now. Willing to take those myths off and try out some new ones. Take a new stance, walk a new walk, put on the shoes of your Hero self instead of your everyday self. Willing to revision your world through the eyes of that Hero.

A Hero is willing to assess the life he or she has been living where there is a prescription for “being good” and a no-no list of things that are “bad.” A Hero is willing to consider the possibility of experimenting, being curious about anything that has been previously prescribed, judged, said to be impossible or out of the question. A Hero knows that he or she is not alone in this experiment. There are Guides to help, to answer questions, to point the way. There are Instruments of Power to access, and a Hero knows how to call out his or her Shield when needed.

For a Hero, it is not a “failure” to hit a road block or encounter a Shadow issue. Rather, it is a point of interest on the Journey. The Hero takes the time to get curious, breathe deeply, learn as much as possible about the block or Shadow. A Hero might slay a Shadow as a dragon would be in a fairy tale. But a Hero is equally as likely to invite a Shadow to tea to ask it questions. Or dance the tango with Shadow to learn more about how it moves.

A Hero knows he or she will only become more consciously empowered by taking this Journey. He or she knows that they will return from the Journey with a new perspective, a new power that will enhance their experience with all the sacred spaces of life including Home life, Self-Care, partnering with the Beloved, doing one’s heART Work in the world.

Where are you on this Journey? Would you like to join us for our Hero’s Journey? We’re exploring with creativity, recorded meditations, guided visualizations, and more. Come take this part of the Journey with us!

You Have Permission workshop...

Please click here for full details and registration for YOU HAVE PERMISSION workshop.

Coming later in 2010

It's a Practice, Not a Perfect workshop...

Contact & Questions

If you need to reach Kara about any of our events, please email or call 206-251-6706.