Opening Our Mystic Heart through Poetry I - Thursdays

In this series, we will meet weekly to engage poetic medicine as a means of inviting our mystic heart to open more fully in our daily lives. In approaching our mystic heart through poetry, we engage the language of the heart through image, metaphor, spaciousness, and mystery.

Facilitated by Susan O'Connell, PPM

6 weeks, Jan-Feb 2024 

Thursdays from 1-3pm Pacific 

Jan 25

Feb 1, 8, 15, 22, 29

What is a Poetic Medicine Circle?

A Poetic Medicine Circle is a catalyst for exploration and transformation and a resource for building individual and community resiliency. Poetry opens us to multi-dimensional perspectives regarding our lived experience. It adds richness to our lives by initiating our poetic, creative, and aesthetic awareness.

Workshop Focus:

• Explore poetic medicine as a process for opening our mystic heart.
• Practice in co-creating a safe and trustworthy community that supports our life journey.
• Read, listen, and respond to multicultural poems from a variety of perspectives.
• Access, embody, and give voice to our mystic heart and poetic expression.
• Deepen our capacity for empathy, presence, compassion, and self-compassion.

More about this poetic Medicine Circle:

In this 6-week poetry circle, we will engage poetic medicine as a means of encouraging our mystic heart to open more fully in our daily lives. 

We will read poetry that invites us to consider our mystic heart in relationship to our dreams, our creative energies, and the human and the more than human world. We will explore how we engage and respond to poetry of mystics and non-mystics alike. 

Both poetry and mysticism open us to direct experience. 

They encourage our innate ways of knowing such as our imagination, intuition, and our embodied mode of participation. 

When these ingredients are nourished, they kindle the fires of our poetic voice. We begin to hear and respond to the deeper song that calls us.

In this safe and compassionate poetry circle, each participant will be invited to open their mystic heart in their own way. 

Together, we will create a poetic sanctuary within community. 

We will deepen our practices of presence, compassionate witness, self-reflection, gratitude, and deep listening and response. One aim of this inquiry is to support our capacity to walk with what life offers us, as we honor the seasons of our lives.

Throughout the ages, many who have cultivated their mystic hearts have grown in depth and wisdom. This can lead to a wider capacity for generative response and contribution, which can be understood as a gift to our Self, our community, and the world at large. 

Please join us for a poetically heart opening experience. All are welcome.