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A 6-week journey of writing salons to inhabit your body, give voice to your untold stories, and re-member your first tongue, the Wordlessness that came before the Word: the invisible currents of feeling expressed through the body as poetry, metaphors, stories, and the salt and grit of your ordinary life.
“… by writing her self, woman will return to the body which has been more than confiscated from her… Censor the body and you censor breath and speech at the same time. Write your self. Your body must be heard. Only then will the immense resources of the unconscious spring forth.”
- Helene Cixous
Giving Voice to the Unseen Power in Women
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Raised in an overly rational culture, many of us have no language to communicate that which is the invisible source of our deepest and non-rational power as women — our life-force, embodied knowing, and deep feeling. Stirring with currents that have no name, we feel-sense-know the power of this force, yet cannot explain it. Rational words fall short, and so we too often fall silent, sometimes internalizing the belief that our stories do not matter.
But the problem is not us—it is the language. Rational speech is too small to hold the vast currents of our inner lives. We must learn to speak another kind of language, one that rises from the body and the non-rational wellspring of creativity — our "Mother Tongue". Poetry, image, myth, and metaphor — these are languages which are big enough to carry the current that we are.
As we practice pulling formless into form, word by word, we heal the inner split that silenced us. Writing becomes a birthing act, offering passage from one world to another — where the body is sacred, where pain is a portal, where the sacred hides in the ordinary of our lives.
Come tell your story.
What is Gateless Writing?
Gateless writing is a writing method that helps you drop beneath the critical mind, to write from the "river beneath the river" — the non-rational place beyond the mind that all creativity flows from. Through a combination of guided meditation, writing prompts, and a nourishing container of only positive feedback, participants are supported to drop into their bodies and write from their authentic voice, free of the fear of judgement. Because there is absolutely no critical or “constructive” feedback in Gateless whatsoever (we only emphasize what we genuinely appreciate and find strong in each other’s writing), our inner critic can turn off, allowing our creative muse to roam free. This is not a workshop on “how” to write, but rather a curated space of ideal writing conditions to support anyone (even non-writers) to tap into their creative genius within. There is no expectation to be a “good writer”... only to drop into your body and witness what words want to be spoken through you. These are deep spaces for authentic soul-encounters with yourself and others.
Each call includes:
1
Drop-In
Meditation
A movement-meditation to music or some other guided meditation to drop out of your mind and drop into your body — the portal to the wellspring that all creativity flows from.
2
Writing Prompt
Feminine creativity is responsive. A reading of poetry or prose* + a writing prompt to stimulate your creative process. Writing time is brief (25-35 min) to protect from the inner critic.
3
Nourishing Feedback
Receive feedback on what we genuinely loved & found strong in your writing (there is absolutely no constructive feedback in this model whatsoever so that your creative genius can roam free).
4
Authentic Connection
Bathe in the creativity and distinct essence of other writers. Leave feeling connected, nourished, inspired, and deeply fed by the authenticity and soul in each other's writings.
*Writings may vary among poetry, myth, and prose and touch on themes related to the female body and experience such as the womb, motherhood, birth, Eros, the sacred in the ordinary, pain, death through life, life through death, rebirth, periods, miscarriage, aging, reclaiming the forbidden, remembering the earth, and mythic themes such as Eve, Persephone, Inanna, etc.
“I, too, overflow; my desires have invented new desires, my body has heard unheard-of songs. Time and again I, too have felt so full of luminous torrents that I could burst…. And I, too, said nothing, showed nothing; I didn't open my mouth, I didn't repaint my half of the world. I was ashamed. I was afraid, and I swallowed my shame and my fear. I said to myself: You are mad! What's the meaning of these waves, these floods, these outbursts? Where is the ebullient, infinite woman who, immersed as she was in her naivete, kept in the dark about herself, led into self-disdain by the great arm of parental-conjugal phallocentrism, hasn't been ashamed of her strength? Who, surprised and horrified by the fantastic tumult of her drives (for she was made to believe that a well-adjusted normal woman has a divine composure), hasn’t accused herself of being a monster? Who, feeling a funny desire stirring inside her (to sing, to write, to dare to speak, in short, to bring out something new), hasn't thought she was sick?”
~ Helene Cixous, The Laugh of the Medusa
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