Writing Workshop—Radiance in the Darkness

A Nature-Inspired Writing Workshop with educator and poet, Christina M. Burress

Like all things in the natural world, we are sensitive to the shifts in weather, light, and temperature. As we approach the Winter Solstice, when the days are shorter, Nature calls us to slow down, rest, and replenish in the darkness of the long winter nights.

The word “darkness” can mean the absence of light, a feeling of despair or grief, a lack of knowing, extinction, and even death, but this restorative time of year is also fertile ground for our imagination. This 2-hour writing workshop invites writers of all levels to reflect and set intentions for the coming period of extended darkness.
 
Participants will be led in a poetry-based mindfulness exercise, a nature-inspired visualization experience, and offer writing prompts inspired by selected reading. There will be time for discussion and sharing. Whether you call yourself a writer or not, the workshop invites you to go deeper to stoke our inner creative fire and reveal the radiance that comes from looking inward and taking care of ourselves.
 
Writing excerpts include works by:
    •    Robert Macfarlane
    •    Sharon Blackie
    •    Ordinary Miracles
    •    and more

Christina Misen Burress is a published poet and writer, educator, and facilitator on a mission to inspire writers to explore and reclaim their relationship with the natural world as a source for boundless creativity. She is guided by the principle of Nature-Inspired Writing in all her work. Her experience designing, implementing, and delivering both in-person and online courses and workshops spans 15 years. Christina covers a range of topics and modalities from literature, poetry, social justice, indigenous rights, meditation, mindfulness, expressive arts, and creative writing. She supports writers of all levels and ages who are working to find their unique voice. Christina believes that as writers, we are the witnesses and collective voice of our time, and as such, are invited, and called to translate our experiences for generations to come. She currently teaches at the University of California at San Diego Extension's Creative Writing Certificate Program and the School of Education's Arts in the Curriculum Master’s degree at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Christina is also a Shamanic Reiki practitioner. She holds a BA in Rhetoric from the University of California at Berkeley, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Naropa University. She earned an Expressive Arts Certificate from Sky Mountain Institute and a Certificate in Indigenous Cultural Awareness from First Nations Technical Institute.

https://www.christinamburress.com