emerge: an online course

joy and friendship on the oregon coast . february 2011

So excited to share this with you today!

This August brings Emerge, the premier online course from Live it to the Full, that I will be teaching alongside Vivienne McMaster and Jenna McGuiggan. Do you know Live it to the Full? Here's the scoop on this great new project:

Live it to the Full is a place of refuge for people seeking a new way of processing through a transitional period in their life. Our mission is to foster new ways of looking at age old dilemmas through art, photography and storytelling. We seek to provide quality material and qualified instructors at an affordable price and an accessible portal.

I am simply delighted to be teaching with Viv and Jenna. They are two women I am so blessed to call my friends, and they are two women who are sharing their stories with others in ways that are changing the world. (I know this to be true.) So working with them on a course all about emerging from the transitions in our lives? Yep. Sign me up. 

For four weeks this August, we'll play with words, photography, mindfulness practices, and other creative goodies to explore how we weather and emerge from transitions.

Here's the full course description:

How do we emerge from life's transitions and become more fully ourselves? Is it possible to be cracked open and made whole at the same time? Some transitions are big and bold life events, while others happen in the quiet moments of daily life. But each has the power to shape us and how we live in the world.

Come along as we share our personal stories of transition and provide you with creative tools to use as you face your own seasons of change. Through writing, photography, and mindfulness practices, we’ll explore the ebb and flow of happiness, the unique power of telling your story, and the beautiful yet precarious process of learning to trust yourself. See what happens when you allow your true self to emerge through creativity.

Registration for Emerge is now open, and the cost is totally at what I call a "happy price" of $49!

This experience will be full of juicy, bite-sized pieces to help you through whatever kind of transition (huge or tiny) that you're facing.

Viv, Jenna, and I would love to see you there.

seeking light

liz :: viv

This girl, she 
stands inside delectable ripening plums
leaps toward illuminating bittersweet blossoms
marinates between subtle hints of coconut milk and opulent purple silk
crawls beneath windows with views of wayside hope and stoppered truths

this girl, she
emerges as the essence of yes

*****

Vivienne McMaster and I are collaborating on a few fabulous in-person and online workshops, retreats, and other goodies (yet to be announced) that we are excited to share with you. As we work together on these projects, we are delighted to share a series of "Seeking" posts on both of our blogs. In each post, we will create a diptych of images, share what we are seeking, and perhaps share information about one of our collaborations! 

Today, we both used the prompt "seeking light" for the photos in our diptych and then paired our photos with a poem note/journal writing. Visit Viv's blog to read her written response to our photos.

On July 16^th and 17^th, we will be teaching a workshop together at Teahouse Studio in Berkeley, California. This workshop is packed full of the creative wonder we are both so passionate about. Woven through the 2-day experience will be some juicy writing prompts and guided meditations led by me and playful and wonder-filled photography prompts led by Vivienne. We’ll also be diving into making a mixed-media journal inspired by my book Inner Excavation. 

Registration for this event closes very soon (June 24), so we encourage you to jump into this experience and join us! We’d so love to meet you.

::by post:: (august 13, 2010)

(front)

smooth dark wet sand for miles as one woman stands, her face toward the twisting tumbling heart-opening ocean, her arms reaching toward the sky.

(back)

this
is
where
i
hear
my
song 

*****

::By Post:: is a collaborative series of virtual postcards posted between Jenna and me, conceived to celebrate the week we're spending on opposite coasts of the country (Jenna on Nantucket, me in Oregon). Visit Jenna's blog to read hers. See other posts in this series here.

::by post:: (august 12, 2010)

*****

::By Post:: is a collaborative series of virtual postcards posted between Jenna and me, conceived to celebrate the week we're spending on opposite coasts of the country (Jenna on Nantucket, me in Oregon). Visit Jenna's blog to read hers. See other posts in this series here.

::by post:: (august 11, 2010)

(front)

(back)

one day she realized,
to find her way to center,
(some days)
she must let go of looking for speed bumps
and fears
and coulds
and what ifs.
one day she realized,
to find her way to holding on,
(some days)
she must look up. 

*****

::By Post:: is a collaborative series of virtual postcards posted between Jenna and me, conceived to celebrate the week we're spending on opposite coasts of the country (Jenna on Nantucket, me in Oregon). Visit Jenna's blog to read hers. See other posts in this series here.

::by post:: (august 10, 2010)

*****

::By Post:: is a collaborative series of virtual postcards posted between Jenna and me, conceived to celebrate the week we're spending on opposite coasts of the country (Jenna on Nantucket, me in Oregon). Visit Jenna's blog to read hers. See other posts in this series here.

::by post:: (august 9, 2010)

(front)

the minutes after dusk navy blue sky atop the arched-against-the-shore never-ending water.  

(back)

when i sleep, i hear your song
the tumbling chorus of
push
pull
letting go
holding on

i hear your song 
and i open up
to find pieces of me 

*****

::By Post:: is a collaborative series of virtual postcards posted between Jenna and me, conceived to celebrate the week we're spending on opposite coasts of the country (Jenna on Nantucket, me in Oregon). Visit Jenna's blog to read hers. See other posts in this series here.

::by post::

jenna and me at fort worden earlier this year

a little over a year ago, jenna traveled to this corner of the world; she had an extra couple days at the end of her trip. and i was lucky because she decided to spend them with me. during our email exchange prior to her trip, i said something like "i am moved to say this: do you want to go spend a night on the oregon coast?" and even though we had just met briefly at squam, she was moved to say yes! and as we drove to the coast and stood by the sea together, we pretty much knew we had found a true kindred spirit sort of a friendship that would change our lives in the way those "oh your really see me" friendships always do. as our friendship has continued, we have looked for ways to collaborate (see Lanterns) and we have become quite the brainstorming partners. during a recent skype chat we had this aha moment: 

this week will find me (and family) on the coast of Oregon.

this week will find my girl Jenna on the island of Nantucket.

realizing we would each be on opposite coasts from one another for the same amount of time, it seemed too serendipitous not to come up with a project. (if you spend any sort of time with me virtually or in person, you will learn i am all about the collaborative projects. lately, i can't stop myself.)

so, inspired by an exercise in my book, this week we plan to send (virtual) postcards of poetry to one another from coast to coast (by way of our blogs).

i hope you will come along and see what adventures unfold for each of us on our travels by the sea...

PS i now have a pretty "preorder" page for Inner Excavation complete with a special preorder package for your viewing pleasure. when i return from the coast, i plan to introduce you to the book's (amazing, fantastically wondrous) contributors.