Tree Sessions: A New Workshop Series, A New Commitment to the Rhythms

Standing in the crisp of an autumn afternoon, nothing heavy on my back, nothing heavy in my heart, I find my personal paradise. Many people feel sad that summer has ended and cling on to that last piece of sun, or that last wave of good weather. For me, fall is when good weather becomes great. There is magic in the transitions of things.
 
The more that I take time to investigate my artistic practice, the more I realize that I must place myself, my whole self into my work. I’ve always wanted to do an outdoor creative writing intensive. Growing up in a small town but making a name for myself in the big city, I had no choice but to incorporate nature into my work. The challenge was marrying the two worlds. 

Tree Sessions has been in my inner-mind for over four years, shifting into different incarnations along the way. I spoke with a mentee of mine about the unrealistic pressure to be “successful” at such a young age. Even Whitney four-years-ago didn’t have the skills, contacts nor confidence to activate this idea. But as they say, timing is everything.
 
Tree Sessions is more than a workshop. It’s a commitment to rhythms. As I mentioned in my past newsletter, we as humans have an unhealthy relationship with change. Transitions frighten many of us. We bend to and break against imagined timelines and expectations that completely disregard the rhythms of nature. We’ve been conditioned to ignore the harvest, and we've been spoiled to eat any type of food we wish, instead of eating seasonally. Women have historically been conditioned to ignore our internal cycles that connect us with the moon. The nine-to-five, Monday to Friday construct is driving us to merely live for the weekend instead of seeking pleasures, big and small in secret pockets of our days. Work culture also isolates those who need more rest in their lives, those who live with pain and have specific limitations on their bodies that are often misinterpreted as lazy and unproductive.
 
What if we replace productive with patience? Replace schedules with cycles? Replace timelines with transitions? This is my attempt to explore with my own journey and invite others to reflect on during Tree Sessions. As writers, our routine is our sustainability. The act of creating story is exhausting, exhilarating and exercising. The spunky scientist in me has a hypothesis that knowing our rhythms can impact the routines in our writing and ultimately allow us more to be more consistent with our creations. Productivity over patience. What better place to test that theory than out in woods during the autumnal equinox?
 
It’s with a lot of heart that I offer this writing workshop to the general public. It’s an opportunity for those who are committed to their writing and are willing to experiment with me. To observe rhythms in the equinox, and apply it to their artistic practice. It’s also an opportunity to get thorough feedback (loving feedback) on your project. If this something that is appealing, join me in the space and see what type of writing we can cultivate together. There is magic in the transitions.
 
Happy Equinox