Inquiry, questioning, and wonder are not only states of mind emphasized Zen training. This can be how we live. The creative process is to pass through the doorway of the known to the unknown; to allow ourselves to be ‘lost’; wander in new lands; get inside of the journey and dare to be our usual self. In this way the creative process can break the masks of learned behavior and reveal the inexplicable. In this retreat we will look at the teachings of the Faith Mind Poem and take up the practice of no preferences. To allow anything to appear whether it be strange, awkward, sexual, dark, chaotic, or beautiful. All of it is free to come and go unfettered, carrying with them the full range of thought and feeling. Through this process we may just find where the real creativity takes place because our whole being wants it and asks to be itself again.

We are the first humans to live with the knowledge that our planet is not immortal. How can art address that? What is our responsibility as poets? In this workshop we’ll explore the place where language comes up against this undeniable new fact of life. A mix of exercises and discussion, the workshop will focus on how we can use the act of writing not only for powerful expression, but also to open ourselves to perceptions that surprise us into deeper understanding.   We will work directly with selected “objects” from the natural world, using each as a focus of interdependence and the understanding that no one thing exists by itself. I like to think that we are re-weaving the web of relations, gazing into Indra’s net, jewel by jewel.