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Welcome & Terms of Service

Our practices involve looking at and being intimate with the structures of one’s personal reality, including how we make sense of experience, individually and collectively. Carrying over assumptions from other practices can lead to misunderstandings. Read over the following statements to determine whether or not our practice will be a good fit for you.

Self-Responsibility
We see you as a free agent capable of honest self-assessment and responsible choice. This is an invitation to take responsibility for yourself and your experience, including a willingness to set and maintain appropriate boundaries. By attending our events you take responsibility for your own safety and comfort, choosing to leave the practice or participate in any given moment. 

Not Psychotherapy
We do not follow a therapeutic model of diagnosis and treatment. Our method is educational. Our emphasis is relating. Our facilitators and coaches are guides. Our practices are practices of connection and meditation whose aim is to reveal more presence. We do not prescribe choices or actions. We are not psychotherapists; we do not see you as being in a therapeutic relationship with our facilitators. Participants are welcome to speak and explore developmental intentions such as “getting somewhere,” growing, and evolving, but we do not presume these are the drivers of experience. We work in the present moment, assuming wholeness moving to greater wholeness. 

The Expectations of Leadership
Our facilitators act in service of better relating through bringing more presence to what’s happening in the here and now. This may not follow typical expectations of a “group leader,” such as telling people the “right way” to act or making sure everyone gets along. We include the internal experiences of the leaders as part of the process. We invite you to listen to your own inner direction for leadership, and consider others’ responses as feedback to you in the context of the moment.

Is this Right for You?
Our workshops can be intense. We explore the unknown, the volatile, the ambiguous, as well as welcome emotions many deem as “negative” or “inappropriate” such as feelings of inadequacy, anger, sexuality, and joy. We often explore multiple sides of seeming opposites at once, and believe this can reveal an underlying unity of the immediacy of experience. We see bringing awareness to intense feelings as distinct from acting upon these feelings—we may ask you to pause or leave if we determine certain expressions risk leaving the practice of relational presence.

If the above description of our workshops sounds potentially overwhelming or destabilizing for you, if you have mental illness or significant emotional challenges that you feel may be exacerbated by this type of transformational environment, or if you are not sure that you can be self-directed in taking care of your needs during the event, then we advise you not to enroll. Finally, you must be at least 18 years old to attend.

By participating you acknowledge that you have read and agree to abide by these Terms of Service.



Divine Poetry

This event runs online for three hours on Saturday 21 December, from 11am-2pm US Central Time (5-8pm UK time, 6-9pm CET).


“Batter my heart, three-person’d God…
… break, blow, burn and make me new.” (John Donne)

 

“Fuck me, oh God, with ordinary things,
the things you love best in the world…” (Ruth L. Schwartz)

 

“Kabir says: Student, tell me what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.” (Kabir, translated by Robert Bly)

 

“Dancing mad with joy, / Come, Mother, come!
For Terror is Thy name, / Death is in Thy breath,

And every shaking step / Destroys a world for e'er.” (Swami Vivekananda)

 

“Our life we have dedicated as a prayer
To whom will we pray… but to words?” (Nazik Al-Malaik, translated by Rebecca Carol Johnson)


We gather to dance into divinity through the rhythms and resplendencies of poetry. 

Within the Christian tradition that I grew up in, the dark heart of winter is soon followed by the jubilation of God’s arrival in human form. Whatever our philosophical and religious affinities, we can be inspired: What does divinity mean to us? Where do we feel it sing into the stories of our lives? What miracles await our witness? 

When poets address themselves to the divine, they pen prayers, adulations and summonings. A divine response yields revelation, genius, and testimony. To write of the divine is both to go beyond ourselves and to journey deep into our own magnificent interiorities.

In this session, we will creatively and collaboratively connect with divinity through reading and writing poetry. Our explorations will be held in a field of present moment awareness, as we ask ourselves: What is it like to be here now, in this group, within these mysteries and marvellings? What are the words that want to be spoken through us?

Activities in the session will include: 

  • Accessible and playful exercises to ease into writing and sharing poetry together.
  • Meditative reflection on a poem (or two) that potently explores the theme of divinity. 
  • Listening to each other as we explore our lived experiences of divinity, and writing poems inspired by what we hear in each other. 
  • Time to write our own poems of the divine.

This event is open to all, regardless of your prior experience with the reading and writing of poetry. If you find writing poetry daunting, you are not alone, and you are especially encouraged to attend. You are welcome to write and share poems in a language other than English. 

The investment for this experience is $60.

To help promote cohesion and collaboration, the group size for this event is limited to 8 participants. 

 

What people are saying about previous sessions:

  • “Will's poetry sessions were a cauldron of inspiration, surrender and trust. The other participants were wondrous and every session brought more love and magic out of us. I'm infatuated and I want more!” - Elsa May
  • “Humble, brilliant, and wildly creative, Will invites us to sit together in the unknowing, and to wonder together. The spaces between his sentences are as imbued with presence and transmission as his words. His Poetry and Presence sessions are innovative, delightful and soul-expanding.”   - Valerie
  • “I love being in the spaces that Will creates and inhabits, where it feels like anything is possible. I have a deep and growing trust in Will’s loving intention as a human and a facilitator. I remember coming out of Will’s sessions feeling amazing, alive and transformed!”  - Christine  


About the facilitator:

Will Jefferson is a philosopher, a facilitator and a lover of poetry. He leads Relational Mindfulness (Relatefulness) groups with The Relateful Company, and offers 1:1 sessions to individuals to develop their skills in mindfulness, communication and creativity. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Oxford, and wrote his dissertation on the moral significance of empathy. His love for poetry was ignited during a month walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route, in which he spent his evenings reading and memorising the 40 poems that friends had given him for the journey.

 

Refund Policy

Please read our refund policy if you are in any doubt about your purchase.