Elemental Writing
Current Adventure
Elemental Writing: Well, Well Wellspring!
a 6-week, heart-quenching course, starting May 10th
So much is burning.
Fires of war raging.
Tempers running hot.
Burn-out is ubiquitous.
But wait—what’s that?
Something burbling, bubbling, breaking the surface.
Well, well, well, look what we have here!
A spring!
Finding one of these can drop a person to their knees.
Once, in Sicily, I’d hiked for four-plus hours—up, up, up and around, the landscape growing more arid, the vegetation sparser with each new level of the climb. Our sanctuary destination seemed impossibly far away. I was the slowest of the group, and several kind humans kept pace with me. I was so flooded with physical sensation that I couldn’t even feel the shame I normally might of not being more fit, of holding us back. My legs ached so much they trembled. My clothes clung damp to my skin.
I didn’t know how much more my body could take.
Then I saw the final ascent—dry, rocky, a little steep. It wasn’t far, but I doubted I could muster the strength to go on. Until there it was, to my right. A stone well of sorts, more square than round, a structure built around a spring. Water bubbling up cool and clear.
I drank, deep. I splashed my face. I soaked my bandana and put it back on my head, cold water trickling down delicious against my hot forehead, cheeks, neck. This gift, this relief, this renewal, this blessed hydration.
The spring interrupted the bleak landscape and gave me exactly what I needed to move on. Which brings me to this new spring (!) offering for you, for me, for us:
Elemental Writing: Well, Well, Wellspring!
Elemental Writing: Well, Well, Wellspring! isn’t only about finding this kind of renewal in the creative cycle,
but also BEING IT.
What might it mean to be the gift, the unexpected relief?
How can we, through our writing and being, interrupt a bleak landscape with refreshment and offer what’s needed so we can go on?
That’s what we’re going to find out, together.
We can be water.
Words can be water.
You know what I mean. The poem that feels like a long, cool drink on a dry throat. The kind and thoughtful text that breaks the damn, releases your tears, and allows you to let go of all you’ve been holding so tightly. The question that’s so juicy that laughter bubbles up out of you and you finally feel a groundswell of energy and clarity to take the next step.
Part of the etymology of the word spring is “a natural fountain as a place of rising to the surface from below.” (etymonline.com)
What if YOU can be a place of rising in a time of collapse? What if you already are? And what else possible when we rise together?
In this course, we’ll dive into that and other questions on a wild, wondrous, heart-quenching water ride.
Maybe you feel like you’re lost, that your heart and soul and creative urges have all burned out and dried up, and that you might as well throw in the towel, because it’s not like you even need one of those. If you do feel like that, I get it, because I’ve been feeling it too. But what I know, because water told me so, is this: This doesn’t mean you’re done or done for. When you’re so very parched, from your teeth to your toes, it’s time to return to the source.
And this is your invitation to that juicy reunion.
For 6 Sundays, each week, we’ll
practice creative water witching, letting intuition and deep sensory awareness guide us to source, center, replenishment. AND, you’ll be invited into a Daily Desire Dowsing practice to lead you to the wellspring within.
write and share writing, in community, experiencing the power of using our voices and being witnessed, and of collective reflection and transformation. in isolation, we flail, flounder, feel fatigue. together, we surge and merge and rise. together, we can create a groundswell of renewal.
participate in simple ritual, tapping into the water within and finding sustenance in the water around us.
engage with a poem or other short piece of writing to lead us deeper into the adventure.
visit the altar of water, to lap up wisdom, to soothe our nervous systems. We’ll look to wellsprings in the world around us—hot springs, underground springs and water ways for companionship, inspiration, mentoring and a wildly different approach to the craft of writing.
practice embodying the gifts of water, playing with what it means to BE the wellspring, to be a place of rising in a time of collapse.
What else?
We’ll also explore the alchemy of fire and water. This adventure isn’t about putting out all the fire, but rather bringing the gifts of water to it, and vice versa. Think of how steam allows you to breathe better. How warm baths soothe sore muscles. How hot water steeps tea, softens vegetables, and merges flavors.
Think too—scratch that—Feel too how steamy can mean exciting and arousing, an awakening of desire. Vapors rising from the sweat beaded on your skin. Anticipation condensing the air around you. Tension gathering within you. You can’t help but breathe deeper. You know what I mean? Elements don’t live in a vacuum; neither do we. Connection is inherent in these lives of ours. And in connection, in each encounter is possibility, alchemy, POTENTial. Fire meets water. Sizzle. Crackle. Hiss. Exhale. What can we make of this?
Let’s find out.
A preview of our schedule*
We’ll meet for 6 Sundays, via Zoom, May 10 – June 21. (NOTE: No gathering on May 30th)
Week 1: Water Witching, Source Seeking. Daily desire dowsing. What to do when you’re empty. Wellspring. Water cycle wisdom. Finding a source. Shadow soaking. Tracing a water lineage. Theme & flow, story source and resource.
Week 2: Romancing the Unexpected. Well, well, well. Look what we have here! Astonishing character arcs. Being the surprise. Embracing the playful leap. Plot twists. Narrative tributaries. Downpours and cloudbursts.
Week 3 To Be a Place of Rising in a Time of Collapse, Bringing Water to the Fire Party. Moving and creating as a body of water. Water practice, writing practice. Fire + water = hybrid magic. Steamy stories.
Week 4 How to dig a well. Creating a container. Filling an ink well. New structures to hold our words and ourselves. The hope of digging. Aquifers & story filters.
Week 5 Groundswell. Oasis tending. Can’t have a well without a we. Breaking the surface. Gathering strength from gathering storms. Pooling our resources. What can we make together?
Week 6 Hot Springs Eternal. Desire dowsing debrief. Returning to source as a practice. Water deities. Following the water into tomorrow. Washing of the Water: A Solstice Rite of Renewal and Reimagining.
*note that like water, this schedule may ebb and flow in unanticipated ways.
When?
6 Sundays
May 10 - June 21 (NOTE: no class on May 31)
10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. PST
Registration open until May 6 (may close sooner when all spots fill).
Where?
Via Zoom.
Who?
10 spots available.
Cost: $602 USD and here’s where you fill your cup.
For accessibility, several spots are available at:
$503 USD. Here’s where you splash around in that.
$410 USD and here’s where you dive in at that level.
I know resources are different for each person, and I trust you to choose the option that you can afford. If you need a payment plan or some other accommodation to participate, please just reach out and let me know, and we’ll figure out what’s possible.
Ready for some rejuvenating relief?
Longing for the hydration of community?
Thirsty for an embodied imagination infusion?
Craving something steamy to bring you back to life?
Consider yourself invited on a heart-quenching voyage, and
enter the wellspring here.
It’s elemental, my dear writer. You don’t write alone. You write with the water and fire and earth and air, all of the elements within and around you. You write with the four-leggeds and winged ones, the ones with fins and tails and claws and fangs. You write with the moon, the clouds, and the dirt. In Elemental Writing, these are our guides, allies, companions.
There is no body like you, and there are so many bodies with you. Nothing is separate. Writing is an embodied experience, a flesh-blood-bone-muscle-sweaty devotion that cycles like the seasons. No part of the cycle is better than any other. Play is essential. The sacred is everywhere.
An Elemental Writing adventure is for you if:
you want your writing to come alive with sensory awareness.
as a writer, you understand or want to understand yourself as one voice amidst a chorus of many animate beings—plants, mountains, oceans, eagles, stone, starlings, desks, foxes.
you long for a deeper connection with yourself as part of the animate earth.
you thirst for something simple, essential, deep, and true.
you’re hungry for a new vital way to work through or into your writing project.
you need a course that acknowledges, engages and supports your embodied life as a writer, that puts your work and play as a writer back into your body rather than severing your imagination and your mind from the muscle and breath and blood and bone of you.
you know or want to know your stories as living beings.
Jen's soul is deep, and the work she brings forward to the world matches that depth. Her exercises are engaging and innovative, and the tenderness of her heart is matched by the fierceness of her intellect. If something in her call is speaking to you, don't hesitate.
Laraine Herring, Arizona
What's generally included in an Elemental Writing adventure:
Sessions, often on zoom, with a group of other writer-seekers, during which we’ll do our damnedest to stay aware that we’re not just hands on a keyboard or heads facing screens.
a sacred container, held for and with you, in which you can relax and soften into attending to your book or writing project in progress or allowing something new to emerge, or both.
shared simple ritual, embodiment practices, and a close encounter with a focal elemental companion.
communal writing time in each session, as well as prompts and tools to use for your writing and revising time outside of our time together.
the opportunity to share your work out loud, for generative feedback (no critique).
a unique writer's immersion in an embodied aspect of the animate earth, exploring the ways this connects with the art, craft, play, and work of writing. We won’t necessarily be writing about these aspects, but rather with them.
community with other writer-seekers. The people who show up for Elemental Writing adventures are curious, brilliant, open-hearted, wild & wondrous weirdos, like you.
I love the Elemental Writing sessions. I feel held and inspired, and my writing pours through me. Jen's skillful, humorous, inventive space-holding has sparked a renewal of my creative flow.
Emily, Colorado
By the end of an Elemental Writing adventure, you’ll have
a lively collection of lessons and prompts to take with you and use in all phases of writing: dreaming, generating, revising, shaping, resting.
deepened your relationship with your voice and the multitude of voices around you.
played, experimented, and pushed at the edges of the ways you understand and practice writing.
written each week, in community, fueled by community, witnessed and fed by generative feedback.
incorporated ritual and embodied awareness into a regular creative practice.
cultivated relationships with a wondrous group of other writer-seekers.
Elemental Writing is a space where writers can be heartfelt, heartseen, heartloved and heartbroken with their words. Jen's facilitation is kind and curious, open and tender. I left each session feeling inspired and a bit more free. Thank you so much, Jen!
Sara Padilla, Oregon
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