Friday, July 11, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Monday and Tuesday
Yogawrite Workshop
Ethnographic Notes
Ethnographer: Rick Joseph, Teacher Consultant,
Day 1/5
Description of setting:
The workshop is housed in a large multipurpose room at the Indian Springs Metropark in
Inside the room, tables and chairs are set up in a square shape. There is a dance floor which serves as the mat, or area where participants have set their yoga mats for the practice of yoga.
Participants: A total of eight, six women and two men, not including Sheryl. They are: Jude, Mary, Jen, Beth, Jan, Mychelle, Michael, and Rick
Key:
S=Sheryl Netzky, Facilitator
Italicized text = spoken word
Notetaking Notemaking
| S: Let’s talk about Intentions vs. Expectations What are your intentions for the week? Please jot your ideas down in your writer’s notebook. (participants write) S: How are you feeling today? Jot down you’re feeling both physically and emotionally. (participants write) S: Find a place to rest your writing. Let’s move to the mat at this time. Participants move to the mat and bring their writer’s notebook (WN) with them. S: How does it feel to be in your body? Think about this and jot some ideas down. (participants write) S: I’m going to tell you a story about a village that experiences a drought and a medicine woman who’s asked for help. (S tells story) S: In what ways does this story relate to your school life? Think about your school district, building, classroom, and your teaching. (participants write) S: Share with a partner (participants share) S: Who would like to share with the whole group? (participants take turns sharing out to whole group.) S: Take the same story and question and apply it to your personal life. Ask yourself where you want to step into the river of your life. S uses stones, sticks, a paintbrush and removes them from a wooden bowl. She organizes them to tell the story of her life. S: Now gather stones, rocks, and sticks from outside and bring them in to represent your life. Prayer. Use prayer to protect your work. Invite the four winds. Use your own religion. I’m not here to force my belief system on anyone. I opened sacred space her this morning. Go set up a sand painting(a three-dimensional representation of your life made from organic or inorganic materials) for yourself of how it feels in your world right now. Leave them outside. Remember where you left it because I’ll ask you to revisit it at different times throughout the week. Be back at Group Table S: How did sand paintings go? V: It’s okay to not know what to do. S: Comfort in not knowing is a big step, Mary: Rocks are in the middle of other rocks. It’s fuzzy, not clear, but that’s the way it ought to be. Beth: Found flowers. | |
Day 2/5
Notetaking Notemaking
| During lunch: Visit your sand painting see what needs to be added if anything. Meet with someone and share your writing. What part spoke most to you of what your partner wrote? Notice, name, and explain what spoke most to you. (Lunch) S: As you keep finding language that nurtures yourself, keep planting seeds of language by writing them on stickers and attach them to your water bottle. We will work on giving our garbage back to the earth. Does anyone know what compost is? Jan explains The earth has the ability to make beauty from our natural garbage. Breathe into your stone, gather it, read your story about your rock, your sorrow, and give it back to the earth so that it doesn’t stay connected to you in a way that doesn’t serve you. Bury your stone in the earth. Let mother earth take your garbage and make beauty out of it. Be back in 15 mi Jude: But my stone is your stone (Jude had borrowed one from S. S: I have no attachment to it. You can bury it or choose another. Just don’t put it back into my sandpainting, until after it’s been buried in the earth for 24 hours. You can find another stone outside and place it back into my sand painting if that feels right for you. Vision Boards S: My brother and his wife made vision boards and put them in their front hall. I put mine in my bathroom. It is a reminder of where I am and what I’m working toward. I have a recurring image of almonds, although I’m not sure why. I have a need to nurture my inner child. (S explains her vision board, which resembles a mixed-media collage, dominated by images and words clipped from magazines.) I picked pictures that speak to what I am creating. I went and got small circular boards from Oakland Schools. I invite you to create your own vision board. A friend of mine had a vision board party. A vision board is your life’s work in progress and something aesthetically pleasing to the creator. The difference between a vision board and a collage is that a) it’s in progress (like curriculum, the more conscious we grow, the more conscious we grow our curricula in our classrooms) and b) the layer of depth, what you put on your vision board, you’re manifesting in your life, so what do you want to create? What do you want your life to look like? Participants cut images and text out of magazines and glue them to their boards. Would you like to be in your silence, or would you like to be read to while you work? Is that too much multi-tasking? (S. checks with the group) How do you work with scarcity and abundance of resources issues? When we move to community, we find we have lots of resources. S. reads from Hope’s Edge, “The Delicious Revolution.” It’s now Lifework tonight is the Fearless Living article. Read ch. 41-42 of Eat Pray Love. Then bring your course pack, wn, and pen over to the mat. (participants read from Eat, Pray, Love) On the mat: How does she language her ideas in EPL? Mary: dialogue and interior monologue Turn to the S leads the group through a variety of Yoga exercises. S I want you to write hot in the style of EPL. How did your Yoga practice go for you today? (participants write) | Participants eagerly visited their sand paintings. Of the six participants today, all made changes. Participants are very actively engaged in creating their vision boards Participants eagerly transition from table space to mat |
Welcome to YogaWrite 08!
On our blog you will find ethnographic notes, photos, and video that chronicle our inaugural YogaWrite Workshop July 7-11, 2008 at Indian Springs Metropark in Davisburg, Michigan. YogaWrite is offered through the Oakland Writing Project.
Please offer any and all comments you like!
Keep checking back for updates throughout the week.
Please offer any and all comments you like!
Keep checking back for updates throughout the week.
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