“SHEStories + Saraswati Yoga = Muse Flow” Zoom Writing & Yoga workshop!

Workshop dates: Saturday & Sunday May 15 & 16, 2021 (2 days!)

Join Mary Sharratt and Stephanie Renee dos Santos for two-day of writing and yoga.

The “SHEStories + Saraswati Yoga: Muse Flow” two-day workshop will spark your creative fire, liberating your authentic voice and deepest truths while we attune and open our bodies to the creative muse with the ancient wisdom of deity yoga focused on Goddess Saraswati of writing.

Join us in this offering to learn ways to discover buried women’s stories, discussion of women mystics throughout all cultures and traditions, how to empower the voices of women, to assist and equip yourself to write forth what only you can. 

Mary Sharratt is the acclaimed author of eight novels including Daughters of the Witching HillIlluminationsEcstasy, and Revelations, which will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in April 2021. Mary is on a mission to write women back into history. She’s been featured on NPR, winner of the 2013 Nautilus Gold Award, the 2005 WILLA Literary Award, and co-edited the subversive fiction anthology BITCH LIT, which celebrates female anti-heroes–strong women who break all the rules. She has taught creative writing at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her essays have been published in The Wall Street JournalEnchanted LivingHuffington Post, Lithub, Catapult, and elsewhere, and she blogs monthly for Feminism & Religion. Visit her website: www.marysharratt.com

Stephanie Rénee dos Santos is a Yogini artist/writer steeped in the nondual Tantric sacred feminine wisdom traditions (Trika/Sri Vidya). She guides goddess-inspired hatha yoga, meditation, and Yogini arts. Yearly, she leads women’s yoga groups into the wilds of the mountains and goddess pilgrimages in the USA, India and Nepal. She is part of the forthcoming women’s anthology When She Wakes, women’s firsthand accounts of Kundalini awakening, art-based historical fiction Cut From The Earth, and contributor to Yoga MagazineLalitambaAmerican Athenaeum and Historical Novel Review. 

Join Us! “SHEStories + Saraswati Yoga: Muse Flow” 

Yoga & Writing Workshop: “The 5 Elements of Yoga & Powerful Writing”

“Yoga and writing are soulmates.” ~ Stephanie Renée dos Santos

This is one of my most favorite workshops to teach. I’ve lead it in various settings, outside upon a circular labyrinth, day hiking in deep forest, and in sacred yoga studio space. And I am excited to announce I’ll be offering this workshop again on Sunday, September 8, 2019 at Inspire Studio in downtown Bellingham, WA.

In this yoga and writing workshop we will stretch our body and unleash creativity  working with ancient yogic wisdom of the five elements which coincides with the five elements of strong descriptive writing. Also, we will align with and learn to invoke a yoga goddess of creativity to support our creative effort. We’ll open to and energize our being to invite the muse to awaken within for our creative writing to naturally unfold.

Yoga reveals insights; Writing is the recorder. Yoga balances the rhythms of breath; Writing surfs breath through oceans of language. Yoga taps the unconscious; Writing transcribes the wisdom within. Writing requires work; Yoga is the assistant. Writing is an offering to the world; Yoga helps cull forth the gift. Writing is a solo act; Yoga provides community.

Yoga relieves body and mind tension; when the body is at ease, so become constrictions of the mind and creative spirit — opening space for your writing to:  flow, seep and burst forth.

This workshop is open to everyone: fiction writers, memoir, non-fiction, poets, journalists, those that journal, and other storytellers and creative artists of all sorts and levels of experience. The workshop explores and combines Hatha Yoga (postures), mantra (sounds), the chakras (energetic centers), mudra (hand/body gestures), Yoga Nidra (guided meditation), wisdom mythology, writing exercises, small-group interaction and sharing, encouraging antidotes and practical yoga-writer wisdom.

The yoga practices in this workshop will spark your creative fire, liberating your authentic voice and deepest truths while we attune to the five elements of yoga and their power to empower descriptive creative writing. When we stoke the five elements within and align with a yogic goddess of creativity we open ourselves to a well-spring of inspiration and tap into its unlimited potential.

For more information and to register click here.

“Yoga for Writers” at the Historical Novel Society London 2014 Conference

kundalini-chakras

* As of 7/21/2014 the “Yoga for Writers” workshop has been replaced with a panel talk “Art and Artist in Historical Fiction” which I am also part of. If and when, a slot opens at the conference to resume the yoga workshop I’ll let everyone know. ~ Namaste!

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be leading an hour workshop “Yoga for Writers” on Sunday, September 7, from 11:00-12:00 am at the upcoming Historical Novel Society London 2014 Conference.

At the workshop, I’ll be sharing some of the obscure esoteric history of yoga, along with guiding writers through a sequence of poses to ease tensions in the body and mind, with the intention of creating the internal type of space that creativity likes to manifest into: calm, relaxed and centered.

Make sure to wear comfortable clothes, ones you can easily bend and move in. Also, bring your yoga mat if you have one or a towel.

Namaste. See you there!

Click here to see the conference program schedule.

 

Guest Blog Post: “5 Yoga Exercises For Your Writing Routine”

Author and writing instructor Carol Bodensteiner graciously invited me to write a guest blog post: “5 Yoga Exercises For Your Writing Routine” , the article debuted on her blog Monday February 4, 2013, and I would like to share it with you! Please visit Carol’s blog to read about how to incorporate yoga stretches into your writing life.

Thank you Carol for the invite, and I wish for comfortable pain-free writing for all!

Neck Stretch

Neck Stretch

Forward Bend Lower Back Stretch

Forward Bend Lower Back Stretch

Standing Side Stretch

Standing Side Stretch

Yoga Poetry

On 12.12.12 poet and editor Hawah released the second volume of The Poetry of Yoga, an anthology of contemporary poetry inspired by the practice of yoga.

Volume Two

Volume Two

I have volume one that was released 11.11.11 and I love it.  Words can be cherished and within this anthology’s pages are soul felt, wise, guiding poems.  I keep this book on hand, referring to it often: to inspire, to steer, and remind me of why I am here.  Here are a few of the amazing succinct pieces from volume one:

Compassion

Your shoes

Are on my feet

I know now

Why your socks are ripped

The draft moves my heart.

-Hawah

 

Love Poem

In order to describe

this thing to you, I’d need

the thousand beating wings

of wild flocks of words.

 

Rather, shall I show you

like this?

 

(Speechlessness) – Lisa Rosinsky

 

Bait

Praise is the rusted lure I rise to,

the old fishing line caught in my lip,

scars from rising out of my own current

toward bait that cannot nourish.

-Linda Caldwell Lee

 

To purchase the anthologies of The Poetry of Yoga visit: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Everlutionary

(I have volume two on order!)

Writing & Yoga

Writing and Yoga are soul mates. Yoga reveals insights; Writing is the recorder. Yoga balances the rhythms of breath; Writing surfs breath through oceans of language. Yoga taps the unconscious mind; Writing transcribes the wisdom of the unconscious. Writing requires work; Yoga is the assistant. Writing is an offering to the world; Yoga eases the offering’s sacrifice. Writing is a solo act; Yoga provides community.