Exploring Awe and Wonder During Insane Times
somatic empowerment is rebellious!
Exploring Awe and Wonder During Insane Times: A Four-Part Workshop with Li Meuser and Fiona Robertson
Have you ever been unexpectedly “taken over” by something simple - the way a petal was emerging from a bud, or the colours of the rising or setting sun? A moment that made something inside you gasp, a note or lyric in a song that suddenly made your heart come alive? Or maybe the way your pet rolled over on their back, or a child’s laugh softened your belly and shoulders?
Awe and wonder can find us even when we’re not looking.
But sometimes, especially during challenging times, it might behoove us to look for it. How might we become primed - emotionally and somatically - to experience awe and wonder?
It is natural, when the status quo is being torn down and the forces of oppression are particularly rampant and cruel, to feel a range of feelings – fear, anger, terror, outrage, grief, helplessness, to name a few. It can be hard to look elsewhere when distressing accounts of the latest assaults are constantly in our newsfeeds. But what if, in addition to acknowledging the full range of our reactions and emotions, we also invited in awe and wonder?
Researchers have found that experiencing awe does us good. It connects us to vastness and depth – in the natural world, in humanity, in existence itself. It supports us to think more coherently, and act more kindly. It helps us stay connected with curiosity and opens us up to possibility.
In this workshop series, we will explore a number of questions; how can we bring more awe and wonder into our lives, into our bodies, even in the midst of challenge and struggle? How can we come together and share in ways that enhance awe? What changes for us when we feel awe? How might awe and wonder be rebellious responses to the aspects of culture that want to keep us weighed down?
The more we notice the bodily responses of awe – goosebumps, a shiver in the spine, tears welling – the more we realise that it can come in the simplest and most ordinary of moments, as well as in the face of the extraordinary.
Li and Fiona have been exploring awe and wonder for a while now, and we’d love you to join us to explore more deeply together over the course of four sessions. We’ll bring music, writing, and art into our carefully curated container. We’ll spend some time writing, pondering, and sharing. All aspects of our workshop are consensual and rooted in somatic embodiment practices.
About Us
Li and Fiona have facilitated a variety of somatic embodiment circles over the last ten years.
Fiona is the author of The Dark Night of the Soul: A Journey from Absence to Presence and Eve Was a Realist: Poems for the Untamed Heart. Her writing invokes the complexities and pains of flesh-and-blood living, while also celebrating moments of awe, revelation, and emergence. She invites us into the depths, where paradox abounds and nothing is quite what it seems on the surface. Fiona also supports people - many of whom are going through a dark night or spiritual emergency - to reconnect with and deepen into their real selves. https://www.thedarknightofthesoul.com
Li is a full-time student of being fully human and is deeply passionate about connecting and inter-relating, as we play and navigate with creation in empowering ways. In Li’s work as a somatic therapist and a creative writing facilitator, Li utilizes transformational and wisdom-based practices in supporting people with their somatic intelligence/energies. In learning how to embody our creativity, we are able consciously choose to move into, discover and remember the realms of interdependency and liberation for all. www.integrativehealingnow.com
Nuts and Bolts
The workshops will be held on Zoom on the following Sundays 9am - 11am PST
There will be a Slack group which will support your deeping between our gatherings.
June 8th
Jun 22nd
June 29th
July 13th
Financial investment
Sliding scale of $175-$375
To sign up, send Li an email at LLMEUSER@ME.COM
If you are unable to attend because of finances, please reach out to Fiona or Li directly.
Please consider paying as high on the sliding scale as feels both generous and affordable. Those who pay more allow us to fund scholarships to those who are on disability, experiencing financial hardship, and/or for reasons otherwise could not engage in this event. If you need help in determining where you land on the sliding scale, please check out this resource.