Working in sacred space, Dancing With Light And Shadow, a five-day retreat in historic Taos, New Mexico–July 7-11, 2009–will offer the opportunity to write from deeper aspects of self, to mine the treasures of the Shadow, and to reveal Nature and Light as sources of inspiration and wisdom. Writers of all abilities and experiences will celebrate personal and universal truths through the study of selected poets, guided writing exercises, revision, spoken word techniques, and direction toward publication.

Through both writing and meditative exercises, poets will be encouraged to experiment with form and emptiness, free writing and formal structure. Workshop participants will write in extraordinary settings, with lectures and field trips to the Rio Grande Gorge, La Hacienda de los Martinez, the Taos Pueblo, artists’ studios, selected galleries, and interviews with local writers. Evenings will be set aside for sharing and reading poetry, writing, and revising daily work.

Faculty:

Carol Alena Aronoff, Ph.D, is a psychologist, teacher, and writer who helped guide a Tibetan Buddhist Meditation center; taught Eastern spirituality and healing practices, imagery, meditation, and women’s health at San Francisco State University; and maintained a counseling practice for many years. She is the co-author of Practical Buddhism: The Kagyu Path, with Ole Nydahl, and published the textbook, Compassionate Healing: Eastern Perspectives. Her poetry has appeared in The Comstock Review, Poetica, Sendero, Dream Fantasy International, Iodine, Tiger’s Eye, and Asphodel, among others. She received a prize in the 1999/2000 Common Ground Spiritual Poetry Contest, judged by Jane Hirshfield, and is a Pushcart Prize nominee.

Dr. Aronoff’s illustrated poetry book, The Nature of Music, was published by Pelican Pond in 2005, Cornsilk in 2006, Her Soup Made the Moon Weep in 2007, and Blessings From An Unseen World in 2009. Currently, Dr. Aronoff resides in a rural area of Hawai’i–working her land, meditating in nature, and writing.

A former New York editor, Andrea L. Watson, has taught creative writing for twenty-five years, with an emphasis on poetry and spoken word performance. Her poetry has appeared in Poet, RUNES, The Swarthmore Review, Ekphrasis, Cream City Review, Subtropics, Room of One’s Own, International Poetry Review, and The Dublin Quarterly and is forthcoming in Nimrod. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times.

In 2002, with artist Seamus Berkeley, she founded Braided Lives: A Collaboration Between Artists and Poets, featuring renowned artists and prize-winning poets from across the United States in spoken word performance. First sponsored by the Taos Institute of Arts, the show has traveled to San Francisco, Denver, and Berkeley. Subsequent ekphrasis events include Reflections on RANE, in 2007, with its book, The Master’s Hand; Interwoven Illuminations, in 2008; and Threaded Lives, in 2009. Dividing her time between Taos, NM and Denver, CO, Andrea currently is co-authoring Collecting Life: Poets on Objects Known and Imagined and managing HeartLodge Press.

For further information and to sign up for the conference, we can be contacted at:

 watsontaos@gmail.com           303-249-4731

We welcome your participation in Dancing With Light And Shadow and sharing lives and talents with us.

Accommodations & Conference Site:

Historic Kachina Lodge: 575-758-2275 (Request Lotus Writers Salon Group Rate)