A Summer Pop-Up women’s writing circle on Zoom: Thursday, June 26
10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Pacific
As writing is a “whole life” practice, helping us in all aspects of our lives, I’ve planned some pop-up women’s writing circles to nourish our writing in community through the summer months. The first is on Thursday, June 26, 2025, from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Pacific Time on Zoom. You’ll find some further info below.
With the theme of “Answering the Call,” I’ve been thinking about a book I read some years ago by Stephen Cope: The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling. Stephen, who was Director of the Kripalu Institute for Extraordinary Living at the time the book was published in 2012, weaves the stories of people he knows and people he’s read about as he writes about dharma. Dharma means, variously, “path,” ”teaching,” or “law.” For the purposes of the book, Stephen says: “It will mean primarily ‘vocation,’ or ‘sacred duty,’ It means, most of all – and in all cases – truth.”
I was particularly drawn to Stephen’s words about Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau, an “unconventional nature lover” attempted to develop a writing career in New York’s literary world “in the conventional way.” The “attempt fell flat” and after thirteen months in New York which had begun in May of 1843, Thoreau returned to Concord, Massachusetts – “to his woods, to his pond, to his father’s pencil factory, and to Emerson’s house.” As Thoreau wrote when arriving home: “Be humbly who you are.”
“Thoreau now saw clearly that the journey of a writer was not the outer journey to New York, but the inner journey to his own voice. He was going to be himself, and to hell with the naysayers . . . Walden Pond was where Henry David Thoreau would intentionally conduct this inner journey to himself.”
Victoria poet Eve Joseph says it too: “Writing is a way back to the self.” I agree with voices from the distant past as well as those writing today.
Wishing all a Happy Summer Solstice,
Mary Ann
Writing Life women’s circle with Mary Ann Moore
Nourish Yourself. Honour Your Voice. Write Your Stories.
Theme: Answering the Call
Thursday, June 26, 2025, 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Pacific Time on Zoom
In the Writing Life circle, with its guidelines and structure, we create a sense of safety for the memories that may be evoked by a poem, a phrase, a particular topic. Together, we honour the reflections that may be joy-filled or filled with grief as we’ve been called to do. Memories and insights are from a nonlinear realm and the writing and integrating of them can be non-chronological too. The big stories can be told in small, compassionate steps. There are all sorts of ways of being called: by our name, to the world at this time, to a particular place, and of course, there is the call to write.
And a life is as natural as a leaf.
That’s what we’re looking for: not the end of a thing but the shape of it.
Wisdom is seeing the shape of your life without obliterating (getting over) a single
instant of it.
From “The Cure” by Albert Huffstickler
Fee: $60 CND payable via e-transfer to creativity@maryannmoore.ca
or by cheque sent to Mary Ann Moore at 76 Colwell Road, Nanaimo, B.C. V9X 1E4
A PayPal invoice can be sent to those outside Canada.
Payment will confirm your space in the circle.