Memoir
The Power of Your Story
February 21-23
(Join live or receive the recording)
A virtual weekend retreat to cultivate authenticity, lucidity, and true transformation through spiritually embodied writing.
hosted by Mirabai Starr
WRITE WITH A WILD HEART
Could you consider the possibility that your story, honestly told, could help heal and inspire others?
Free writing doesn’t have to be a matter of dumping your shadow onto the page and stepping away. The beauty of words can open a gateway into greater aliveness.
This workshop is geared toward writers looking to juice up their process and spiritual practitioners seeking more embodiment.
Writing your story is alchemical.
Tapping on your memories, from the most ordinary to the epic, frees your voice and transforms both you as a writer and whoever has the good luck to read what emerges. When you allow your experiences to flow from memory bank to page, you cast the lead of personal experience into the flames of creativity and they are transmuted. A golden elixir spills into the world and the senseless begins to make sense. The catastrophe reveals its quiet beauty. The seemingly mundane is imbued with luminosity. Memoir can be a mystical experience. It connects us to the web of interbeing and reminds us that we belong.
This is for you if...
You're a writer looking to juice up your process, or a spiritual practitioner seeking more embodiment.
Your self-doubt is preventing you from knowing that your story matters.
You're preoccupied with the worry that telling the truth — your truth — will make others look bad.
You feel stuck, inhibited or embarrassed when you try to write the story that is beckoning you.
You’re eager but hesitant to explore the art of memoir writing and personal story telling.
What to expect...
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Guided writing practices with Mirabai woven with “Lectio Divina” (sacred reading) and poetry
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Quintessential teachings on the nexus of literature and spirituality
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Intimate small group sharing with writing companions
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Guided and silent meditation to hear the words that long to be written
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Live Q&R with Mirabai
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Community connection in our private Facebook group
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Lifetime access to Memoir live gathering recordings
By the end of this gathering you will...
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Have generated a quantity of raw material you can later refine and expand into a finished piece.
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Generate your own writing prompts to continue the practice on your own.
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Have ongoing access to a simple, powerful method you can use on your own or in small groups.
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Integrate memoir writing with your other spiritual practices.
TESTIMONIALS
Some love from previous participants
"I got a soaking of what Ram Dass called Fierce Grace and today's session allowed me to come to the other side of the darkness."
- Todd R.
"Because of your skillful words, you created a space widening into wonder- awe- gratefulness. Without heavy rhetoric, you butchered fear and mistrust. For me, you brought me to my child-self. Thank you."
- Mary Lynn O.
"I realized through this experience the reason that I’ve avoided writing is because I fear the truth and what might arise if I “let go”. This time has allowed me to gently peel back a layer from my heart to reveal a glimpse of the truth of who I am and what wants to speak."
- Arlene S.
The Schedule
We begin on Friday evening with a ritual to tap on the gates of your memory and open the way to unfiltered truth-telling. This will include an inspiring teaching, an evocative reading, a provocative prompt, small group sharing, and time for questions and responses.
On Saturday and Sunday mornings, we will write our asses off. Mirabai will share an array of inspiring passages and offer writing prompts designed to send you down trails you may not have explored before, or guide you to familiar territory in such a way that you will discover these spaces with fresh eyes and write about them in radically new ways. You will emerge with a brimming basket of new writing and a whole community of companions.
Friday, February 21 (5-7pm PT)
Dancing With Your Memories
Maybe it happened; maybe it didn’t. Today we explore the fertile space between memory and creativity. You are not expected to be a historian of your life. Rather, you are invited into a co-creative dance with the things you remember and the way your imagination quickens them into story, into revelation, into art.
Saturday, February 22 (8-11am PT)
The Wisdom of your Broken Heart
Our sorrows are intermingled with longing. Today we reclaim the sanctity of desire. Hard things have happened to you. How have they unraveled and rewoven you? Your losses are a portal to greater aliveness. Let writing carry you across that threshold.
Sunday, February 23 (8-11am PT)
Rewriting Your Origin Story
Your past contains an endless fountain of writing material. Today we dive in and scoop it up. You do not need to belong to a prominent family who took you on unforgettable adventures or broke you beyond repair to be worthy of writing about your people. The most ordinary experiences are imbued with transformational power when you tell them with your own vivid and authentic voice.
Memoir:
The Power of Your Story
A Virtual Retreat: February 21-23
This event will be recorded, in which you will have lifetime access to the recording.
At Wild Heart, we value participation regardless of financial resources. Understanding the disparities of our world, we offer financial support to BIPOC LGBTQIA+ and a number of others in significant financial need. Please see FAQs below for how to apply.
ADDITIONAL GIFTS FOR YOU
When you register for Memoir, you also get access to...
AN EXCERPT FROM WILD MERCY
The Alchemy of Art, from the book Wild Mercy
by Mirabai Starr
PRE-RECORDED WORKSHOP
Unlocked: Free Your Authentic Voice
Lifetime access to the video recording
AN ESSAY
Writing Through the Fire
by Mirabai Starr
All files will be made available to view and download upon purchase.
Your story is a radiant example of the coming-of-age of a mystic.
Your relationships, your foibles, your walkings-away and rushings-headlong-into, are mesmerizing. Don’t let them go to waste.
Questions?
How is this different than journaling?
When do we gather live?
Do I need to be a good writer to join?
Is further financial support available?
Meet Mirabai
Mirabai Starr is an award-winning author, internationally acclaimed speaker, and interspiritual teacher. In 2020, she was honored on Watkins’ list of the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People. Drawing from 20 years of teaching Philosophy and World Religions and a lifetime of practice, Mirabai shares her wisdom worldwide on contemplative living, writing as a spiritual practice, and the transformational power of grief and loss. She has authored over a dozen books including Wild Mercy, Caravan of No Despair, and renowned translations of sacred literature. Her most recent book, Ordinary Mysticism, has been praised by Anne Lamott as “a gorgeous, transformative, welcoming book is for anyone who longs to feel more present, more alive, more joyful and aware of the holiness of daily life”. She lives with her extended family in the mountains of northern New Mexico. For more, visit www.mirabaistarr.com.
We welcome all who ache to awaken their wild hearts through the spiritual practice of writing.
