"Love Your Journey Through Life!"
William Wittmann, M.Ed., LMP
Wise Playful Connections
Delightfully Engaging & Spectacularly Helpful
People delight to find themselves in deep conversation engaging in meaningful questions. (They laugh out loud.) They enjoy their journeys of discovery.
It's a "Non-confrontational environment for communication, new insights and realism."
"It goes on working after I leave. Good people (attending)." - Joelle Everett
"I wouldn't miss one, now." -- AC Newport.
"Hearing other people's stories helped. We are not alone." - KR. Renton
"More than learning or discovering, I was given questions and ideas to ponder. I have been thinking of them every day." - LBM. Seattle
I wonder how many ways you will benefit from attending?
Every gathering will offer an adventure of exploration. You get something to chew on, to contemplate, but what will really spark your mind are the connections you make.
Afterwards you may even be amazed at how much your connections with other people contributed to their joy and wisdom. Even if you felt shy and didn't say a word. Cool huh. Mysterious.
The Gathering
You will bring your gifts, talents, and native genius to interact with that of others. You will be inspired and your horizons will expand. I feel sure you have experienced this in powerful conversations that you have had in your life.
You will help others to explore their genius as you rediscover your own. You will shed light. You may not even say a word and yet your very presence will help others.
Out beyond ideas of
wrong-doing and right-doing
there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
- Rumi
Like Jazz
Wise Playful Connections feels much like jazz. A saxophone introduces a theme, and then the other instruments improvise upon it and support it to create something delightful, original, and astonishing.
The musicians do not plan these spontaneous creations, yet they have an aliveness and a beauty that is beyond the ordinary.
Each month I invite a co-host and offer a theme as a starting point. Who knows what magic may flow out of these Classes of good-hearted people stimulating, inspiring, and supporting each other?
Campfires, Watering Holes, and Caves
Each gathering will have times for the three archetypal elements of human connection - campfires, watering holes, and caves.
The Campfire - You will gather around a metaphorical campfire where usually two co-hosts will talk and share insights wandering freely around a specific topic.
The Cave - You will get some time away from the class to connect to your deep inner self and the Sacred. This will likely occur in nature at Alki Beach across the street from my home in West Seattle. You will have time to contemplate whatever you wish, but most likely to explore what has gone on in our gathering.
The Watering Hole - In addition to the mingling at breaks, you will break into small groups causally talking, passionately conversing on the topic, or wandering away from it to something with even more juice to it. I will use the Conversation Café model to structure this form. It allows for freedom and for equal sharing for all present.
I speak so I can learn. Thinking isn't agreeing or disagreeing. That's voting. - Robert Frost
This Month's Gathering:
How You Can Prosper by Writing Memoir?
I dislike modern memoirs. They are generally written by people who have either entirely lost their memories, or have never done anything worth remembering. - Oscar Wilde
Given the quote above and many other teasing remarks about memoir, what can you possibly gain by writing memoir?
How can you benefit from writing memoir?
How can you benefit even if you still have half your life to go?
This comes closer to the benefits -
A man's memory is bound to be a distortion of his past in accordance with his present interests, and the most faithful autobiography is likely to mirror less what a man was than what he has become. - Fawn M. Brodie
For example:
My life changed forever when I stepped into Aunt Emmy's Rome apartment. This marvelous room with twenty-foot ceilings and ceiling to floor French windows dazzled me. It was like no other I had seen a real person live in. The thought dawned, "I can choose how and where I live."
My menu expanded irreparably. Even today, remembering the golden light in that the room makes me squint and yearn. - William
Human beings tell stories. In the most fundamental ways, you live your life according to your stories. Writing memoir sheds light. Phyllis Franklin, a counselor and long time friend, has been writing memoir and harvesting these riches for the last few years.
Here's what Phyllis says:
- Because the writing process is a whole experience - mind, body, and spirit experience -- you can surprise yourself with the insights that come from deep inside.
- The rule of memoir is to be 100 % authentic, to tell the truth. This can be more therapeutic than sitting in a therapist's office because it's no holds barred. You might be willing to put things on paper that you might not be ready to say out loud.
- You put down what's most important to you, whether you know it or not… obviously, this can be revealing.
- Others love to read material from people who are exploring their own truth in authentic ways. They get insights that illuminate their own experiences.
For me, William, memoir, is about telling empowering stories. I don't worry if I rewrite history. I invented the stories that I live by anyhow. In memoir, I rewrite consciously.
One of my writing gurus, Natalie Goldberg, teaches memoir writing. Her memoir, The Long Quiet Highway, Waking up in America, about her Zen teacher, moved me deeply and remains one of the best books of any kind that I have read.
Before you come to our gathering, you might want to get every book and audio by her and explore what she says. (Not required at all. Do it if it sounds like fun.)
Blessings,
Join Us - William and Phyllis
Join us for this month's Wise Playful Connections, a delightfully engaging and spectacularly helpful series of gatherings.
When: 9:30 - 12:30. October 6th, 2007. This on-going series will meet the First Saturday of each month. You do need to register for each one.
Where: My living room on Alki in West Seattle. When you register, I'll send you directions.
Registration & Fee: My living room has limited seating, of course, so our gathering will be intimate, playful, and powerful. Registration will be first come first serve. I will have a waiting list. The fee is $49.
Call my office to register - 206.328.2073
Or email: thegoodheart@comcast.net
Clothing: No matter the weather, you may want to go outside. I certainly will invite you to explore as part of your "cave" time.
"There is no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing."
You may want to dress appropriately to give yourself options.
Promise Yourself to Make the Next Wise Playful Connections
Promise yourself. If you were at the last one, you know.
If you had come, you would have laughed, maybe cried, certainly you would have had profound insights.
How do I know? People said so.
November 3, 2007 - Kathy Rossol, The Power of Story
May these Classes bless you on your journeys towards living deliberately,
The Eight Fundamental Secrets to Living Well obviously, please do read about it and decide whether it will benefit you.
All content copyright ©, 1983-2008 William Wittmann, unless otherwise indicated.