Dear seeker of words and images
I could be bound in a nutshell and count myself the king of infinite space
(Hamlet)
Shakespeare could have been writing in a lockdown phase when Hamlet
pronounces and Macbeth laments ‘I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound into saucy doubts and fears.’ In this Spring letter I return to the primacy of
the imagination. I suggest while we are inside a room, perhaps alone or zoomscreen bound, say on a writing retreat, we can enter the reaches of the
imagination to bring the outside world in and inside world out.

inside the outside then you will inherit the Kingdom (Queendom.)’
In the gnostic gospel of St Thomas we read ’when you make the outside the inside and My friend, Igno van Niekerk, photographer and author and I have been experimenting with zoomagine- three of many ways of opening up and out the zoom experience. – being in nature, entering memory and entertaining the imagination.

http://dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Sept-2002-Newsletter-1.pdf

Zoom – winter 2020 offerings

Days of social distancing can also be days of self-nearing, self- nourishing

Wherever you are in the world… you can be part of a ‘virtual’ group or enjoy one-on-one mentoring

The online support is alive and well – The Rough Writing Road Journal course, Poetry, Fiction, Writing your Spiritual Journey, Downtime with Dori, one-on–one mentoring and mini-wordshops

Zoom meet and teach – mini wordshops

Hi Dorian, am already addicted to your zingy zoom and would like to join you for the next ‘word chops’…and find strength and joy in the river of your unfolding. (Silja)

I invite you to these 2 zoom wordshops: (see below for themes). Folks respond positively. They connect, enjoy the company and experience, and in no time are writing away.

Cost: R320 per wordshop of 3+ hours 09.30 -12.45 SA time A discount if you subscribe to both wordshops = R300 x 2

http://dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Aug-2020-whats-on.pdf

Dear seeker of words and images

Whoever is innerly silent touches the roots of speech (Rilke)

A recent dream offered this month’s theme. Two teams engage in a debate. The first sprouts forth, articulating wisdom and insight, adding irrefutable argument and reference. Brilliantly structured and delivered. Now is the turn of the other team. This team chooses to respond in silence for the length allowed – some 40 minutes. Despite provocation, jeering, hurled questions, they hold the silence.

In waking, in lucid dreaming I add for the silent team, four images they project onto a screen. The Buddha holding up a flower in his silent flower sermon. The Rilke quote prefacing this letter. Rumi. ‘Where the lips are silent, the heart knows a thousand ways to speak.’ And Jung on solitude.

http://dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Aug-2020-letter-1.pdf

Dear seeker of words and images

The first task is re-storying the adult…to restore the imagination to its primary place in consciousness in each of us regardless of age…. My interest in story is as something lived in and lived through, a way in which the soul finds its life.
(James Hillman)

It’s Dori lettertime (sent via mailchimp). What does it mean to live your life as if it were a story? This month’s theme. Why do stories hum with energy? We respond to stories because we are walking talking stories, our lives immersed in fiction. We spend our years as a tale that is told. (Psalm 90: 9)

Read this text from the Upanishad. When we inhabit our story we become both birds – one passionately eats the fruit, the other watches, witnesses , not with judgement but with compassion. The paradox is that the more I watch my life, the more I am involved in the moment.

http://dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/July-2020-lertter-1.pdf

Zoom – winter 2020 offerings
Days of social distancing can also be days of self-nearing, self- nourishing
Wherever you are in the world… you can be part of a ‘virtual’ group or enjoy one-on-one mentoring
The online support is alive and well – The Rough Writing Road Journal course, Poetry, Fiction, Writing your Spiritual Journey, Downtime with Dori, one-on–one mentoring and mini-wordshops
Zoom meet and teach – mini wordshops
Hi Dorian, am already addicted to your zingy zoom and would like to join you for the next ‘word chops’…and find strength and joy
in the river of your unfolding. (Silja)
I invite you to these 4 zoom wordshops: (see below for themes) Plus the Buddhist retreat one. Folks respond positively. They connect, enjoy the company and experience, and in no time are writing away.
Cost: R320 per wordshop of 3+ hours 09.30 -12.45 SA time
A discount if you subscribe for all 4 wordshops = R290 x 4 = R1160

http://dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/July-2020-whats-on.pdf

Dear seeker of words and images
Looking at your image in a clear stream, you answer the question
by your very presence
It’s Dori lettertime. (As from now I’m sending the letter via mail chimp)
Living midst the uncertainties of the age, this month’s theme centres on zen
pen – writing being and meditation. [Why Zen Pen?
Zen (Chinese chán ‘quietude’) invites us to be present, to live and write
simply.
Pen (Latin penna ‘feather’ ) refers to both practicing the art of
writing and the implements we use. It also invites us to play in a safe
place – as in playpen.

I saw this cat on a recent dawn walk. It seemed to be meditating -perhaps cats are natural meditators? This one seemed to sit in a quiet space amid a tangle of branches – (a tangle of non-thoughts?) On my early walk the next morning, I came across a dog in more or less the same spot. Cat no longer in the tree.
I wonder what somatic (being in the body) cats and dogs can teach us about meditation and being? That focused gaze – that look and listen awareness…that presence. They live and move in and through the life force of the five senses. And what happens to our writing when we slow down, look listen, engage in the miracle of the body and write from the stillness – ‘the still point of the turning world’ (TS Eliot)? When we enter this slow down silence? You might recall T S Eliot’s Macavity the Mystery cat who ‘when he’s half asleep is really wide awake.’

http://dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/June-2020-letter.pdf

12% discount during these turbulent times

The Rough Writing Road
A 16 week self-directed Online Journaling Course

Your course is invaluable…thank you for the inspiration and spontaneity you sow into the word around you. (Y O)

Writers all… I have created an online journal course with the help of an online ‘guru.’
Our guiding metaphor is the rough road we travel along on the writing path. I prompt via stories, questions, quotations, poems, memories and suggestions. These are drawn from many traditions and faiths. Helping you find your voice. As you walk you enter a great conversation with yourself … and others.
Why the rough road? It’s writing that has not been crafted or edited. Spontaneous. Rough as in rough days.

Some of the 16 units are:

Retraining the Eye…Many Selves…Dreaming…The Fire that warms you Five Times…Living the Questions Now…
Self directed

http://dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Ongoing-Opportunities-June.pdf

Zoom – 2nd quarter 2020 offerings
Days of social distancing can also be days of self-nearing, self- nourishing
Wherever you are in the world… you can be part of a ‘virtual’ group or enjoy one-on-one mentoring

The online support is alive and well – The Rough Writing Road Journal course, Poetry, Fiction, Writing your Spiritual Journey, Downtime with Dori, one-on–one mentoring and mini-wordshops
Zoom meet and teach – mini wordshops

Hi Dorian, am already addicted to your zingy zoom and would like to join you for the next two ‘word chops’…and find strength and joy
in the river of your unfolding. (Silja)

I invite you to these zoom wordshops: (see below for themes) Folks respond positively. They connect, enjoy the company and experience, and in no time are writing away.
Cost: R320 per wordshop of 3+ hours 09.30 -12.45 SA time
A discount if you subscribe for all 4 wordshops = R290 x 4= R1160

http://dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/June-2020-whats-on.pdf

Zoom Storyshops mini-retreats Writeshops Conversations

Zoom – 2nd quarter 2020 offerings
Days of social distancing can also be days of self-nearing, self- nourishing
Wherever you are in the world… you can be part of a ‘virtual’ group or enjoy one-on-one mentoring

The online support is alive and well – The Rough Writing Road Journal course, Poetry, Fiction, Writing your Spiritual Journey, Downtime with Dori, one-on–one mentoring and mini-wordshops

Zoom meet and teach – 4 mini wordshops
I invite you to these zoom wordshops: 26 April, 10 and 24 May and 7 June (see below for themes) Folks respond positively to the zoom wordshops I’ve been offering. They connect, enjoy the company and experience, and in no time are writing away.

Cost: R320 per wordshop of 3 hours 09.30 -12.30 SA time
12.5 % discount if you subscribe for all 3 wordshops = R280 x 3 = R840

I create a space that is safe, supportive and encouraging

These wordshops are for those who wish to:

How the zoom works – step by step
Please email me if you want to be part of this experience. Mention which wordshop. I’ll explain how to prepare for the session and send you the zoom link to click on.
At 09.15 on the Sunday you have chosen, click on the zoom link so we can practice and sort out any hitches. The morning unfolds through 5 sessions – around 180 minutes. There are 5 steps:

1. I facilitate the wordshop, setting up the experience (35 minutes)
2. Then we go offline and you respond to the prompts (35 minutes)

http://dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/May-2020-whats-on.pdf

In these days of online, see ongoing opportunities and ‘what’s on’
12% discount on all online possibilities
Dear seeker of word and images
How shall I Live? 16 Tanka responses to a 16 picture collage
Like the sonnet, the tanka employs a turn, known as a pivotal image,. This turn is located within the third line, connecting the kami-no-ku, or upper poem, with the shimo-no-ku, or lower poem.

I often create collages as a way of opening to other voices within. This
month I’m sharing one with 16 images constructed during Lockdown time. In response to the question, ‘How shall I live?’ during these days and beyond, I‘ve written a Tanka for each picture. A Tanka (‘short song’) is a classical Japanese 31-syllable lyric poem divided into five lines – 5 7 5 7 7.

Originally chanted aloud to musical accompaniment, these forms have existed for over 1300 years. They are intended to flow so often have no punctuation. Some early poets such as the Sufi mystic Hafiz (1300’s) include their names at the end of a poem as a signature. I adopt this convention in these Tanka. I’ve photographed the original inspiration, in triptych form – left, centre and right. (with inevitable overlap.) Try this idea to generate text? Dorian

http://dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/May-2020-letter.pdf