re-imagine and re-story your life and work

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

The Virus tornado whirls whipping up panic, ghosts, fear, isolation, change
and uncertainly. At such a time you can turn social distancing into self nearing and nurturing
What better time to journal or join a solo or group online
12% discount on all courses
so that words can place and hold you in the eye of the storm?
from 27 March (Lockdown Day) till 23 April (Shakespeare’s deathday and now World Book Day)

Why not join and encourage friends to join too so that you create your own
community to exchange your stories and so record a remarkable time.
For this too will pass

https://www.skillstoshare.com/product/therough-writing-road-audio-course-withdorian-haarhoff/

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…

http://dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Ongoing-Activities-2020.pdf

What’s on Storyshops Retreats Writeshops Conversations
A glimpse into 2nd quarter 2020 offerings
Given the virus crisis gatherings have been postponed .
So days of social distancing can also be days of
self-nearing, self- nourishing

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, Zoom meet and teach

12% discount on all these from 27 March (Lockdown Day) till 23 April (World Book Day and Shakespeare’s deathday)
Wherever you are in the world… you can be part of a ‘virtual’ group or enjoy one-on-one mentoring

1. Somerset West
   Magic Carpet Writing Group R730 (6 sessions)
   Next gatherings Zoom Wed 29 April 18.30 – 20.30
   Need to be part of a fun-loving supportive thinking/being group of aspirant writers?
   …. we meet in an art studio. Writing exercises, conversation, energy, soup and wine. Beginners are welcome… make writing friends ….
   Our 2020 theme – Once upon a life…… Fairy tales – ancient, modern and us

2. Pringle Bay Poetry Moments
I want to write poems that are natural, luminous, deep, spare. I dream of an art so transparent that you can look through and see the world. (Stanely Kunitz)
Monthly bring and share your own or poems you poems you live and love … a
freebie….. next… Tues 21 April probably Zoom @ 18.31ish

3. Pringle Bay
What to write Poetry? A Morning for You
Fri 3 April ZOOM 09.45 -11.45 no fixed fee: dana system (you contribute via
your means and received learning)
I believe that poetry is a primal impulse within us all. …we are all capable of it … a small, often ignored corner of us yearns to try it (Stephen Fry)
Do you yearn to write poems? Poetry is a way of paying attention, listening, being in the moment and observing the world. Come and write in a safe space.

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

re-story, re-create and re-imagine your life and work
this letter in dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za courtesy Dominic Haarhoff
In these days of online, see ongoing opportunities and ‘what’s on’
12% discount on all online possibilities

Dear seeker of word and images

World Concern, Social Distancing and Space The One Who Is at Play Everywhere says, There is a space in the heart where everything meets. Come here if you want to find me. Mind, senses, soul, eternity – all are here. Are you here? Enter the bowl of vastness that is the heart. Listen to the song that is always resonating. Give yourself to it with total abandon. (Radiance Sutras +-800 A.D) This month I’ve been thinking about how the current time asks me to look anew with awareness at the 21 day Lockdown and the space it opens up. Social distancing can bring self-nearing, self-nurturing while placing us in an inclusive cosmos. There are hidden Alibaba doorways into such treasure space. Open sesame insights through writing, journaling, story-telling, Fairy tales, photography and and…. And sitting quietly in our breath and bloodbath.

(I sent out a special discount message on the Rough Writing Road selfdirected journaling course. Valid till Shakespeare’s deathday and World Book day, 23 April – see ongoing events.)

Alice Walker (The Color Purple) at eight lost the sight of one eye in a
shooting accident. Her three-year old daughter, Rebecca, enjoyed a TV
program Big Blue Marble. ‘It begins with a picture of the earth as it appears
from the moon. It is bluish… battered-looking, but full of light, with whitish
clouds swirling around’. One day she observed ‘Mommy, there’s a world in
your eye.’ How do we gaze into space and take the world into our eye?
Here’s Alice Walker on meditation:

To my surprise…I felt myself drop into a completely different internal
space. A space filled with the purest quiet, the most radiant
peacefulness. I started to giggle and then to laugh…. meditation took
me right back to my favorite place in childhood: gazing out into the
landscape, merging with it and disappearing.

At a recent retreat, participants chose pictures. One person, in response to her picture of a narrow steeple stretching into a blue sky,
mentioned how focusing on blue sky was her way of meditating. The steeple then could symbolise the person sitting upright in this space.

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

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…

http://dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/2020-Ongoing-Activities.pdf

A glimpse into March to April 2020 offerings

If you want these in your area ask ask ask..
On line writing support
I facilitate writing courses for folk afar. Wherever you are in the world… you can be part of a ‘virtual’ group or enjoy one-on-one mentoring
Stop Press: McGregor Temenos24-27 April
Between First In-breath and Last Out-breath:The Art of Story-telling-item 7

1 Somerset West
Magic Carpet Writing Group R730 (6 sessions)
Next gatherings Wed 26 Feb Wed 25 March 18.30 – 21.30
Need to be part of a fun-loving supportive thinking/being group of aspirant writers?
…. we meet in an art studio. Writing exercises, conversation, energy, soup and wine. Beginners are welcome… make writing friends ….
Our 2020 theme – Once upon a life…… Fairy tales – ancient, modern and us

http://dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/March-2020-whats-on.pdf

Midrash, Rilke, Apollo and Us

Many candles can be kindled from one candle without diminishing its light
Midrash involves Biblical interpretation. It’s about elaborating and asking
questions about a text. Why did Eve engage with the snake? Why did Lots’
wife turn around? For me, midrash allows the imagination to flesh the
bones of a skeletal story and participate in a text, lifting personal
meaning from between the lines. And such a meaning changes with each encounter for yesterday’s reader is not the reader facing today’s page.

http://dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/March-2020-letter-1.pdf

What’s on Storyshops Retreats Writeshops Conversations

A glimpse into the Feb to April 2020 offerings
If you want these in your area ask ask ask..
On line writing support
I facilitate writing courses for folk afar. Wherever you are in the world… you can be part of a ‘virtual’ group

http://dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Feb-2020-whats-on-2.pdf

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.’

http://dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Feb-2020-Ongoing-Activities.pdf

re-story, re-create and re-imagine your life and work
As from Feb this letter is also on a blog dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za courtesy of Dominic Haarhoff

See ‘what’s on’ for wordshops, retreats and ongoing opportunities

http://dorianhaarhoffblog.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Feb-2020-letter.pdf