Yarra Valley Spoken Word

There’s been an inspiring initiative at our local eco-community centre – Ecoss – over the last eighteen months. It’s the Yarra Valley Spoken Word, run by friends of mine Chris James, Andy Travis and Alexandra Barton Johnson. I’m chuffed that they’ve asked me to be their guest poet this month, on Friday June 9th. I’ll start with some stories and a poem or two, but then we’ll get collaborative by bringing in some of my favourite workshop processes. Everyone will be invited to turn inwards to the imaginal, to sink deep into this place where we live, this gorgeous valley, and see what happens when we hand the pen over to the place to tell its story. I’ll then encourage people to read aloud what place has penned. So perhaps, for this month, we ought to rename the evening: Yarra Valley Speaking Words!

It’s fascinating to use meditative and somatic processes to access the sense of a place, and discover how alive and intelligent the place feels when we approach from within.

We follow the body’s lead, we soften the sense of our separateness, so culturally and linguistically entrained in us all. We’re seeking a shift of awareness, from the story that we have consciousness inside of us, to the felt sense of being inside consciousness.

There’s a sense of profound participation with something wondrous when this happens. We then ask the place if it might like to tell it’s knowing, and we use flow writing processes to let this voice come through. And then, when people generously share by reading aloud the words that have arrived on their page, each story feels like a gift to us all.

I’m so curious to discover what we might learn together, and feel together, us people of this place.

It would be wonderful to have you along.