Happy December 30th in this funny time before the new year.
We got back late last night from visiting my sister’s family and my parents in New York City, and I’m taking today to catch my breath today between the holidays and to reflect on last year and on this coming year.
I’m feeling particularly awed by the passage of time: I visited my 98 year old grandmother; visited with my aunt on my mom’s side and my uncle on my dad’s side both of whom are suffering physical or personal losses; stayed with my sister, whose “baby” is already four and a half; and am acutely aware that in 2017 Gabriel, my first baby, will enter his senior year of high school.
Even in easy political times (which these aren’t) change happens all the time, some of it hard, some of exciting, some both hard and exciting at once.
But this feels like a moment, right at the top of the year as at the top of an arc, when I can see more clearly the stillness that is also always present in change.
T.S. Eliot describes this stillness in motion in the Four Quartets:
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
My goal for 2017 is to try to honor this stillness in the motion, this dance. 2017 no doubt will bring us changes we can’t predict. But I feel ready to move more fully into my own work in 2017, and our nation’s disastrous coming leadership only lights the candle under me to do this work more wholeheartedly.
And I think of my workshops coaching and classes as invitations to you to help you step into your own still point in our rapidly moving world, as invitations and tools to help you step into your knowing, your voice, your wisdom, your body, and your light as you embrace this human dance in all of its complexity.
I hope you’ll join me in some of my upcoming programs:
Saturday January 7th I’ll be leading a yoga and writing workshop to welcome the new year. I was feeling a lot of heaviness in the air before the holidays, and decided I wanted to create a time to cultivate joy. Come however you are, in whatever state you are in, full of joy or sorrow, with any level of yogic or writing experience, and the class will meet you right as you are and invite you to embrace the new year. See more here: https://omnamocenter.com/align-your-story/
My in person poetry and prose workshops will be starting again Monday, January 9th. I have a few spaces left in both the morning poetry class and the afternoon prose class. These are wonderful communities of writers and people, and an opportunity to really dive into your work as a writer in 2017 with a guided, supportive class and community.
Align Your Story, my online course that brings together reading, writing, yoga and meditation, starts again in mid January. I have a few spaces left for a free one-on-one conference, either in the premium plan or in the classic plan. This is a great course if you want to jumpstart your writing for 2017 and step into your authority as a writer and person.
Here is what one student had to say about it:
I had been writing poetry for years, and working on a book that needed a lot of help. I had taken online courses before and found them to be too fractured, time-consuming and a bit impersonal. From day one, Align Your Story is a thoughtful, engaging and inspiring series of modules that takes the writer on a deeply spiritual, soul-filling journey that has the potential to shift your life dramatically. The yoga and meditation exercises were an unexpected bonus and gave consciousness and clarity to each of the writing practices. I had never before written with so much freedom and personal insight as I was compelled to during Nadia’s course. Her genuine interest in bringing out your authentic voice, and gently teasing out the parts of your personal journey that lend weight and meaning to your work keeps you coming back for more each week.
The community of sojourner/writers who participated along with me in the course have become both trusted sounding blocks and friends. I look at this course as my own personal spiritual spring cleaning…the fact that I can access the course anytime I want offers endless opportunities to regularly clear out the “dust” that collects in the crawl spaces of my soul. Nadia Colburn has developed a generous and comprehensive approach to guiding both the amateur and the experienced writer. No matter what kind of writing you do, this course is a must! —Karen Biscoe
And you can always reach out to me with questions—or just comments.
I’ll leave you with a few more lines from T. S. Eliot:
release from the inner
And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
Erhebung without motion, concentration
Without elimination, both a new world
And the old made explicit, understood
In the completion of its partial ecstasy
Happy almost-new year!
with love,
Nadia