The concepts & principles of yoga extend far beyond the work we do on our mats.

Together with Luisa Igloria, Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia, we're honored to host:

Writing the Body: a creative writing workshop for Healthcare Professionals

Doctors, nurses, & health workers, and many other professionals and caregivers have been called to heightened service in their line of work, especially in the current climate of global pandemic.

Because so much of what we are asked to deal with is out of the bounds of human control, the challenge to be of authentic use is intense. The burden of serving is thus characterized not only by great physical but also emotional and intellectual labor.

At the end of the day, how does the physician or health worker attend to their own need for rest and/or healing?

In this creative writing workshop, we will focus on the ways in which poetry and medicine alike require us to practice deepened forms of attention (observing, listening) to the world immediately around us.

Through curated reading selections and guided writing prompts (including some opportunity to work with hybrid forms), we will write in order to find the fundamental metaphors we need, which might allow us to make more sense of experience, navigate complexity, and offer respite.

Participants will decide what/how much of their own experiences and contexts to bring into their writing. But it is hoped that this workshop can function as an empathetic space in which poetry can be used as a means to explore and articulate what is often difficult to put in language: about human encounters related to the body, with all its flaws, its beauty, its failures, and promise.

Expected output: participants will generate new poems related to the workshop themes; participants will also be invited to contribute work toward a poetry anthology to be edited by Dr. Tonya Russell.

Cost: $35

100% of profits will be matched by GUD Yoga & donated to medical relief efforts in Ukraine through Razom Emergency Response.