“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
-Joseph Campbell
Entering the Cave
sacred practice for artists
what is the cave?
The cave is your next edge.
As artists and creatives, we face them all the time. Birthing new work into being, dreaming new worlds, opening a channel to something that wants to move through us: this is deep work.
Work like this means we can’t avoid our shadows, our fears, our undigested raw aliveness.
There’s nothing quite like the rush of making work that feels wildly alive.
As many times as we’ve sailed in the dark, though, the voyage can be lonely, and discouraging. It can feel like no one cares. An old inner critic voice might rear up to say, why bother?
Amidst all the obligations of the rest of your life, who needs you to be digging into your raw weird heart and creating art that sometimes even you don’t understand?
YOU DO.
AND WE DO, TOO.
the cave is companionship
When we’re meeting our edges, we need good mirrors.
It’s my firm belief that artists need artists. As much as the work we do is about exploring the solitude of our own souls’ depths, mining a process that may be uniquely our own, it is catalytic to have someone sitting outside the cave mouth, with metaphorical camp fire and warm stew, waiting to hear your fresh ghost stories, feel the glimmers of possibility, see the potential together with you.
We need to be understood.
Especially when we’re meeting edges of uncertainty, we need to be witnessed by those who know how to fan the sparks of our aliveness into full flame. And we need to witness others in their messy, alive process, so we remember we’re not alone.
the cave is a bridge between worlds
Art is a collaboration with the sacred mystery.
When you’re making your art, you sometimes go into this altered state. This inner world. Muck around in your process, wrangle something raw into form. When it’s really flowing, the work is making you. There’s something mystic in it, something deeply intuitive, personal, and meaningful.
Then when you talk about it, or share or show or even try to critique it, sometimes you’re doing so from a very different self. The identity you walk around in might not fully know how to access the very vulnerable inner depths from which you create.
Entering the Cave is a liminal, sacred space that combines silence and mystical practices (guided visualizations, ritual, energy work) with time in playful, authentic discussion, so that you can integrate these two worlds: both your access to the depths with your day-to-day reality.
Join me for a free Cave workshop
Friday, November 21st, 12-1pm
live via Zoom
As we approach the darkest time of year, our energy naturally wants to turn inward. This is a liminal space in the year: opportune for shedding old stories and welcoming The Void.
What is The Void?
It’s the sacred space of not-knowing we must enter as artists and creatives in between seasons of knowing. When a project or series has run its course, and you find yourself uncertain what’s next, you’re in The Void.
Do not fear. There’s magic here.
Whether you’re currently experiencing a sense of in-betweenness in your practice, or just trust that calling in your next edge always requires a willingness to not-know, join me for this free workshop to explore concepts and tools for how to lean into emptiness and trust the times when you find yourself in The Void.
Entering the Cave
Entering the Cave: Sacred Practice for Artists is the support I wish I’d had when I was a blocked writer.
A space to be among fellow artists and feel seen and held at the level of the soul.
So often, writing or art workshops focus mostly on craft, but bypass the heart-soul-shadow work most artists confront (steadily) if we’re really pushing into our rawest material.
We need that shadow work though, because on some level, most of us make art to wrestle with emotion: to channel impermanent beauty, process grief, ritually release trauma.
We make art to feel alive, and to dream better worlds into existence, and to wring the wild inchoate interior world out like a wet sponge into something that can be seen, or held, or heard.
This is a profound gift we offer. And often, it is fucking hard.
No wonder we get stuck sometimes. When you’re making work you truly care about, you rub up against what you truly care about. And that’s edgy, joyful, terrifying, liberating work to be doing.
Sure, you could stay on the surface, and keep making work you don’t truly find challenging. But the art that makes life feel worth living?
It costs something.
Usually your comfort.
What a payoff, though, when you push past safe and into sacred.
In the cave, we make braving the darkness a lot more fun, because you’re not doing any of it alone. Friendly companions, loving heart-felt guidance, and rituals and practices to take you across the thresholds of your day-to-day self into the altered states where soul-transformation opens — then bring you safely back into integration.
Fair warning: more than your art will change. This practice can shift your life.
What people say
-
"Entering the Cave sessions have been wonderful in many ways. The three most obvious ways are: 1) They are supportive of my creative development as an artist. 2) They are a mental health salve; the multi-modal approach including guided meditation, body movement, writing/art prompts and the group processing of those experiences go a long way in supporting my mental health. I consider my participation in "Entering the Cave" to be a part of my mental health support system. 3) The friendships I'm developing with you and the participants in the Cave are important to me and make my life richer."
Shai, Entering the Cave participant
-
"You struck such a beautiful balance of stories and topics simple enough to be mantras, but complex enough to have great depth. For that reason, I expect I'll carry all of them with me. The yoga was delicious. I felt great during and after--and it was interesting to experience the way in which I felt opened up to creativity in a different way after the yoga. Things came up in the writing exercises that I have never written about before. I love the way you get us into poses differently than any other yoga teacher. It feels inherently creative and full of surprise!"
Monica, Entering the Cave participant
-
"This was the most loving practice I think I've ever experienced. It felt like it was less of an object, and more of a vessel."
Ariel, Entering the Cave participant
-
"It was such a gift to be held in this space. A deeply nurturing practice, a highly intuitive teacher, a stellar community of creatives/truth-seekers/kind & kindred people. I’m filled up and my body feels amazing."
Kate, Entering the Cave Participant
Contact me
I’d love to hear from you.