Workshops

Choose from these workshops at Wisdom’s Feast! See schedule for details.

Creating a Healing Journal: Tools for vision, creativity, and power!

Through our personal journeys of healing, we each contribute something unique to the world. Join this interactive workshop and learn creative ways to express your unique story, your struggles and triumphs, insights and lessons. Journal writing helps you organize and solidify your wisdom for greater healing and powerful change. This workshop will teach unique journaling tools to move you forward on the sacred journey of the healer.

Vanessa Timmons is an activist, freelance writer and author of The Way of Heroine: A Woman’s Healing Journal. A dedicated advocate for women, Vanessa has helped hundreds through her workshops, support groups and individual counseling. As a life coach she works with women’s groups, national health coalitions and political organizations to create safer communities. Vanessa has led workshops for Women of Wisdom, SisterSpirit, and many other organizations. http://thewayoftheheroine.com.

Saving Your Life Now: The Extraordinary Ordinary of Prayer and Spiritual Practice

In recognizing the sacred in our ordinary lives we have the power to create profound and deep healing for ourselves, our families, and our communities. Let us journey together to discover the multitude of ways in which spiritual practice can nourish our souls to greater presence and connection with the Sacred. We will explore prayer, sitting and walking meditation, storytelling and storylistening, fasting, Sabbath keeping, writing, cooking, chanting and many more! We will do more than discuss, we will practice!

Rev. Melissa Bennett is a Master of Divinity candidate at Marylhurst University where she is currently writing her thesis on the healing power of storytelling. She holds a B.A. degree in creative writing and indigenous studies from The Evergreen State College and is the author of a (mostly) weekly blog entitled Pen, Paper, Prayer about writing as a spiritual practice. Melissa is an Interfaith minister grounded in the traditions of Buddhism, the Sacred Feminine, and the beliefs and traditions of her Umatilla/Nez Perce/Sac & Fox ancestors. www.womanstoryteller.com.

Sacred Song, Sacred Ceremony!

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. ~Ludwig van Beethoven
Nothing feeds the spirit of the ancestors like a good song. Come learn powerful healing and celebration songs of the Yoruba and African American Heritage traditions. In this workshop you will learn authentic healing, invocation, ceremony and community gathering songs of power. Bring your instruments and your voice; we are going to raise the roof!

Sister Ayanna Askari is a gifted poet and singer. A dedicated aborisha of Oshun, her healing ceremonies are powerful and innovative. She works with her life partner Brother Askari in their mission to preserve traditional African American culture in music, storytelling, traditions, rituals and language. Visit their website at http://brotheraskari.com.

Dancing for Joy: Surrender to rhythm and connect to your power

The heartbeat and the breath naturally tune themselves to rhythm. When we surrender ourselves to music and experience it through the body, we enter a higher state of consciousness where we are connected. In this class we will explore the beauty of enjoying and celebrating every move our body makes. We will practice expressing the deepest joy within our bodies authentically and in the moment, through the universal language of movement. It is through this practice that we can rediscover our universal connectedness as well as our own unique and beautiful powers.

Kendra began studying belly dance with her mother at the age of seven. She has completed intensive training programs in Egypt as well as researching Arabic dance history during her her undergraduate studies. She has been teaching dance for over 10 years. Kendra currently teaches through the dance department at Portland Community College and is the faculty advisor for the World Dance Association at the Rock Creek Campus.

Sharing Our Stories: Writing for SageWoman and Crone Magazines

Would you like to share your personal story with over 10,000 other women? Editor Anne Newkirk Niven will share tips, ideas, and examples of personal essay writing for publication. A free copy of SageWoman #81 and Crone Magazine issue #4 will be made available to all participants. Be prepared to write – bring your laptop, legal pad and pen, or whatever strikes your Muse – and share with other women in your small group.

Anne Newkirk Niven is the editor of SageWoman and Crone magazines.

The Seeker Within: Setting Intention and Personal Integrity

A guided meditation and workshop on being present in your own life, setting intention, building trust between yourself and the Universe, and finally doing the work that helps you move forward in Self-affirming ways. What is the goal, how are you pursuing it, and how can you shift your efforts to support the outcome you desire. Forge your path to living with whole-self integrity.

Staci Elliott is an experienced healer and empath. Accessing knowledge is her specialty. Staci works with her Life Coaching clients to become conscious of the life story they are creating. More information about her growing line of healing products, and her work as a Life Coach, Facilitator and Empathic Healer can be found at www.BeWellmedicine.com. Staci’s goal is to support individual, family, and community well-being. To build bridges of possibility, and to be a healing presence in the world.

Spirited Life SoulCollage®: Making Pearls Out of Your Life Experiences

Discover the honest (and often surprising) art of self-expression. SoulCollage® consists of gathering images that attract your attention, cutting and pasting them on cards in a way that makes sense only to your intuitive self, and finding the hidden meanings in them. SoulCollage® is about making meaning, not making art…and you most always learn something new about yourself and what is going on just under the surface of your day-to-day life. All this and it’s fun too!

Karen Campbell is now retired after 20+ years work in Oregon Corrections facilitating cognitive and life skills activities. She is certified in Aggression Replacement Therapy, Cognitive Self Change Groups, Peer Mediation/ Dispute Resolution, Pathways to Recovery Program, Cannabis Youth Training, It’s Not OK Anymore (a domestic violence program) and SoulCollage®. Karen especially enjoys making Community Cards which celebrate the ‘Stand Alone Courage’ of women in her life and in our history. She celebrates a different woman who has influenced her life each month and part of that celebration is making a SoulCollage® card to commemorate each woman’s contribution. www.soulcollage.com/karen-m-campbell

Opening to the Many Voices in the Ecosystem

Join Frodo for a guided half-hour walk in nature during the lunch hour.

Frodo Okulam is the founder and coordinator of SisterSpirit women’s spirituality group in Portland, Oregon and teaches women’s spirituality and related subjects at Portland State University. Her life passion is inviting people into relationship with the Goddess and the natural world.

Wisdom's Feast: A Women's Spirituality Conference