West London Buddhist Centre

This online workshop runs 9-10 December, 10.00am-4.30pm each day with lunch break.

Imagination is powerful. Imagination is healing.

Gabrielle Roth

It can be deeply troubling to face such a conflicted world as we do, even if its upheavals don’t affect us directly. Do we take sides? How do we cope when there seems so little we can do to affect events? How do we avoid feeling overwhelmed?

The imagination can at least offer the chance of peace within through its power to harmonise our own energies. In this online weekend workshop, Wolf at the Door team Dharmavadana and Vishvantara return with ways to work with inner strife through writing, towards a healing which may even spread from ourselves to others. Listen to them talk about the theme.

No writing experience is necessary, just a willingness to step through a door into new creative spaces, accompanied by experienced guides. Listen to how one participant describes these weekends.

What to expect
You do not need to have attended previous Wolf at the Door weekends in order to come on this one. The event will be online by Zoom. As with our in-person events, the leaders will set up a variety of activities to stimulate the imagination and get you writing. Each day will run from 10.00 – 4.30, with an hour for lunch and tea breaks.

However, there will be certain adaptations for the online platform, as well as requirements in order to recreate as much of a ‘real life’ Wolf at the Door experience as possible.

Places will be limited to 18 to retain as much of the friendly, open and supportive atmosphere of our events as feasible, and to allow everyone a chance to read out their work, if they wish, and be heard.

We advise that if possible you use a laptop for the event, rather than relying on a phone or tablet, as using a tablet or phone does not give you the visual experience of the group available to laptop users – an important condition for a feeling of joint participation in the writing and reading back. However, this is not an essential requirement.

We also request that you make sure you can find a space while you attend where you will be undisturbed and able to concentrate on the writing exercises, for the whole event. After the leaders have introduced each activity, it can aid concentration to move or turn away from your screen to write – pen or pencil and paper is recommended. You will need if possible to switch off other devices too, and not have other distracting apps running on your laptop besides Zoom. We will also ask that you attend to the instructions for each exercise and to the reading out and not be away from your laptops at those points, if humanly possible.

As places are limited, booking is required and must be for both the Saturday and Sunday. We give out vital introductory guidance on the Saturday. Once you’ve booked, you’ll be sent Zoom log-in details which will last for the whole weekend and any other necessary information.

Open to all.