Get a taste of Robert’s class
Your Heroic Journey started yesterday and it was an inspiring and thought-provoking class. Here’s a little sampling of Robert talking about how the experience of poetry mirrors the classic hero’s journey. We’ll be posting small excerpts from the class from week to week.
I was so taken by this class with Robert McDowell, I had to spread the word on my Facebook! This says a lot for this frequent cyber hermit. Seriously, his idea of poem making as a spiritual journey of “leaving home – venturing out – coming home” is so poignant that Joseph Campbell will burst out, “Right on, man.” No matter where your poetic self is in terms of the three stages, you are led to the beautiful paradox here: writing process in isolation and in community. The master teacher, Robert, models this so naturally with fluidity and warmth, sharing his own initimate stories that serve as prompts for writing and further as questions about his and our own lives, which then could be translated, shaped, and redefined in a form of poetry.
This class also provides ample, creative, practical guidance derived from both Western and Eastern wisdom and practices like guided meditation before work, Haiku, renaming familiar emotions like joy or anger, just to name a few, and archetypal experiences are redelivered through Yeats, Mary Oliver, oh, the list goes on. So after just an hour of listening to him, taking notes, and even participating in the Q/A/Comments session, I feel like my starved poetic being was well-fed with an assortment of a hearty gourmet meal, with a newly charged “responsibility” to go out and feed the dormant voices of mine with “bravery, attention, humility” as Robert put. Speaking of “attention,” I must share my personal synchronicity story that happened three days in a row: my watching a Korean movie called “Poetry” where the heroine got to discover her true passion and worth through writing one poem finally at the age of 64-ish, this first class here yesterday, then today at a meeting an unexpected DVD called “Mythos II” which is about Joseph Campbell’s Transformation of Myth Through Time. As Robert would question, I say to myself, “What’s going on here? What are they trying to tell me about my life?” Well, “well-savored” moments are a “well-lived” life, and I’d better pay attention to this series of signs.
This class definitely helps clear clogs in our creative being, motivating us to be our “reverent” witness and recorder of our one precious life. I look forward to filling out my new notebook as the class progresses. Last but not least, my gratitude also goes to our caring, detailed leader, Brooke Warner, who made this techie sail such a smooth one.
Dear Robert, I was enchanted by the way this workshop started out, it was a sublime first day!! I appreciate
your wonderful voice which, to me, is a gifted one for speaking poetry. And I loved being reminded that writing poetry returns us to that wonderful remembrance of Who We Really Are. For surely we must have been speaking urgently
in our mother’s womb, “Let me not forget Who I Am When I arrive on Earth” I am so delighted I chose to join you.