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bulletGreeting the Muse
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bulletThe Heart of Imagination
bulletMuse 101
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bullet Theater of Dreams

bulletImaging the Self: The Body as Oracle

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Details and cautions about our events...

All event dates are subject to change. All workshops are held at Cliff Bostock's office, which is located in his home in Grant Park. This work, soulwork, is not a substitute for psychotherapy. However, since it is very intense work, often calling on the depth psychology tradition, initial screening interviews are sometimes required. Although we assume that you undertake this work because of a problem in your life, it is not recommended that you undertake it unless you feel fundamentally grounded and stable. Much of the work requires looking at your defenses and "shadow" material, so you must have enough stability to undergo some discomfort in the eventual interest of resolving your block.

All workshops require a contract and participants must pay for all sessions, including missed ones. This is necessary because groups are kept small, usually under eight, and newcomers cannot be introduced once the term of a workshop has begun.

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Greeting the Muse

These 11-week workshops begin about every eight weeks. Preferred time is 10 a.m., although evening groups are also scheduled. Cost is $50 per session and includes experiential work in group sessions as well as extensive review of each paticipant's work and feedback letters. One sliding-scale-fee position is available. Participation usually requires taking a weekend Muse 101 workshop (see below). Sometimes, a private interview ($70) can be substituted. There is a $100 nonrefundable deposit required for the 11-week workshop. Call Cliff Bostock, 404-525-4774 (Atlanta) or email cliff@soulworks.net. Top of Page

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Muse 101

This is a Friday night-all day Saturday workshop required for anyone considering the 11-week Greeting the Muse Workshop. It is also designed for those who would like to learn some basic tools to improve creativity but can't commit to the full 11 weeks. It is conducted by Cliff Bostock and Rose D'Agostino.

Among the subjects covered are: Recovering a sense of the muse, by which we mean the aesthetic image-making function of the soul....Learning the aesthetic function's role in creative work and ordinary life....Leaning the historic function of the heart as an organ of perception and the body's role as a field of perception and expression.

Workshops are scheduled 6:30-9:30 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday throughout the year. Cost is $135. A $50 deposit is required. Call Cliff Bostock, 404-525-4774, or email cliff@soulworks.net to reserve a space. Click here to learn more about how this workshop developed. Top of Page

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Imaging the Self: The Body as Oracle

As part of his dissertation research, Cliff Bostock has read a tremendous amount of theory about the social and personal meanings of the body in the last few years. This experimental group engages participants in an exploration of the significations of their own bodies - what their bodies, in their particularity, say about their psychological and social lives. (Our bodies are both a field of personal expression and the means by which we interact with the world.)

Obviously, the more problematic your relationship to your body - whether you have an eating disorder or suffer the so-called "Adonis Complex" or have difficulty expressing your sexuality - the more challenging and valuable this work will be. But it is also meant as a general education in the way all of us unconsciously live out cultural stories with our bodies.

This workshop meets 11 weeks for two hours per session. Cost is $50 per week, with discounts available to those who pay in advance. Contact Cliff Bostock, 404-5525-4774 or email cliff@soulworks.net.

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The Heart of Imagination


Rose D'Agostino and I are happy to announce a new two-day workshop entitled "The Heart of Imagination." Its purpose is to help people reclaim the historic function of the heart as the organ of the imagination's perception.

Those of you who have participated in Muse 101 or Greeting the Muse will recall our use of the term "himma" to describe an esoteric Sufi practice of imagining by way of the heart. It is work with images that are perceived by the heart and can give rise to inspiration and aspiration. We've always regretted that we have not been able to explore this powerful self-healing principle more deeply. In our last term of the Greeting the Muse, we did devote an evening to discussing the heart and participants expressed a desire to know more.

"Himma" is actually the foundation of James Hillman's archetypal psychology (documented in his text Thought of the Heart, Soul of the World). He was inspired by Henry Corbin, the French scholar who translated and interpreted the work of the 12th century Sufi master Ibn Arabi, developer of the practice. It was also practiced by the Greeks and was known as "enthymesis." It is similar, too, to some Kabalistic practices, as well as those of esoteric Protestant alchemy. A good illustration of the latter is the meditative diagrams of Paul Kaym (1680) at this web address: http://www.levity.com/alchemy/kaim.html.

Although we have scant records, even in Ibn Arabi's work, of the actual practice of himma, we have some clear ideas of what it is not. It is not about sentimentality, cathartic feelings, confession or personal love - those goals of confessional psychotherapy (including traditional active imagination) that feel good but often don't reveal much of an enduring nature about our souls. Himma is instead a way of seeing clearly and objectively with the imagination by way of the actual heart. We pay attention to what is essentially true, instead of becoming attached to our feelings and stories. We aren't concerned with what is subjectively true, like psychotherapy, but with what is present in the heart of the imagination right now.

One important difference in this work and that of Greeting the Muse is its more spiritual component. We often describe Greeting the Muse as a "nekyia," Dante's term for a descent to the underworld. In the himma tradition, this descent - the recognition of our shadow selves - is essential before we go a step further to knowing those inspirational qualities we associate with spirit. It is through the imaginal capacity of the heart that we can make peace between our spiritual and underworld selves.

DATE: Occasional Saturdays and Sundays
TIME: 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. both days
COST: $200 with dicounts available
CONTACT: Rose D'Agostino, 404-929-9030
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Theater of Dreams

This is conducted in six to eight 90-minute weekly sessions. Participation is limited to eight. We study and enact one another's dreams in a spontaneous theater. This is a process with a theoretical foundation in the archetypal psychology of James Hillman. Its process resembles gestalt work and psychodrama. It is informal and experimental, an opportunity to explore the natural aesthetic function of the psyche's dream ego. Cost is $50 per week. Interested persons should call Cliff Bostock, 404-525-4774. Daylong workshops are also sometimes offered. Recommended text: "The Dream and the Underworld," by James Hillman. Groups are ongoing. The next is scheduled to start Nov. 28. Click HERE for a page on this workshop.

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