—by Lorraine Allen

In an all day workshop on April 13th, thirty All Souls adults met to experience Dan Wakefield's workshop on "Releasing the Creative Spirit." In a series of exercises, we demonstrated that each of us has the ability to express ourselves in words or even in drawing if we only take time to look closely, to stop, be still and let the thoughts come. Also, we must rid ourselves of the myths we have heard and believed about what it is to be creative. Some of us may have been told early on by a well-meaning teacher or parent that we were not "right-brained" or that we were not artistic or too practical to be a writer or some such, and worse still, believed these myths.

One of the exercises was to look at an object of nature and write down everything you observed about it for several minutes; then, to take that object and express yourself in writing as if you were that object; or to think of that object as a character in a play and write the play. It was amazing to see that everyone's choice of an object was different and everyone's writing was completely different and varied.

In another exercise, drawing a road map of each step in or lives, including signs and pictures along the way, we were reminded that there is a story behind each step on the map. We were then asked to write the beginning sentence of the story. Of course, it is hoped that with the encouragement of this workshop, each of us will continue to write our stories.