Wednesday-Sunday, August 19-23

CESKA SKALICE, CZECH REPuBLIC

Grandmother’s Valley

WRITING AS A STATE OF CONSCIOUS DREAMING

5- DAY RESIDENTIAL RETREAT

LOCATION
A beautiful country hotel at Ryzmburk, in a green paradise overlooking Grandmother’s Valley, the setting for Babička  the beloved first novel in the Czech language by Božena Němcová .Sit with the trees and find your creative compass, commune with the horses, share dreams. ideas and daily pages at the breakfast table and on the terrace in the evening, enter the rhythms of earth and wind, water and fire.

GETTING THERE
If you are coming from Prague, you’ll find it easy to get to Ceska Skalice, the nearest town, by train or car and our coordinator will help you get to our wonderful site.

TUITION
500 euros or 12,750 Czech crowns. A deposit of 100 euros or 2,500 Czech crowns is required to hold your place.

ACCOMMODATION AND MEALS are additional, at quite modest prices. Our coordinatior will give you details and make your reservation.

REGISTRATION AND INFORMATION
Please contact the coordinator, Eva Dostálová
Email:  [email protected]

This is the second time Robert has led his celebrated writing retreat – possibly the most unusual on the planet – in Europe. We again expect a very lively and creative international gathering with writers at every level of practice joining us from all over the map. One of the novelties of this retreat is that, while the group sessions will be in English, participants will be welcome to write in their own languages. We hope for wonderful cross-pollination of idioms and imaginations.

In a writing life, the great moments are when you are dreaming on paper (or on a keyboard). Words stream almost effortlessly from springs that are not accessible in lesser states of consciousness. Clock time no longer rules. In an expansive now-time, more is possible in minutes than might otherwise come in days. Improbable connections are made and prove to be exactly right.

This is a state of conscious dreaming. You straddle the worlds. You are the shaper, not merely the amanuensis, for the images bubbling up from those fresh springs.

If you’ve ever been there, you long to be there again. It’s what athletes call the Zone. It’s that sweet place where time moves as fast or slow as you want, and creative connections are made effortlessly. It’s the state of relaxed attention in which the muse or the creative daimon draws close and whispers in your ear. It’s the borderland beyond the tame fields and picket fences of the mind, where it’s easy for the Big story hunting you to find you.

This adventure in creative imagination will help you find fresh and delightful ways to tap into your creative source, and tell the stories that want to be told through you. We’ll learn how to use powerful and original techniques of Active Dreaming to go beyond blocks and move seamlessly into creative flow. We’ll turn dreams and life memories into stories, poems and scripts.

Our practice will include timed writing exercises, story-swapping, play-acting, shamanic excursions to a Secret Library and other wonderful games to release our inner writer and creator. We’ll all be nourished and nurtured as we grow a supportive circle of creative friends.