Reverence:

Writing and practice towards embodied living

A 30-Day Course

 

Reverence begins January 1st, 2022

Is it possible to live well in our bodies, even when we feel both overwhelmed and under-resourced? 

You don’t need more messages telling you how to manage your life or your health. Instead, you’d like spaces that support you where you are and trust you with your own knowing. You want tools for tending your nervous system and awakening creativity.

Join us for Reverence, a 30-day self-guided course in living fully in the bodies we have. The work speaks to those with chronic conditions, but also to anyone with a body who'd like to live with more creative ease. Neither fixing nor self-improving, Reverence invites you to hear what your body is speaking.

Registration is now closed. Please join the mailing list if you’d like to know about future offerings!

How do we trust the bodies we have? How do we center what is well without denying what isn’t?

Gently, my loves. With permission, tenderness, creativity, and deep listening. With reverence.

Reverence supports you to:

  • Develop embodied practices for accessing your creativity

  • Discover new portals for listening to your bodied knowing

  • Become more familiar with your own rhythms & resources

  • Bring gentleness to your body and health

  • Connect to your own voice

This course is for those who:

“I have made a habit of being true to myself”
— Reverend angel Kyodo williams

  • Want to step more fully into their lives and bodies

  • Seek support and tools for tending their nervous systems

  • Are interested in inhabiting themselves with more self-trust

  • Want to commit more fully to their own creativity and embodiment

  • Live with chronic conditions

Western medicine has lots to offer in the way of keeping us not-dead. But when it comes to actually living? Not so much.

In Reverence, we devote 30-Days (or longer, for those who choose) to stepping more fully into our creative bodies. Audio meditations, writing prompts, gentle body practices, and optional fireside Zoom chats invite you to listen to your own knowing. These exercises are designed to speak to those of us living with chronic conditions, but also to any of us with bodies. 

We aren’t here to praise your resilience or tell you how brave you are. We aren’t talking you into or out of any particular treatments. We aren’t even looking for resolutions or fixes.

Instead, we’re pulling up a chair beside you as you begin to discern your own voice. We’re here to meet you in this body and this moment - where you actually live.

  • What folks are saying.

    “There truly are no words that come close to expressing my gratitude for your infinite love, exquisite skill, and generosity in these offerings to all of us… As a group we are swimming in the sweetness of your invitation to come alive together.” - B.E.

  • What folks are saying.

    “I did not believe it possible to feel intimate, connected, and present on Zoom until I sat in groups with Johanna Franzel. There is something alchemical in the way she brings us into our bodies, into our here and now, into words that then magically flow from us… Whatever she offers, sign me up.” - Sue Young, Falmouth

  • What folks are saying.

    “A space full of support, permission, courage, and care where we could all show up just as we were in each moment. What an extraordinary gift! … The themes you used to move us through this course feel like guides for moving through life. I want to take the course again right now!” - E.A.

  • What folks are saying.

    “Embodied writing is an invitation to write from the heart of your own lived experience. It is writing from the inside out, a bold exploration of the interior world as a pathway to deeper connections and clarity of purpose in our outer lives…Thoughtful prompts to both move and reflect offer new avenues to approach writing practice that can bring honesty and liveliness into your work. Take this class if you have longed to pay closer attention to your daily life or ever wondered if you could write about it. “ — L.M.

Facilitator

 

I’m Johanna

a biodynamic craniosacral therapist, a teacher, a writer, an audio producer, and someone who knows autoimmune disease from the inside out. I create spaces where we can listen to what our bodies are actually saying in order to inhabit ourselves more fully. I believe in abundant permission, reverence, and the vitality of creativity. Read more.

 

Course Themes

Bodies aren’t linear, and neither is growth. Taking inspiration from writer Parker Palmer, we’ll structure our explorations guided by cycles and seasons.

  • Preparing the field: Reverence, permission, resourcing, not-effort.

  • Week 1 / Fall: Inventory
    Body, lineage, hungers, sober seeing, habits, dreams.

  • Week 2 / Winter: Structure
    Bones, buildings, holding places, beauty, support, ground.

  • Week 3 / Spring: Fluidity
    Water, movement, breath, gathering, expanding, flow.

  • Week 4 / Summer: Alchemy
    Rhythms & cycles, dynamism, play, spaciousness, letting go.

How it works

Beginning January 1st, you’ll receive:

  • Daily emails with writing prompts, bodied exercises and resources to explore our week’s theme. Read a sample.

  • Weekly audio meditation to support and structure your own explorations. These short (5-8 minute) pieces help frame our themes and offer entry points for understanding. Below, hear the intro audio, Preparing the Field:

  • Three hour-long live Zoom sessions on Sundays - January 2nd, 16th, and 30th - at 11 a.m. EST. to settle in, briefly write and share, and ask questions or share insights. Please note these sessions are optional; no need to attend if you’d rather just complete the course on your own!

Reverence is designed to go at any pace that works for your body. While you’ll receive daily email from January 1st through the 31st, materials will be available on our web portal through June of 2022.

Course is $160.

Questions & Answers

How much time will this require?

In our live classes we remind each other of the only real principles of this work: reverence and permission. If you’d like to work steadily alongside us, you may want to dedicate 10-30 minutes each day. But if you’d like to dip in and out of the material or see what appeals to you and engage a la carte? That’s great too. There’s no right way to engage with this material, no benchmark outside yourself for how this needs to look. My hope in creating these materials is to support you in building your own self-trust, your own willingness to make space for the truth of your body, your own capacity to tend to yourself, moment to moment.

Will the Zoom calls be recorded?

Because folks are sharing their writing and personal questions, the Zoom calls won’t be recorded.

How long will I have access to this material?

You’ll have access to all the prompts and audio meditations on our password-protected web portal through June of 2022.

I want to sign up with a friend - is there a discount?

There is! Having an accountability buddy with whom you check in and share writing is a great way to support the work. Enter BUDDY2022 at check out for a 20% discount and let us know your buddy’s name in the text box. If you’re looking for a buddy to work alongside you, please be in touch and we can try to pair you with another participant.

Can I buy this course as a gift?

Absolutely. There’s an area in the checkout for you to designate the Reverence course as a gift, and to share the email of the gift recipient (you’re also welcome to let us know if you want us to hold off contacting the gift recipient until after a particular date).

I have another question - where can I find the answer?
Please be in touch directly via the contact page.

Many thanks to the Maine Arts Commission, whose Project Grants for Artists supported the creation of Reverence.