Self Made ☀️Summer Camp☀️ starts 7/15
A gently structured, virtual, *choose your own adventure* ☀︎SUMMER CAMP☀︎ for grown-ass humans
Hello + happy Tuesday!
Register for this week’s group calls here:
🌀 Group Call #1: (Tuesday, 6/18/24 @ 6pm PST // 9pm EST): Register here.
🌀 Group Call #2:** (Wednesday, 6/19/24 @ 9am PST // 12pm EST): Register here.
**This call features structured breakout groups of 3-4 people.
Today’s inspiration:
As they were leaving the garden
one of the angels bent down to them and whisperedI am to give you this
as you are leaving the gardenI do not know what it is
or what it is for
what you will do with ityou will not be able to keep it
but you will not be ableto keep anything
yet they both reached at oncefor the present
and when their hands metthey laughed
W.S. Merwin
Thank you to everyone who’s signed up for Self Made’s inaugural SUMMER CAMP, a five week hybrid summer course that combines asynchronous lessons and community, 1:1 coaching, and a choose your own adventure experiment.
SUMMER CAMP IS FOR YOU IF~
🌀 You long to feel more connected to yourself, other people, and your communities and environments
🌀 You often feel overwhelmed, even paralyzed, by the state of reality
🌀 You deeply desire to be more creatively expressed but you are stuck and scared to start
🌀 You sort of kind of understand what it means to partner with chaos, but you could use some support actually doing so
🌀 You know you’re a more effective human when you’re grounded and centered but it’s JUST SO NOISY OUT THERE
🌀 You are curious about your curriculum and having conversations with other like-minded individuals who are also curious
🌀 The thought of a flexibly structured “choose your own adventure” summer camp experiment sounds fun and admittedly haven’t had much of that
Keep scrolling to read the inspiration for ~SUMMER CAMP~
One of the primary conversations I have with people is how much time they spend time traveling. And though I wish I were referring to spaceships, blackholes, wormholes, and time machines, alas, it’s nowhere near that exciting.
“Time traveling” is what I call it when people spend large amounts of time either ruminating on the past, or future tripping. They are either lost in elaborate do-over fantasies, or they’re magically thinking light years ahead. They spend so much time time traveling, they get confused. They begin to mistake time traveling for reality. They are so deep in their own minds, they forget about bare feet on dirt, warm sun on skin, cool breeze lifting hair off a salty neck, stone fruit and summer squash sending taste buds to Saturn, spontaneous human connection, boredom, downtime, the languid quality of a summer afternoon. They are time traveling, which means they are missing this moment, which is to say, they are missing their life.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how so much of the past bunch of years have been about getting through. Getting through a recession. Getting through a certain presidency. Getting through a pandemic. Getting through endless wars, endless national and global instability. Getting through climate chaos.
I had a moment recently where I thought,
if a bolt of lighting were to smite me down right this second,
I would be so disappointed.
I’d be disappointed because I don’t want to die feeling disconnected from the miracle of it all. I don’t want to die feeling like most of my efforts were spent either getting through my life, or careening around past and present on a time machine of my own making (which is to say, one I could kick to the curb any time I want).
Getting through is a natural, common-sense, understandable response to the ugliness, trouble, chaos, and uncertainty of the world. I just wonder—and worry—what if there isn’t somewhere to get through to? What if this is it? If this *is* it, how do I want to be? How do I want to feel? What do I want to devote myself to—what would I be a disciple of? What would be required to stay in conversation with my higher self, my creative spark, the fullness of an uncluttered attention span?
Summer Camp seeks to experiment—in community—with having a go at some of these answers.
The Details
Each week will kick-off with a video lesson (you can find information about the lessons here). Each lesson will have an associated practice or tool, plus a guided visualization, meditation, or breath exercise.
In addition to the above, you will choose one path of focus - you get to choose your own adventure.
Paths include:
🪐 5 weeks of daily meditation or mindfulness practice
🪐 5 weeks of NO SOCIAL MEDIA
🪐 5 weeks of creative practice
🪐 5 weeks of…??? (sobriety? spending time in the garden? moving your body every day? You get to choose.
🌻 You will stay connected asynchronously via Slack as your schedule suits you.
🌻 You’ll get two 1:1 coaching sessions with Dani on the topic(s) currently closest to your heart.
🌻There will be multiple ways to connect live throughout the five weeks if you so desire.
Listening to Ram Dass as I traipse through the neighborhood with the Tater;
showing up sweaty and stressed to an in-person meditation group after hustling across town to make it on time and immediately remembering the sweetness of sitting with other humans;
head thrown back in the biggest laugh I’ve had in weeks at dinner with two best friends;
last minute burritos with visiting family whose flights got delayed;
splayed out on the gym floor, salty and spent after a workout;
the open space of curiosity and possibility, wonder and imagination that arises with a client;
lavender spears in the neighbors yard that demand a squeeze and sniff;
sharing a smile with a stranger;
chit chat in the line for coffee…
These moments of presence are so fleeting. But they matter. Because these are the moments that place us in reality, that have us alive and awake to life. And this is what Summer Camp seeks to explore—our aliveness and presence, our focus, our creative ✨spark✨.
This summer, let us fortify the quality of presence not so we can hurry up and know, but so that we might bask in the process. Let us be free from our obsessions with figuring out. Let us loosen our jaws, smooth out our foreheads, relax our shoulders. Let us unspool from the contortions of our pasts. Let us imagine into what it might be like on the other side of control, that place where we take care of ourselves and each other, where we are forgiven, where joy and delight are just as present as everything else—
what a spectacle, so unexpected
—and we are radiant and at ease, more wild than ever, spines straight, skin soft, and oh, so this is it, this is what it looks like, this is everything we ever wanted.
Sign up. Let’s play!
SUMMER SOLSTICE WRITING WORKSHOP
This generative writing workshop is based off the Amherst Writer's Method. There will be two two opportunities to write. Then, you'll be invited to share your work aloud if you like (no one is obligated, you can pass at anytime). Readers receive feedback on what listeners like and remember from what they heard; there is no critical feedback (critique is great and can be very helpful—it's just not part of this style of workshop).
This workshop is appropriate for all levels and I hope you'll join me. If you have questions, let me know—I'm happy to answer.
13 participants max - will probably sell out.
Registration is live! Fee: $33
Friendliest of reminders that you are always invited to grab an hour of my time.
SELF MADE is a call to deeply connect with the self—self-knowledge, self-trust, self-development—and then to make, small step by step, a life that you savor. Posts are written by me, Dani Cirignano, writer, Certified Integral Coach, and Holistic Recovery Guide, based in San Francisco, CA.
Click here to learn about working with me 1:1 and/or here to sign up for a complimentary Alignment Session. Let’s talk!
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