MARGO STEINES CREATIVE x STACEY RAMSOWER: Body of Work: 1 Session Somatic Seminar on June 11

Thursday, 10am-12pm Pacific Time, June 11

Welcome to the Margo Steines Creative X series! MSCX courses are serial seminar offerings, presented in collaboration with the writers, facilitators, and educators I am most moved by.

By them, through me, for you.

Margo Steines Creative X Stacey Ramsower presents…

BODY OF WORK: BRINGING YOUR BODY INTO YOUR WRITING PRACTICE

WHAT IS THIS?

Body of Work is a two-hour seminar and practice in the art of somatic self-discovery and its applications in creative practice. Through writing and somatic practices we’ll explore the ways our experiences in our bodies map onto our work on the page or in other creative practice, and together we will learn tools and practices for more fully accessing creative power and energy.

In “The Uses of the Erotic,” the Black feminist scholar and artist Audre Lorde describes the erotic as “a resource within each of us…firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling.” In her body of work and its lineage, the erotic is about desire, energy, and freedom. “We have often turned away from the exploration of the erotic as a source of power and information, confusing it with its opposite, the pornographic,” Lorde reminds us.

In Body of Work, we will consider desire as the energy that moves our lives, and creativity as what brings that energy into the world. Through the body and writing, we will experiment with allowing our real-time experience of boundary (body) and boundlessness (creative practice) to help each of us move into the next phase of erotic possibility.

Our work is informed by Somatic Experiencing, and will be oriented around the five-channel understanding of nervous system function. We’ll explore…

• Thinking

• Imagining

• Movement

• Emotion

• Sensation

…and lead you through an actual experience of creating from each channel. Our goal is to orient you to your experience of the erotic and to what that does for your experience of your body and your creative practice.

IS THIS FOR ME?

If you’ve faced…

• feeling disassociated while writing or in order to write,

• confusion around how to write about embodied trauma

• “writer’s block” or the artistic doldrums

• avoidance of creative work

• difficulty or resistance to identifying as an artist

• struggle in understanding how to move beyond your known formula for creative process

• struggle to pivot, expand, and/or find new subjects for your creative work

…then Body of Work is for you. In our work together, we’ll explore the Lordean concept of the erotic, the difference between wisdom and cleverness, and modalities through which to harness erotic energy.

This course welcomes all people with bodies. There is no prerequisite or expectation of experience. Some previous experimentation with creative writing or other creative practice is recommended, but not required. We’ll be facilitating both somatic and creative practice from a meet-you-where-you’re-at perspective. If you desire this, you are welcome. Please feel free to inquire within if you have questions about fit or anything else.

At the conclusion of the class, you’ll leave with new or deepened somatic and creative toolkits for your creative practice and your life in your body, and new or honed language and vocabulary for the relationship between your creative practice and your nervous system.

We will record the seminar for all students—asynchronous participation is welcome.

WHO IS DOING THIS?

Body of Work is taught collaboratively by Margo Steines and Stacey Ramsower.

Who is Stacey Ramsower?

I’m glad you asked.

Stacey Ramsower, MA, SEP is a somatic practitioner whose work centers mothers and the identity shifts of motherhood. She offers 1:1 somatic sessions and group programs that incorporate Somatic Experiencing, expressive arts practices, movement, and principles of Depth Psychology.

For 20 years, Stacey has made the body and its intrinsic wisdom the focus of her studies and life. Beginning with yoga, she deepened her practice with Ayurveda, full-spectrum doula support (through Ayurvedic and Indigenous lenses,) Somatic Sex Education, and Holistic Pelvic Care. She holds a Master of Arts in Psychology and formal credentials in the practice of Somatic Experiencing. Stacey has supported countless women through birth, pregnancy loss, sexual boundary violations, birth trauma, and postpartum anxiety, depression, and rage. She is known for her balance of warmth and ferocity as a practitioner, and an approach that refuses pathologizing the body and lived experience.

Margo has worked with Stacey for several years as both a client and a collaborator. We are thrilled to be bringing our skill sets together in this offering!

I WANT THIS BUT I CAN’T AFFORD IT, CAN YOU HELP?

We can and we are thrilled to! We are offering 4 full scholarships to this course to writers who would not otherwise have the means to attend. To apply, please send a short note to Margo & Stacey with a few sentences about what you’re hoping to get out of the course. 

This is a 1 session seminar. We meet on Zoom, Thursday, June 11, from 10am-12pm Pacific