Mary Oliver and the Quest of Openness: "Are You Willing"?

january 24-25, 2024

Santa fe, New mexico

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with David Keplinger + Shawn Parell

This program will use Mary Oliver’s work to explore the phenomenon of openness in body, mind, and spirit.

Through somatic inquiry, meditation, and movement, psychotherapist and yogi Shawn Parell and poet David Keplinger will guide participants over the course of two day-long sessions hosted by YogaSource in Santa Fe, New Mexico, covering the major works of Mary Oliver’s more than fifty-year career.


virtual + in-person workshop

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required reading

Devotions by Mary Oliver
9780399563263

"Five years after her death, I have begun to write and speak publicly about my lucky and long-time association with Mary Oliver, as enigmatic a poetic figure as Rumi, to whom she is often compared.

Without a doubt, Mary’s personal influence and encouragement changed the direction of my life. Her poetry continues to do the same for millions of readers whom she had never met. What are the ingredients to this intimacy of voice? Where are the essential designs behind her poems across the stages of her career? In her essay, “The Swan,” she wrote that she demands three things of every poem: an honest energy, a genuine body, and a spiritual purpose. In these talks, with time set aside for discussion and questions, we will study the ways these rules apply to some of her beloved poems, with our emphasis falling on the theme of openness and willingness which threaded through her work in all its manifestations."

david keplinger writes:

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"Like many of you, my earliest yoga experiences were infused with Mary Oliver's poetry — which reminds me of how we don’t just read poetry; we embody it.

At its best, reading a poem can be a full-bodied, integrative practice wherein the “soft animal” within us can tap into the universal body of experience at the heart of poetry. By weaving meditation and yoga practices throughout this 2-day program, we'll steep in the wisdom of Mary's poetry and David’s artful teachings.

Shawn parell writes

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Mary Oliver chose David Keplinger’s first collection of poetry, The Rose Inside, for the 1999 T.S. Eliot Prize. They remained friends for twenty years until her death in 2019. Since that first collection, David has published seven more collections of poetry, including Ice (Milkweed Editions, 2023), and Another City (Milkweed Editions, 2018), which was awarded the 2019 UNT Rilke Prize. He has been honored with the Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Colorado Book Award. David directs the MFA at American University where he has taught since 2007.



Shawn Parell is an integrative therapist, longtime yoga teacher, and lover of poetry whose work expresses fluency in the science and art of well-being. Shawn has mentored hundreds of yoga teachers and guided thousands of practitioners since she began teaching in 2002. She is a licensed therapist in private practice and teaches mindfulness and movement courses and immersions worldwide. Shawn holds an M.A. in Eastern Classics and Sanskrit from St. John’s College and an M.A. in Counseling Psychology from Southwestern College.




About your guides

Shawn parell

david keplinger

2-day Workshop (3 Sessions)

Session 1:
Friday, January 24
1:30-3:30pm MT / 3:30-5:30PM EST

Session 2:
Friday, January 24
5:30-8:00pm MT / 7:30-10PM EST

session 3
Saturday, January 25
2:00-7:00pm MT / 4:00-9:00PM EST


Investment

Attend this two-day workshop
virtually via Zoom.

per person

 $175

livestream

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Attend this two-day workshop in person at YogaSource in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

per person

 $285

in-person

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Registration support from our partners at YogaSource. 


EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT

$250 when you register before December 15th!

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Asking real questions. Braving a writing practice.
Interviewing some of the folks I most admire. Exploring what it means to be human in an era of radical change.

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join the conversation

Asking real questions. Braving a writing practice. Interviewing some of the folks I most admire. Exploring what it means to be human in an era of radical change.

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