Humor, Magic and Creativity

Bruce Baum

In this interactive session we will examine how humor and magic interact with creativity. The attributes of humor and magic will be explored and participants will collaboratively apply creativity to develop examples. Selected jokes, anecdotes and magic tricks will be described and participants will have an opportunity to practice developing and sharing their own jokes, anecdotes and magic. Following this workshop, participants will be able to: describe elements of creativity, learn how magic and humor can serve as metaphors for aspects of the creative problem solving process, perform one or more magic tricks and share one or more jokes.

Leslie Becknell Marx

We will learn some core principles of Nonviolent Communication and then bring them to life. We will play with simple techniques from the improvisational theater form called Playback. Playback Theater listens to someone’s story or experience, and then actors “play it back” to them. Nonviolent Communication is a way to increase understanding between people so they can creatively explore solutions that work for everyone. If you sometimes get stuck when communicating with someone who holds a different opinion or whose behavior upsets you, come learn how to find more space for a creative response.

Meditation Drawings

Joanne Curran

Based on the work of Frederick Franck, we will focus on drawing meditation. This simple technique opens doors especially for those who think they "cannot draw." We begin by looking and learning to see. We are gentle with ourselves and our talents. As we draw, we enter into a space of reflection on what is around us and within us. We reach a sense of "at-one-with" the space around us and within us.

Andre de Zanger

How do we create? Do we each of us have a unique way of creating, do we have our own Creativity Code? If so, how can we discover and use it to be more create? We will explore the work and techniques of Dr. Gil Clotaire Rapaille (author of The Culture Code) who discovered that we all have Archetypes (subconsciously imprints) on how we function and see the world. In this session we will uncover our own “Creativity Code” by using our First, Last and Most Profound experiences of Creativity. As we discover our unique “Creativity Code” our ability to create will be enhanced.

Judith de Zanger

"Tell me what will you do with your one wild and precious life?" M. Oliver

We all have a powerful resource within us, our subconscious, which can be easily tapped and used to expand our creativity and find our purpose. Our subconscious is like the two thirds of an iceberg which is underwater and yet it is the powerhouse for creativity, imagination and inner wisdom. It is another way of knowing. In this session, you will enter into a creative encounter or dialogue with the question of "What is my Purpose?". Experience several Creative Processes - the Empathic Metaphor and Quantum Cartography - which tap directly into your subconscious and will allow your purpose to emerge naturally. Living on Purpose means living a fuller, richer life in alignment with our strengths and talents. Develop a purpose statement in Haiku form which will help you navigate through the world and make choices which will enrich your life.

Eileen Doyle

Learn easy games that provide profound insights into the mind of your consumers and/or your employees Innovation Games ® are a fun, completely interactive & engaging way to elicit perceptive & actionable results. The games combine the best of qualitative market research & creativity to provide fresh results. Sample games may include: Buy a Feature, Remember the Future, Speed Boat and Give Them a Hot Tub. Based on the book: Innovation Games® - Creating Breakthrough Products through Collaborative Play, by Luke Hohmann.

Newell Eaton

Whether we work with individuals, teams, organizations or communities we are asked to solve problems or to facilitate the solving of problems. The common belief being if we could just figure out the right answer to the problem everything will be just perfect. Life¹s experiences tell us it rarely works out that way. Most solutions create a new set of problems and the solutions to that new problem sometimes look surprising like where we started. These situations are paradoxes or polarities- situations in which opposite points of view are both true. They are common, unavoidable, and unsolvable in the traditional sense. In this workshop we¹ll explore using Barry Johnson¹s Polarity Management tools to create win-win solutions that balance the tension in some of the classic paradoxes we experience in our personal and professional life. I have found these tools very useful in coaching, training and facilitating.

Sheri Kennedy

1. You ask. 2. The universe provides. 3. Let it happen. Sounds simple, yet the art of recognizing opportunities when they come our way and letting the good into our lives takes awareness, focus and practice. Practice "getting out of your own way" using mainly meditation and watercolor paint. Absolutely no art experience is necessary. Based loosely on the principles described by Esther and Jerry Hicks in Ask and it is Given, artist, educator and creative professional Sheri Kennedy Brock will guide you gently toward reconnection with own creative potential and a richer future.

Paint Jam: Music and Art

Sheri Kennedy and Laraaji

A freeform session designed to awaken the musician and/or visual artist in you! Like a jazz session, "musicians" and "artists" will play off each other's inspirations by creating spontaneously in the same space. A loose structure will be introduced, basic instruction given, then we'll all witness the creative experience unfold. Participants are encouraged to bring their artistic media and/or instruments of choice. Some will be provided. Novices are welcome. Take a risk, try both roles, join the fun and experience the power of collective creation.

Appreciative Inquiry: When you are at your "Best"

Denise Lalonde

This highly interactive workshop will use the process of “Appreciative Inquiry” to identify and share how creativity manifests itself best, for you and others. Like a match lighting a candle, creative inspiration can come from anywhere. Be prepared to be surprised. Come share a time of inquiry and dialogue into highpoint moments of creative expression, find out where others have gotten inspiration, and how to create more opportunities for unleashing your own personal creativity. The process brings out lots of great creative energy and forward movement.

Coaching Cards: Designing your Life with a Smile
 

Roch Landry (Rock Star)

Coaching Cards is an interactive session of creatively designing your life. Life coaching is about exploring and activating your full potential, "designing your life with a smile". We will use a deck of 60 cards designed for the kind of life coaching that I do with my clients. The more a person gets in touch with their talents, the more creative they will be. So what can we change to gain more fun and freedom ? Let's play with the cards, giving it a round or two. And, if you play your cards right ... you will get an answer.

Change as a Critical Incident

Allie Middleton

Awareness practices are rapidly becoming essential to maintain ‘edge’, balance and success in our rapidly changing world, where crises are occurring in spiraling proportions. Everyone can learn to reduce stress and increase health, awareness and creativity via the mind-body research and practices that are more accessible today. Transformative and lasting change processes are grounded in deep self-awareness and positive external behaviors that combine multi-level experiences and insights. This session uses a variety of experiential techniques (visual props, discussion centered in deep listening and somatic practices) to elicit detailed individual perceptions and motivation to engage in positive change practices. In addition, we will discuss how different individuals, groups and organizations respond to transformative change practices.

Bliss, Bliss and More Bliss
 

Swami Laraaji Nadananda

Being here and being now through Laughter , spontaneity, play , movement , breathing, responsive chanting, guided deep relaxation, Nada Yoga( Interior union through Sound vibration) ,silence ,tone contemplation and sharing from the heart. Re-connect to your liberated laughter with Laraaji’s world renown Acu-Laughter therapy, Learn how to turn your warmest smile on in an instant, how to soften your heart on cue, how to Enter a playful rapport almost anywhere. Allow yourself to explore a sweeter connection to your breath and its function in Bliss management. Drop limiting beliefs about your ability to open, to flow, to meditate and to radiate. Dress very comfortably for a blissfully Evolving time. This experience includes live music, ancient gong toning, traditional and non-traditional chanting, therapeutic laughter exercises, periods of deep relaxation and blissful meditation, opportunities for journaling and sharing, creative movement and more.

Superhero Training

Adam Marx

Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain America - the world of superheroes captures our imagination. With great strength, flight, mental powers, and control of the elements (to name a few), superheroes perform their spectacular feats. They use their powers to save lives, promote justice, right wrongs, and protect the weak. Luckily for us, there is something that defines a superhero even more than their powers - it is their determination to make the world a better place through the use of their special gifts. This means that any of us, through the exploration of our own special gifts, can discover the "superhero within" and how to use our unique skills and abilities to create a better world. Through a series of experiential exercises, you will choose the superpowers you have always dreamed of having, and then will bring those into your every day life. By the end of this workshop, you will: - Gain clarity on your life goals - Find the internal motivation needed to achieve those goals - Have a deeper appreciation for the gifts you bring to the world.

Creating Positive Emotions to Foster Creativity

Bruce Rosove

Creative Solutions to Problems require people to change. For most people, change creates emotions. Often these feelings are negative. This workshop explores the importance of five core concerns in creating an atmosphere that is conducive to positive emotions. When people feel safe and happy they can be more open to others¢ perspectives and to new ways of working together. The core concerns are: Status; Autonomy; Friendship; Appreciation and; Role: (SAFAR). When these are met, positive emotions are much more likely, greatly enhancing the creativity of those working on a project.
The workshop is based on the work of Daniel Shapiro and Roger Fisher as described in their book Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as you Negotiate. The workshop will also touch on Listening Power, one of the tools of Emotional Fitness Coaching. Participants will learn the SAFAR model and have a chance to apply it to a situation they are dealing with.

Improvisational Play
 

Claude Samton and Amy Swisher

Jung said that play is among the highest forms of spiritual activity and one of the primal life functions. It is through playing that we able to be creative and to use the whole personality. As children, we instinctively expressed our hopes, joys, fears and anxieties through spontaneous play. But as we grew older, we learned to repress and hold in these feelings. In a safe supportive setting we will recreate the sense of fun, laughter, and natural spontaneity that adds balance to life. Using improvisational theatre games and other techniques, we will create a playful environment where we can release the tensions and repressed feelings that interfere with work, health, and happiness. This workshop will include meditation, visualization, physical and vocal warmups, mime, and carefully selected improvisational games. We will also use myths, fairy tales, and stories from our own lives to explore the joy of playing.

Magic Mirrors: Using the Imagination to Program Success

Mary Ann Smorra

Do you have a direction in mind – but no map to get you there? In charting a course of creative action, this workshop utilizes two compelling tools -- the imagination and the power of intention. Supported by the work of Maltz – psychocybernetics, Gottman – “thin-slicing”, and Schwartz & Begley - the mind- brain connection, this workshop will synthesize the research into a highly experiential workshop. Using an effective strategy sequence, participants will find themselves “reflected” in the building, creation and sustaining of their own intentions.

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it,Boldness has genius, power and magic to it" Goethe

Discovery Journaling

Rebecca St. Martin

We will be collecting images to learn more about our business and our lives. This activity can assist in:

• Manifesting goals
• Strengthening your brand or rebranding your practice
• Determining your style
• Discovering new aspects of yourself and your vision   for your life’s work
• Communicating with all kind of designers (interior, graphic, fashion, landscape,)
• Finding out your unique strengths for market positioning
•  Decision making for difficult problems
•  Keeping your creativity and soul alive

IMPORTANT: You will need to bring a hard cover spiral-bound journal or one that easily lays flat when open. Journals that are 8.5” x 5.5” or larger are recommended; however, smaller ones will also do. If you do not have one, a variety will be available for purchase.

Blank Mind - Full Page

Amy Swisher

Applying principles of improvisational theatre to the writing experience, we will move from warm-ups to longer forms, using compressed time to our advantage as we dive in and see what the mind turns up. Park your writer’s block squarely outside the door; you’ll not even recognize it in the space we create. By the end of this session, we’ll have a collection of pieces we have written together and separately, containing more beautiful nuggets of language than any one of us could have dreamt up had we tried and tried. Free your mind, let loose your pen, and fill the page!

Practical Storytelling

Amy Swisher

Stories abound around us, and are often found in the most seemingly mundane corners of our lives. By consciously seeking and sharing stories, we create connections that are both lively and mutual. In this session, we will practice listening for the detail and nuance in each others’ stories, will add our own perspective in the re-telling, and will discuss effective applications of story in presentation. Focusing on the live sizzle between speaker and audience, you will build your capacity to connect, intrigue and motivate your listeners to action.

Living in the NOW: Shedding Regret and Anxiety for the Joy of Creative Consciousness

William (Bill) Sturner

We all harbor anxiety about the future (anxiety and thus planning) and worries about the past (regrets and thus soul-searching). Unconsciously, both dynamics can foster negative identities that undercut our otherwise intuitive capacity to be truly creative… and live in the Now. We will dis-identify from our cumulative sets of childhood and adult personas with exercises adapted from Psychosynthesis and Analytic Psychology, and then affirm our ever-present Creative Core by drawing on the wisdom of Zen, the insights of the mystics and the counsel of philosopher Eckhard Tolle. A highly interactive workshop that blends experiential exercises with meditation, drawing, self-mapping and sharing.

Chuck McVinney

It's about us and the universe - a connection we can all make with its essence through the channel of beauty - sound, image, and touch that evoke our natural connections to the cosmos and the front yard. The quarrel is one's own - - a search for meaning, about with sorrow and grief, a sojourn into purpose and identity, whatever. Borrowing at the same time, and as we will, from whatever liturgies and celebrations that come our way to carve out an artistic route to being one with nature and its vital forces, not searching for the meaning of God or presences unprovable - just letting go and being part of it - -

Transcending moments to become a moment; transcending time to become timeless, and, leaving present reality to better engage in what is real.

ROCK BALANCING

Andre and Judy de Zanger

Finding Balance within and without. We will wander among rocks and find a few that call to us. Learn and practice the meditative art of balancing rocks. It is a joyous way of connecting with yourself while finding the still point within the stone. Connecting to the energy within the rock, you will at the same time center your own. You will become a certified member of the International Rock Balancing Association!

Anyone can be a Presenter

On Friday and Saturday evenings there will be Open-Space Workshops, which will allow everyone the opportunity to create and attend a workshop of their choosing. We have many gifted participants attending the conference who are experts with talents and knowledge. Therefore, the Open-Space format, provides the opportunity to experience some wonderful unexpected ideas.

There will be newsprint paper around the room in which you will be invited to write down a session that you might like to run or attend. We will then, as a group, choose up to 7 workshops and meeting places.

“Whatever is presented ... is what's presented, whoever comes ... comes and whatever is learned ... is learned."

Each morning, before breakfast, there will a Yoga, Tai-Chi or Movement session to start off the day. Please bring a blanket and comfortable cloths to the Meditation Hall. Of course, this is for people who did not stayed up all night partying.

.............. MORE TO COME ................