Judith de Zanger

“If you forget yourself, you become the universe.” Hakuin

Being creative, often entails empathy, “becoming one with” something. Carl Rogers defined empathy as the ability “To perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy. “ Empathy is one of the elements of imagination. The ability to imagine oneself as another person is a creative act. How do we look at something from another view? And how can we use this ability to enhance our creativity? In creative problem solving, we often have to incorporate the “problem side” or the “down side” of a situation into our solution. Can the down side actually help us to come to a revelation not just a resolution to a problem? Come experience four tools which can stimulate both our creativity and our ability to empathize. What’s “my story”, “your story” and the “higher story”?

Win Wenger

You will provide the "Breeze" (your Talk), in the aptly-named "Windtunnel" method for solving problems and discovering understandings. One of the newest creative problem-solving methods to be discovered, "Windtunnel" has already become a favorite of many creativity professionals and leaders, for good reasons which you are about to discover. Bring an open mind and a Windbreaker.

Scott Weiner

Experience a powerful process overcoming negativity and blocks, releasing fears and worries, and increasing confidence, hope, and optimism. You’ll guide each other through the process of using your personally constructed metaphors. You’ll take home not only your transformation, but also the skill and confidence of using this metaphorical technique with friends, family, or clients. We begin the session with some brilliant metaphors and powerful images from the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus and 19th Century philosopher Nietzsche as “springboards” to metaphorical approaches to our lives and challenges. (There are some new readings different from previous versions of this workshop.) You’ll creatively interpret (journaling, meditating, fantasizing/daydreaming, drawing, discussing, etc.) in what ways might you be transformed by these metaphors. In the third part, with a passage from Kafka, discover what you now see yourself doing through the use of transformational metaphors in your life.

Laughter, Sound and Consciousness-  Pathways to Creativity
 

Swami Laraaji Nadananda

A stimulating laughter workout and a deep sound guided relaxation into expanded present time.  interactive, hilarious and inwardly mobile. Full body energy laughing can be learned and practiced daily at convenient intervals to boost the performance of our body, energy systems and overall health prosperity. Guided laughter exercises and meditative sound relaxation are a few of the fun activities that help make this workshop educational, interactive, entertaining and energizing. Dress comfortable for sitting, lying down and movement and expect to have some serious fun.

How To Do Six Cool Things

Bruce Baum

This is your opportunity to participate in a unique and exciting program. Due to time limitations, not all topics will be explored in depth, but you will come away with strategies and ideas for implementing each subject or theme.

• Improve Your Relationships – Improve your interactions with colleagues, family members and friends.
• Perform a Magic Trick – Amaze family members, friends and colleagues
• Dance The Electric Slide –…and other dances if time is available.
• Become More Creative – You are already creative. We will provide ideas for unleashing even more creativity and ways of improving your life through intent and action.
• Tell a Joke – Jokes will be provided or you can use your own. Strategies for remembering and telling jokes will be practiced.
• Reduce Stress and Have More Fun - “Stressed” spelled backwards is “desserts.” You deserve to experience less stress and have more fun.
 

Andre de Zanger

Creativity seems to be a "Sinusoidal Wave" -   with two opposing phases: Saturation and Incubation (like Yin and Yang). Most “Problems” seem to follow this same format. We usually want two opposite things at the same time - in automobiles we want Power and Economy, in finances we want Safety and High Interest and in relationships we want Freedom and Security (hence a “Problem Statement” and a need for a solution using Creativity and Innovation). In this session we will explore the dynamics of Quantum Physics, TAOism and  the Sinusoidal nature of Creativity (Paradoxes, Dialectics and Cycles) . We will then apply it to

1. Your unique "Style/Passion of Creativity"

2. To one of your a real life "Personal Opportunity/Problem". No preparation necessary, just bring your beautiful mind and comfortable cloths to lie down in.

Eileen Doyle

There are characters familiar to all of us that date back all the way from the teachings of Plato, to Carl Jung to modern-day theorists. From the magician to the destroyer to the lover, they connect us to the collective unconscious.
Companies compete with others in the same market to make their brand stand out. A successful organization instills loyalty in their customer or client by aligning itself with a specific archetype. An emotional association can create devotion beyond rational argument.
Learn what brands ensure success by taking a look at the archetypal story behind the marketing and see how you use archetypes to promote yourself. You will:

• Understand the basic archetypes
• Learn about companies who use their archetypal stories for enduring success
• Explore the “story” for your brand
• Discover ways Archetypes can be used in your business

Newell Eaton

In a recent medical study only one in seven seriously at-risk heart patients made the changes their doctors told them they needed to make to survive. The incentive couldn’t be stronger – change and live or don’t change and die - yet so few complied. This disconnect happens to most of us. How often have you known what change you needed to make in your life or organization and didn’t follow through? How might we close this gap between what we passionately want and what we are actually able to do?
In this workshop we will explore using a well-researched change technique to close that gap. You will be guided through your own immunity to change journey using a step-by-step process developed by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. You will get a chance to unravel an individual or organizational challenge you have been trying to overcome.

Experiencing Architectural "Space"
 

Claude Samton

The goal of this workshop is for us to creatively experience architectural space in our daily lives. We are constantly experiencing architecture and the spaces around us which affect us deeply, often subconsciously. In this workshop, we will discuss and view the elements of architecture including form, function, structure, materials, scale, light, color, texture, art, etc. Then, independently, we'll walk around the Abode and through the spaces built by the Shakers who were among the finest architects and craftsmen we've had in America. Finally, we will share our experiences with the group and be able to take home the understanding and enjoyment gained in experiencing architectural space.

DreamSpace - The Cauldron of Potential

Arji Cakouros

As Sigmund Freud noted, “Creative people are wide-awake dreamers”. By getting in touch with our dreams, we can not only bring through seminal ideas and innovations, we can move into the magical non-linear state of creative flow. Come explore this fascinating inner terrain through a variety of self-empowering exercises with Arji Cakouros, certified Robert Moss dream teacher. We’ll delve into the realm of the shamanic, the Asclepian and the just plain playful. So, come play with us, and bring your favorite eye cover or bandana, your curiosity, a dream journal or notebook, and your personal sense of discovery. Remember, if you can dream it, you can do it!

“Nothing is more your own than dreams!” Neitzsche

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.

FourSight in Action - Learn how you can "UpShift" your Creative Output

Russ Schoen

How do you approach solving a challenge? Where do you get energy and lose energy in the creative process? Research and practice have revealed that individuals differ in how they interact with the Creative process. In fact, people will vary in the energy and enjoyment related to the fundamental aspects of clarifying a situation, generating ideas, developing solutions and implementing them, In this highly experiential workshop, you will take and receive feedback on the FourSight profile and leave with a greater awareness and understanding of how you can leverage and “upshift” your own and other’s creative preferences! Used by more than 25,000 people around the world, FourSight has supported creativity training programs, team-building programs, professional development, and organizational development.

• Gain insights into your own unique  creativity style
•   Learn how to leverage an understanding of creativity styles to enhance team and organizational creativity.
• Walk away with a simple model for understanding the creative process
•  Apply the Foursight model to solve a real personal or professional challenge

Archetypal Connections - Re-membering Our Personal Myths

MaryAnn Smorra

Join us as we embark on a creative journey filled with Greek gods and goddesses! An array of ancient archetypes explores and celebrates qualities that resonate within each of us. Using dreams, memories and myth, we affirm and create choices for ourselves in the pursuit of our true potential. The use of story, guided imagery and visual arts facilitate this session. The goal is a synthesis of creativity, inspiration, and wisdom. What we imagine, we energize!

Using Signature Strengths To Increase Creativity: Yours and Your Team's

Bruce Rosove

Seligman has identified and defined 24 Character Strengths divided into the following six categories: Wisdom and Knowledge; Courage; Humanity and Love; Temperance and; Transcendence.

Research shows that if people are using their Signature Strengths, that is the Character Strengths they like best, they will be most happy and creative. This workshop will provide you with the opportunity to identify your own Signature Strengths. We’ll then explore ways you can take advantage of your strengths and help others take advantage of theirs.

If you want to get started early you can take the VIA Character Strengths Survey at: www.authentichappiness.org . It is free. During the session I will provide a handout developed by Jonathan Haidt that will help you identify your Signature Strengths. The Gold is in identifying how you can use them to increase your creativity!

Storytelling with Clay

Pam Golden

Clay is an elemental material that has been used since ancient times throughout the world, and it can be a powerful vehicle for making our words visual and vital. In this hands-on workshop, participants will explore and create images that speak to us. We will hold the clay, breathe with it as we shape and share our stories. This kinesthetic connection impacts our senses and the creative process. Come join us in sacred play with clay and let's see what evolves!

Improv-Wrtiting - Stream of Consciousness

Amy Swisher

Applying principles of improvisational theatre and "Stream-of-Consciousness" to the writing experience. We will move from warm-up "Prompts" 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 (No one will see your writing, spelling won't count); 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!

How do we know it's Creative?

Joanne Curran

This session will introduce a number of creativity assessments, and what the researchers who developed them have added to our understanding of creativity. We'll try out a few of these instruments ourselves and see what they indicate about creativity. We'll then add our own experienced creativity to the mix.

Traveling with Archangels

William (Bill) Sturner
 

The mythic tales of Archangels are expressions of the deep archetypal forces that continually churn within us – urging us to both seek and create our next level of wholeness.
We will invoke five such psychological-‘angelic’ forces as we frame and anticipate our next adventure. First, we will honor our inner sense of receptivity and confidence - symbolized by our Guardian Angel. We will then respond to Archangel Gabriel’s epic call to create anew. The impulse of Ariel will awaken our animal–libido energy, and Raphael’s nimble and joyful ways will help us to channels that energy into wise and flexible decision-making. Meanwhile Archangel Michael - representing our inner and outer reservoirs of strength - stands guard throughout, providing protection and determination until journey’s end.
We will work quickly, trusting our intuition as we design maps, draw symbols, move to music, make decisions and simulate the conception - and the completion - of our next creative adventure.

Sheri Kennedy

We are all in perpetual transition. Sometimes it seems we have more control over our transitions than at other times. Even the best transitions can be stressful (even buying a new purse or wallet alters your routine!), but they can also provide fertile ground for inspiration and creativity. In this session, we will use Painting, Drawing and Writing to tap into the creative potential of the shifting sands in our worlds. Using a past, present and future state model, we will create physical representations and generate ideas for successful transitions.

Meditation Techniques to Bring Mindfulness into Your Personal and Professional Life

Marguerite Battaglia

As simple as it sounds to just be in the present moment, the challenges of doing so are many. The stories we tell ourselves and the monkey-mind of thinking that seems to be ever in operation are distractions that keep us from “Being” and propel us into “Doing”. Through daily meditation and mindfulness practices one will be able to respond out of present moment awareness rather than from habit formations and thus increase creative or new responses.

“Present moment awareness creates a gap not only in the stream of mind but also in the past-future connection. Nothing truly new and creative can come into this world except through that gap, that clear space of infinite possibility” Eckart Tolle. By appreciating and experiencing the “gap” between thoughts, feelings and perceptions one will be in the present moment. This is the only opportunity to experience something creative.

Mindfulness mediation provides a time for incubation during which a new and novel idea has the space to appear. It is a time absent of thought. It is an awareness of whatever you are experiencing. This session will give participants opportunities to practice mindfulness meditation through walking, sitting and listening.  Participants will:

1. Recognize that when there is a gap in thinking, there is the clear space of infinite possibility where creative opportunities may occur.
2. Use mindfulness practices to experience the gap in thinking
3. Practice meditation though sitting, walking and listening.
4. Become familiar with the mindfulness practices of the Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh
5. Receive a bibliography of mindfulness and meditation resources.

Rock Balancing

Andre and Judy de Zanger and others

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 Saturday evenings there will be Open-Space Sessions, which will allow everyone the opportunity to create and attend a session 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."

Paint Jam 

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. 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 switching between music and paint media, join the fun and experience the power of collective creation.

Newell Eaton

Integral Transformative Practice (ITP) is a comprehensive, systematic, holistic
approach to personal transformation. It was created as a daily practice intended to tap our latent capacities so that we may, to borrow a familiar phrase, "be all that we can be." At the heart of the ITP practice is a series of mind-body-spirit exercises called a Kata (Japanese for "form," or series of movements). A succession of movements, rotations, stretches, twists, contractions, and relaxations, the ITP Kata does not require a lot of time; at a relaxed pace, it can be performed in forty minutes. Drawn from hatha yoga, martial arts, modern exercise physiology, Progressive Relaxation,
visualization research, and witness meditation, the Kata is designed to:

• Balance and center body and psyche
• Provide an overall warm-up, raising the heartbeat, increasing blood flow, and sending
heat to all parts of the body
• Articulate nearly every joint, enhancing lubrication of the synovial joints (such as
shoulder, ankle, or knee, which are surrounded by fluid-filled capsules)
• Provide stretches to increase flexibility in all major muscle groups
• Provide three essential strength exercises
• Offer a complete set of Progressive Relaxation exercises
• Enhance the capacity for deep, rhythmic breathing
• Apply transformational imaging and affirmations, utilizing the power of intentionality
to effect positive changes in body and psyche
• Enhance the experience of the ten-minute concluding meditation

Meditation Techniques to Bring Mindfulness into Your Personal and Professional Life

Marguerite Battaglia

As simple as it sounds to just be in the present moment, the challenges of doing so are many. The stories we tell ourselves and the monkey-mind of thinking that seems to be ever in operation are distractions that keep us from “Being” and propel us into “Doing”. Through daily meditation and mindfulness practices one will be able to respond out of present moment awareness rather than from habit formations and thus increase creative or new responses.

“Present moment awareness creates a gap not only in the stream of mind but also in the past-future connection. Nothing truly new and creative can come into this world except through that gap, that clear space of infinite possibility” Eckart Tolle. By appreciating and experiencing the “gap” between thoughts, feelings and perceptions one will be in the present moment. This is the only opportunity to experience something creative.

Mindfulness mediation provides a time for incubation during which a new and novel idea has the space to appear. It is a time absent of thought. It is an awareness of whatever you are experiencing. This session will give participants opportunities to practice mindfulness meditation through walking, sitting and listening. Participants will:

1. Recognize that when there is a gap in thinking, there is the clear space of infinite possibility where creative opportunities may occur.
2. Use mindfulness practices to experience the gap in thinking
3. Practice meditation though sitting, walking and listening.
4. Become familiar with the mindfulness practices of the Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh
5. Receive a bibliography of mindfulness and meditation resources.

How To Have An Unforgettably Creative Life

Steven Shama

Have you ever wished for a creative life, filled with joy and gratefulness? To wake up each morning excited about what wonder-filled moments you will experience. To live a creative life is to truly live…to be able to find the child in you and to give permission for it to express itself whenever…Imagine being able to easily find and tap into that creative part of you, to light your way each day, to support you on your journey so that you can commit to making the rest of your life one unforgettably incredibly creative adventure! Our time together is guaranteed to put a smile on your creative face and warm your creative heart…and to be unforgettable! In this session we will explore through group interaction and using wonderful handouts, quotations and stories:

Participants will Learn:

-Knowing what would an unforgettably creative life look like?
-Identifying what gets in your way?
-Making it better?
-Knowing if and when it is working?
-Developing techniques for keeping it fresh…forever.