Janice Lee's Blog, page 3

More details and registration

July 10 – August 6, 2022

(Synchronous Zoom sessions Mondays 7/11, 7/18, 7/25, 8/1)

“The world is not a problem to be solved; it is a living being to which we belong. It is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness. Until we go to the root of our image of separateness, there can be no healing. And the deepest part of our separateness from creation lies in our forgetfulness of its sacred nature, which is also our own sacred nature.” – Thich Nhat Hanh 

“If we are interested in livability, impermanence, and emergence, we should be watching the action of landscape assemblages. Assemblages coalesce, change, and dissolve: this is the story.”  – Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

“Medicine and sickness heal each other. 
The whole world is medicine. 
Where do you find yourself?”
– Yunmen Wenyan

“How other kinds of beings see us matters. That other kinds of beings see us changes things.”  – Eduardo Kohn

“Identity is the factoring out and performative denial of our own perceptual immersion or entanglement with forces that generate and undo the boundaries with which we mark ourselves as different from others.” – Bayo Akomolafe

The dandelions are prophesizing. 

What are you afraid to see, in the tenuous space you are being given? For you, what is on the other side of the portal and what pain do you have yet to experience? What more can you learn from the geese, the moss, the dandelions, the mushrooms, the concrete beneath your feet? 

How can you orient yourself differently from within, to not see the world as broken—as something to be fixed or saved—but as an entanglement of becomings and worldings of which you are a small but integral part? 

What is it that you are trying to protect? In your silence and complacency, what is it that has really been at stake for you? What have you been guarding, protecting, keeping close to you, keeping distant, what struggles have you avoided your entire life, what struggles are you avoiding still? In protecting what you have felt like you have earned, in caring about those in your immediate view, in using exclusivity when it comes to compassion and awareness, how have you contributed to everything that you can so easily criticize in language but have yet to understand your own intimate relationality with these so-called broken systems? How have you contributed to the environmental degradation of this planet, to systemic racism, to the real harm against black and brown bodies, to civil wars and genocides, to the violence in the streets and all over the world, to this pandemic, to all of the suffering in this world, to all of the imbalance? How have you forgotten that you are not an individual, not a self-enclosed ecology but part of a global body, connected to every other being, every other atom on this planet, all of the energy of the cosmos and the earth, of the past and present and future, how have you forgotten what you really are and what change you are truly capable of instigating? 

This four-week online workshop will encourage you to expand your awareness and language through new encounters with plant and mycelial networks, to see the world as non-linear and entangled, and to imagine new futures that don’t depend on replicating the energies of the systems we seek to dismantle or the patterns we seek to heal from. We will investigate the speculative potentialities of futures beyond capital and justice-oriented systems, imagine identity and being through the lens of assemblage and permeability, and explore new and porous ways of working towards individual and collective change.

In this generative and healing-focused workshop, we will be supported by writing prompts, guided meditations, intuition exercises, personal medicine work, shamanic practices, divination, communing with plant and animal beings, Buddhist teachings, ceremony, and readings from multiple genres to explore the articulation of an entangled worldview. (Some of the diverse readings will include work by authors such as Bayo Akomolafe, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Vincianne Despret, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Wendy Burk, Brenda Iijima, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and Marisol de la Cadena.)

Workshop Structure:

In order to accommodate both synchronous and asynchronous modes, the majority of the work will be asynchronous and can be self-paced for each week (ie. readings, writing prompts, exercises, discussions). There will be 4 synchronous meetings (via Zoom). The 4 sessions will be Mondays from 11AM-1PM PST: 7/11, 7/18, 7/25, 8/1). [Note: The final live session on 8/1 will be 11AM-2PM.] Though attendance at these meetings is highly encouraged, it is not mandatory. All meetings will be recorded and posted the next day, for those who are unable to make part or all of the meeting times, with guided instructions on any activities/exercises covered during the meetings to be posted as well. As well, all participants will have the opportunity to have one 1-on-1 conference with Janice during the 4-week period.

***

Pricing:

The following payment model is inspired by and borrowed from the payment model of Bayo Akomolafe’s class, We Will Dance With Mountains: Into the Cracks. 

This course offers two sliding scales based on your relative financial standing. The huge range listed below is meant to reflect the incredible disparity in economic conditions of people living in different parts of the world, and also the historical reality of stolen wealth in many different forms, generally from the so-called Global South to the North. In an effort to reflect disparity in economic condition and access to wealth, the following payment system is designed for those with more wealth to help cover the costs of those with less access to wealth and resources. We trust your discernment of how your current financial situation and how you fit into the global economic context.

As you decide what amount to pay, please consider your present-day financial situation governed by income, but also the following factors: historical discrimination faced by your peoples; your financial wealth (retirement/savings/investments); your access to income and financial wealth, both current and anticipated (how easily could you earn more income compared to other people in your community, country, and the world); people counting on your financial livelihood including dependents and community members; the socio-economic conditions of your locale (relative to other places in your country and in the world); your relationship to food & resource scarcity.

Also, if you are considering taking both Co-Dependencies and Dandelions as a series (we highly encourage this!), do take that into account. We might recommend registering at the Friend I tier, for example, for a “bundle discount.” But again, we trust your discernment in this case.

For people with medium to high access to wealth in the global context, are generally considered middle or upper class in the Global North, own land or property, have investments or retirement savings, are expecting an inheritance, can travel internationally for pleasure, and/or enjoy a comfortable lifestyle.

$475 Partner I$410 Supporter I$350 Companion I (Note: This amount reflects the “real” value of this course.)$275 Friend I

For people with lower access to wealth in the global context, are systematically disadvantaged and living in the Global South, are poor/working class in the Global North, belong to a historically disenfranchised group, don’t have access to savings, are living paycheck to paycheck or relying on government or other aid, and/or have anxiety regularly about having access to food, resources, or shelter.

$200 Partner II$125 Supporter II$50 Friend II

Scholarships are also still available for BIPOC and anyone needing further financial assistance. Please email Daniel at [email protected] to request a scholarship and/or if you are feeling challenged in any way by the financial requirements of participation.

Testimonials:

If you care about Earth, then I highly recommend The Dandelions are Prophesizing. Janice Lee is gracious and adept at holding expansive space…a space where one is invited to step away from long held perspectives and explore what other beings that co-exist on this planet may be experiencing alongside us humans as we journey together.  – AR

Amazing, eye-opening class. My mind was blown every week.  – ML

Brilliant course, excellent reading material. Will help to re-shape your brain.  – MM

Janice is calm and open, sets a tone and pace during the workshop that feels accessible and comfortable. She is so generous and considerate in the course structure she creates, all those spectacular reading materials, and her communication of expectations (which encourages each person to measure and decide about engagement). She has an amazing mind I find fascinating and an expansive spirit I trust. – EP

Janice Lee is not only a brilliant author, but a wonderfully creative and generous teacher as well. We moved through so much fascinating material in four weeks. I loved the writing prompts, which encouraged us to communicate with the realms of plant, animal and spirit in a way that truly enhanced our assignments and group discussions. I highly recommend her classes! – AH

Janice holds space for whatever you can offer, and as any good social anthropologist with sentient capacity, shows you how your energy and thoughts are tied to fertile life lines. A terrific teacher, broadly read, she will change your outlook on what matters in your writing, for your writing. – AF

Speaking with Ghosts: A hybrid conversation/workshop with Laraine Herring and Janice LeeRegistration & More Details

Saturday June 18th, 2022 12PM-3PM PST over Zoom

Join Janice Lee (Imagine a Death) and Laraine Herring (A Constellation of Ghosts: A Speculative Memoir with Ravens) in a dynamic exploration of the things that haunt us. Following a short conversation about each of the presenter’s books, Lee’s workshop, “Speaking with Ghosts” and Herring’s workshop, “Speculative Memoir: Making the Invisible Visible” will help you connect with the unseen, the imagined, and the ancestors to create your unique story. There will be ample time for sharing and questions.

***

Pricing:

The following payment model is inspired by and borrowed from the payment model of Bayo Akomolafe’s class, We Will Dance With Mountains: Into the Cracks.

This workshop offers a sliding scale based on your relative financial standing. In an effort to reflect disparity in economic condition and access to wealth, the following payment system is designed for those with more wealth to help cover the costs of those with less access to wealth and resources. We trust your discernment of your current financial situation and how you fit into the global economic context.

As you decide what amount to pay, please consider your present-day financial situation governed by income, but also the following factors: historical discrimination faced by your peoples; your financial wealth (retirement/savings/investments); your access to income and financial wealth, both current and anticipated (how easily could you earn more income compared to other people in your community, country, and the world; are you expecting an inheritance); people counting on your financial livelihood including dependents and community members; the socio-economic conditions of your locale (relative to other places in your country and in the world); your relationship to food & resource scarcity.

$200 $150 (Note: This amount reflects the “real” value of this course.)$100$50

Scholarships are also still available for anyone needing further financial assistance. Please email Daniel at [email protected] for more info, or if you are feeling challenged in any way by the financial requirements of participation.

More details TBD

More details and registration

June 5 – July 2, 2022

(Synchronous Zoom sessions Mondays 6/6, 6/13, 6/20, 6/27)

“What really exists is not things made but things in the making.” –William James

“How other kinds of beings see us matters. That other kinds of beings see us changes things.” –Eduardo Kohn

On han: “A feeling of unresolved resentment against injustices suffered, a sense of helplessness because of the overwhelming odds against one, a feeling of acute pain in one’s guts and bowels, making the whole body writhe and squirm, and an obstinate urge to take revenge and to right the wrong—all these combined.” –Suh Nam-dong

“Death needs a new cosmology. Death is not a black hole where things cease to be. If you want to live well, keep death close. Hope includes hopelessness and grieving is showing gratitude for that which has been lost. What would it be like to treat grief as power? Even our hopelessness as a form of decomposing and falling away that is sacred.” –Bayo Akomolafe

“The world is not a problem to be solved; it is a living being to which we belong. It is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness. Until we go to the root of our image of separateness, there can be no healing. And the deepest part of our separateness from creation lies in our forgetfulness of its sacred nature, which is also our own sacred nature.” –Thich Nhat Hanh

How are the frames of reference and relationships between and of living beings activated? That is, how do different bodies and worlds articulate each other, or, how do we learn to be affected? How do we reconcile personal experience with historical fact? How do we reconcile history with memory? How do we reconcile truths with other truths? How does writing open up space while processing trauma or grief?

This four-week online workshop will begin with the unique emotional identity and Korean concept of han and its relationship to concepts of inherited trauma, looking closely at the relationship of cultural history & identity and aesthetics & narrative and exploring how the presence of unresolved corporeal history and the impossibility of articulation or expression leads to new encounters in language and narrative.

Through this generative and healing-focused workshop, we will use writing prompts, guided meditations, intuition exercises, personal medicine work, shamanic practices, divination, mapping, unbinding wounds & trauma, communing with plant and animal beings, and ceremony to explore the articulation of experience and trauma (lived and inherited). We will explore texts from all genres and work directly on developing a personal healing and writing practice while exploring lived/embodied experience, the body as both a compromised site and as a site for resistance, and connections to thinking about healing from other lineages, including plant & animal medicine, Buddhism, and different lineages of shamanism. There will be limited and optional opportunities for peer feedback.

Workshop Structure:

In order to accommodate both synchronous and asynchronous modes, the majority of the work will be asynchronous and can be self-paced for each week (ie. readings, writing prompts, exercises, discussions). There will be 4 synchronous meetings (via Zoom). The 4 sessions will be Mondays from 11AM-1PM PST: 6/6, 6/13, 6/20, 6/27). Though attendance at these meetings is highly encouraged, it is not mandatory. All meetings will be recorded and posted the next day, for those who are unable to make part or all of the meeting times, with guided instructions on any activities/exercises covered during the meetings to be posted online. As well, all participants will have the opportunity to have one 1-on-1 conference with Janice during the 4-week period.

***

Pricing:

The following payment model is inspired by and borrowed from the payment model of Bayo Akomolafe’s class, We Will Dance With Mountains: Into the Cracks. 

This course offers two sliding scales based on your relative financial standing. The huge range listed below is meant to reflect the incredible disparity in economic conditions of people living in different parts of the world, and also the historical reality of stolen wealth in many different forms, generally from the so-called Global South to the North. In an effort to reflect disparity in economic condition and access to wealth, the following payment system is designed for those with more wealth to help cover the costs of those with less access to wealth and resources. We trust your discernment of how your current financial situation and how you fit into the global economic context.

As you decide what amount to pay, please consider your present-day financial situation governed by income, but also the following factors: historical discrimination faced by your peoples; your financial wealth (retirement/savings/investments); your access to income and financial wealth, both current and anticipated (how easily could you earn more income compared to other people in your community, country, and the world); people counting on your financial livelihood including dependents and community members; the socio-economic conditions of your locale (relative to other places in your country and in the world); your relationship to food & resource scarcity.

Also, if you are considering taking both Co-Dependencies and Dandelions as a series (we highly encourage this!), do take that into account. We might recommend registering at the Friend I tier, for example, for a “bundle discount.” But again, we trust your discernment in this case.

For people with medium to high access to wealth in the global context, are generally considered middle or upper class in the Global North, own land or property, have investments or retirement savings, are expecting an inheritance, can travel internationally for pleasure, and/or enjoy a comfortable lifestyle.

$475 Partner I$410 Supporter I$350 Companion I (Note: This amount reflects the “real” value of this course.)$275 Friend I

For people with lower access to wealth in the global context, are systematically disadvantaged and living in the Global South, are poor/working class in the Global North, belong to a historically disenfranchised group, don’t have access to savings, are living paycheck to paycheck or relying on government or other aid, and/or have anxiety regularly about having access to food, resources, or shelter.

$200 Partner II$125 Supporter II$50 Friend II

Scholarships are also still available for BIPOC and anyone needing further financial assistance. Please email Daniel at [email protected] to request a scholarship and/or if you are feeling challenged in any way by the financial requirements of participation.

Testimonials:

Janice Lee’s readings and class discussions took me to places I’ve never been in my mind or my writing. She offered new ways of seeing the world and my place in it. I think she’s brilliant, and I can’t wait to take another class. – CT

Janice’s class was transformative for me on all the levels: creative, psychic, literary, healing. The readings and viewings were robust and inspiring. Because of Janice, I am now actively seeking to communicate with more of the plants around me, even the smallest ones in the cracks in the sidewalk, because this transforms the world into a place of magic and possibility, even in the midst of political turmoil and global pandemic.  – CH

I loved this course with Janice and highly recommend it. The combination of instruction, writing prompts, readings and shamanic healing practices were both inspiring and beneficial. I was often surprised by the doors it opened in my writing process and am grateful for the expansion of my worldview. Kudos Janice on an amazing holding of space to allow vulnerability to transform into healing. It was a very rich and transformative experience. – EE

It was so wonderful to work with Janice. I would do so again in a heartbeat. She held the online space with care and attentiveness, she was warm, and she was focused. I loved how clear she was that the purpose of the workshop space was the process itself and not any particular kind of product or experience… Janice Lee’s Co-Dependencies was the sacred writing space that I needed to close out 2020. The ritual elements of the workshop opened up pathways to releasing accumulated griefs, and the meditations brought me to new understandings of myself. The space she created for vulnerable dialogues and connections was something that I haven’t experienced in any other writing class.  – JW

If you’re ready for deep self-reflection, deep imagination, deep connection, and deep care, work with Janice. The resources she shares on all levels — literary, organizational, creative, interpersonal, and spiritual — are designed to allow those who work with her to define our own path(s) in her company. Janice’s courses are radical autonomous pedagogy in action. Janice Lee’s Co-Dependencies class took my heart further into empathy. Thank you so much for this experience into my own underworld, lineage and present power. I feel unlocked by it.  – KK

Janice is a generous and compassionate instructor. I would never call this class a writing workshop (even though I got some GREAT writing out of it)–it is much more like a journey. Janice deftly leads you into places where you are tender, hurt, or grieving so that you can witness, map, and maybe! Even begin to heal. She makes ample and supportive room for all kinds of writers and her prompts and materials are thoughtful, thought-provoking, and offer new ways of contextualizing one’s own sorrow. If I could, I’d take this class every spring, to be led out of the winter darkness and into the light of possibilities! – C

Non-Traditional Forms in Narrative & Spirituality/Divination

Hosted by Beyond Baroque

A virtual event

More details TBD

JANICE LEE + GAIL SCOTT

Introductions by Ivy Johnson + Camille Roy

Event Details

This event has been moved online.

Introductions by Ivy Johnson + Camille Roy

Friday, January 21
6pm pacific, 9pm eastern

RSVP HERE for Zoom link

January 8, 2022 Venus (retrograde) forms the second of three conjunctions with Pluto in Capricorn. The symbol of this transit speaks to powerful transformation of attachments and within relationships of all kinds. At a time on Earth filled with incredible precarity, destruction and loss, we are asked to sit with sensations of fear and turn towards the shadows in our psyches so that we might recognize and shift patterns which perpetuate suffering and keep us at a distance from what we most deeply desire. 

EMBODIED ASTROLOGY WELCOMES JANICE LEE
FOR OUR INAUGURAL 2022 GUEST WORKSHOPTHE DANDELIONS ARE PROPHESIZING:
A WORKSHOP IN LETTING GOJANUARY 8, 2022 – 10AM-1PM PACIFIC TIME

Letting go isn’t about eliminating desire, ambition, or hope, but about unattaching ourselves from those hopes, about no longer clinging to a sense of control, about no longer seeing the world in a linear way. When we cling to the hope of a “better future,” we long for a sense of control that has never and will never exist. We only see what’s wrong now and wait for a future that is yet to come. We use all of our present energy waiting or trying to fix things because we are clinging to certain notions of justice or loss, but when we let go, we can live in the present moment, live with presence and awareness, have gratitude for everything that exists now, and imagine new futures that don’t depend on replicating the energies of the systems we seek to dismantle or the patterns we seek to heal from. Letting go means breathing, living with open arms, allowing for openness and vulnerability and possibility, and accepting what is while still creating the impossible. This workshop, led by Janice Lee (published writer, teacher, shamanic healer) will consist of a guided meditation, a freewriting session, and a communal ceremony (that will be finished on your own). Please bring a small object that represents what you need to let go of, or a small stone, that will be buried in the ground after the workshop.

 THIS WORKSHOP IS OFFERED BY SLIDING SCALE $25-$100

Please choose an appropriate cost, based on what you can afford. We trust you to use your discretion and honor in choosing your price. 90% of all proceeds will go directly to Janice Lee and your contributions support a working artist. Embodied Astrology retains 10% of proceeds towards our administrative costs.

For more details & to register, click here.

Facebook Event Page & Zoom Link

JANICE LEE + GAIL SCOTT

Introductions by Ivy Johnson + Camille Roy

Event Details

Friday, January 21
Doors 7, event begins promptly at 7:30pm pacific
Center for New Music, 55 Taylor St, SF
Free

RSVP HERE to attend in person
+ livestream at YouTube

Join us for an evening where writers will read from their new books and the shadow texts that inspired them! Our first reading features Megan Milks, Janice Lee, and Joanna C. Valente.

7PM Central / 5PM Pacific

Facebook Event Page

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