from Writing Your Sacred Journey with Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew

Hidden within your life experiences is a wellspring of hope, wisdom, truth, and connection.  Painful memories reveal ultimate values; fragmented memories make way for unity; languageless memories find voice. Writing is one way to draw from this bottomless, life-giving source. By creating stories of your past, you can re-create your present and find agency for a meaningful future.  If you want, your inner story can move the inner life of a reader, passing the gift of transformation forward.

Eye of the Heart’s Online Writing Classes

Online Class Library:

Join Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew to explore the art and practice of spiritual memoir writing in these online, pre-recorded two-hour classes. Each online session will give participants the opportunity to listen, read, write, share within an asynchronous community space, and practice their own writing.

Cost: $25/each.

Note: The class links will take you into our new Eye of the Heart online writing community, which you have to sign-up for in order to access the class. However, you are not obligated to join in the community aspects. You can turn off notifications and simply take the class on your own. Of course, we welcome you to join us in our community, because we believe in the power of community when centered around our community, but there’s no pressure if it’s not the right move for you right now.

  • Everything Sacred

    We’ll practice mining ordinary objects and activities for spiritual content, learn the difference between showing and telling, and discuss ways for getting started. Our attention calls forth holiness from our experiences.

  • “God” (and Discovery) of God in the Details

    The right details bring light and life to a story.  We’ll practice finding details that work and look through our descriptions to the meaning they uncover.

  • The Brilliance of Childhood

    Our sacred journeys find their source and direction in our youngest years, when our first experiences marked us.  How can we explore early memories with compassion, curiosity, and humility?

  • Courage & Truth-Telling

    “Only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth,” Audre Lorde wrote, “and that is not speaking.”  Writing memories is an exercise in truth-telling. We’ll learn techniques to facilitate honesty on the page—and in life.

  • The World Boiled Down to a Drop

    We’ll explore the holographic nature of memoir: Our small stories contain big truths. How can we reconstitute memories on the page so they hold both the vast universe and our beloved particulars?

  • Holy Resistance

    Resistance—to creativity, to spiritual practice—can be a sign that our small, limited self feels threatened by our essential Self.  When we resist the process of writing or the material that arises, how can we open our hearts to transformation?

  • The Journey Within

    It’s no coincidence that we describe the soul’s path as a journey. The physical journeys we’ve taken (whether they’re dog-walks, cross-country trips, or overseas pilgrimages) have much to teach us about the soul’s journey—and about effective writing.

  • Describing the Indescribable

    So much of the inner life is indescribable!  How can we possibly write it?  We’ll look at literary examples of enlightenment, emptiness, pain, ecstasy, and use literary tools to wrap language around the ineffable.

  • Dreams, Our Most Intimate Scripture

    The feelings, images, and stories that come to us at night seep into our days and play an active role in our spiritual journeys.  How can we write about them effectively?  How can writing support our dreams to do their healing work?

  • Writing Transformation, Transforming Writing

    Writers often find inspiration in experiences of surprising, radical, or gradual personal change.  How can we recreate these to become available to our readers?  We will also dabble in revision as a transformational practice.

  • The Blessed Body

    Our bodies are trustworthy sources of memory and wisdom. Together we’ll write from our bodies, about our bodies, to our bodies, and with our bodies as a practice of welcoming the Spirit. We’ll also delve into sensory description as a literary technique that invites the reader into our experiences.

  • Cultivating Love

    “What goes on in your innermost being is worthy of your whole love,” Rilke told the young poet. Writing memories can be an expression of this love. We’ll grapple lovingly with our past, practice writing as a loving act, and open ourselves to receiving love through the creative process.

  • Living the Questions

    Questions pry open possibilities, expose alternatives, ask that we see through new eyes, motivate, open us to love—and are a writer’s best tool. We’ll explore questions as portals into memory and instruments of revision.

  • Characters: Real People in Two Dimensions

    The people in our lives, including ourselves, become characters in our memoir. How do we represent them honestly and respectfully? Learn about character development and how good craft practices are also loving ones.

  • Faith in Writing

    With intention, creative writing can exercise and strengthen faith—in ourselves, in the creative process, and in our Source.  Shrada, the Sanskrit word for faith, means “the power to hold into one.”  We’ll practice lending this power to our memories.

  • Perspective & Insight

    All memoir is a dialogue between past and present, between the “character” you were then and the “narrator” you are today.  We’ll practice using the reflective voice in memoir as a way to invite perspective and insight.

Free Writing Class: The Gifts of Writing Micro-Course

This micro-course welcomes writers into a healthy, lively, fruitful, & meaningful writing practice through the exploration of the gift culture we seek to inhabit. This is also the first step into our Writing Community, if you are looking for an online writing community.

Want to take writing classes
live with others?

Coming Soon!

Your Story as Scripture

Explore the art of Spiritual Memoir and Your Life Story as Scripture. With prompts and practices, you'll walk away with a better notion on seeing your life experience as something sacred, holy, and worth unveiling through the art of writing.

Online Writing

Community

We gather seekers and creatives of all generations to explore, express, and honor divine Mystery through vibrant experiences of the arts and grounded contemplative practices that transform self and world.

  • Take a short writing course from Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, which will put all community members on the same page as we gather online together.

  • After you complete the course, you’ll be invited to join the community on Mighty Networks, where we will host events, classes, and foster a space for writers to encourage one another.

Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew wearing a blue scarf in front of water

Meet Your Instructor

Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew

Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew is a wisdom teacher and writing coach dedicated to facilitating creative emergence. 

As a writer she elicits the spirit’s movement within stories; as a teacher she supports transformation within writers and on the page.  She received her MFA in creative nonfiction from Hamline University, her spiritual direction training from the Center for Spiritual Guidance, and her contemplative formation from the Center for Action and Contemplation’s Living School.  You can connect with Elizabeth at www.spiritualmemoir.com and www.elizabethjarrettandrew.com.

Stay up-to-date on online and in-person events!