The Dandelions Are Prophesizing: A Writing Workshop Through Plant & Mycelial Encounters with Janice Lee —begins July 10th

The Dandelions Are Prophesizing: A Writing Workshop Through Plant & Mycelial Encounters

July 10 – August 6, 2022

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

***SOLD OUT! Email Daniel at registration@corporealwriting.com to add your name to the waitlist***

“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.

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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 registration@corporealwriting.com 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

Janice Lee (she/her) is a Korean-American writer, editor, teacher, and shamanic healer. She is the author of 7 books of fiction, creative nonfiction & poetry: KEROTAKIS (Dog Horn Press, 2010), Daughter (Jaded Ibis, 2011), Damnation (Penny-Ante Editions, 2013), Reconsolidation (Penny-Ante Editions, 2015), The Sky Isn’t Blue (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016), Imagine a Death (Texas Review Press, 2021), and Separation Anxiety (CLASH Books, 2022). A roundtable, unanimous dreamers chime in, a collaborative novel co-authored with Brenda Iijima, is also forthcoming in 2022 from Meekling Press. An essay (co-authored with Jared Woodland) is featured in the recently released 4K restoration of Sátántangó (dir. Béla Tarr) from Arbelos Films. She writes about interspecies communication, plants & personhood, the filmic long take, slowness, the apocalypse, architectural spaces, inherited trauma, and the Korean concept of han, and asks the question, how do we hold space open while maintaining intimacy? Incorporating shamanic and energetic healing, she teaches workshops on inherited trauma, healing, and writing, and practices in several lineages, including the Q’ero, Buddhism, plant & animal medicine, and Korean shamanic ritual (Muism). She currently lives in Portland, OR where she is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Portland State University. She can be found online at http://janicel.com and Twitter/Instagram: @diddioz.