Brooklyn, NY: NYC Chapter, Pre-Camino Processing Workshop

Future pilgrims, this is for you! In the Pre-Camino Processing Workshop, prospective pilgrims will be guided through a series of expressive processes to deepen their awareness of their intentions for embarking on Camino. The visual container for the emotional, physical, and cognitive processing for the journey will be a physical map that they will construct based on their possible route for their Camino journey. To prime each pilgrim, a series of meditations including a labyrinth walking exercise, journaling prompts, dramatic role plays, and readings of maps and travelogues from past pilgrims, some dating back to the Middle Ages will be provided.

Goals:

to clarify the purpose(s) for each participant’s reason for Camino

to research physical routes and plan their journey using practical route information both in virtual and physical form

to externalize the intentions for the journey and express hopes, fears, challenges

to connect with other pilgrims in their intentions to embark on the Camino

Logistics:

Venue: Ascension Episcopal Church, 127 Kent Street Brooklyn NY 11222 (between Manhattan Ave and Franklin Street)

20 participants maximum

Saturday, September 30 from 10am-noon

Please register by September 26 if possible

Materials provided:

Maps, guidebooks, resource list of Camino routes

11X24 paper to map journey

Markers, pens, pencils, rulers, calculators, transparencies

Historical materials of medieval Camino routes and travelogues

Participants

Materials participants should bring:

Guidebooks if available

Photos or images of people you are walking for

Participants can support the workshop and help cover the costs of materials with a donation

Plan of Activities:

Ice-breaker

Short photo presentation about the Camino and historical maps of routes

Guided meditation — labyrinth walk

Journaling about the meditational walk: my WHY

Manifesting fears/challenges/triumphs using visual markers on the paper

Dramatic dialogue out loud in dyads Fear vs Hope

Crafting MY Map Route: participants break up into groups or individually to plan their route using examples. The map must include visual symbols for the obstacles they will encounter on the journey.

Sharing of their maps

Journal/ Prayer for a Buen Camino write for leave taking

Synthesis: Create a group poem from one or two lines of each participants “Prayer for the Start of the Journey” and read out loud.

Meet our facilitator: Irene Arholekas, or Eirené, is a writer, journalist, editor, and teacher. Born to Greek parents in South Africa, she is a daughter of the Hellenic Diaspora who has lived and worked across three continents, several European cities, including Athens, Heidelberg, Barcelona and Jerusalem. Most recently, she has embarked on a career as an encaustic painter, photographer, and expressive arts workshop facilitator. Awash with the cerulean blues and whites of the Cyclades, her encaustic practice synthesizes natural elements, communicates emotional

timber through varying textures, and moves in the rhythms of the four elements. She has exhibited her work in NYC, Moscow, Rome, and Paris. She is a member of International Encaustic Artists and the Encaustic Art Institute of New Mexico.

Her work can be viewed at: www.ateliereirene.com