SPELL CASTING 101
PLAYING IN THE RELATIONAL FIELD
Saturday March 9th 1-5pm, 2024
Burning Spirits Yoga: 2025 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Portland OR
Burning Spirits Yoga: 2025 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Portland OR
For this workshop we are invited to invoke the magician archetype and take seriously the image of ourselves as amateur spell-casters, wizards perhaps. What I mean by spell-casting is: to facilitate a technique that aims towards transformation – of self, other and world. Therapy, coaching, collective rituals like sound healing or dance, clowning, contact improvisation, authentic relating, meditation – these are just a few examples of practices that cast relational spells. The idea of this workshop is that transformative techniques need not remain isolated in their silos of practice; rather, we can concoct our own spells – through a kind of tinkering, trial, experimentation. The scientist-magician-artist in the laboratory, that is the playspace of our workshop. While spell-casting is vast in its scope (from alchemy’s alteration of metals, to meditation’s capacity to alter ones own mind and body), the spells that will be the focus of this workshops will be relational – we will trying out spells that are aimed at transforming one another. All of us will be playing the roles of both caster and casted.
Some examples of relational spells (however, it’s possible none of these will feature in the workshop)
-Breathe for 1 minute very slowly, then look at each other’s eyes, then say the first thing that comes to your mind, then breath again for 1 minute slowly.
-Pretend to be an animal, switch which animal you are, write in a stream of consciousness, and then hold someone’s head with your palm while chanting some of the words you've written
-Say one word 30 times in different ways with different intonations while your partner waves their hand above you humming each word
The workshop will contain:
A) Introductions, Agreements, Safety Mechanisms
B) A brief talk about the framework of spell-casting and demo
C) Participant will journal about possible spells and interests, and then be placed in small groups for the remainder of the workshop to perform spell-casting.
D) Spells will be enacted, and then there will be feedback, and a chance to revise one’s spell, and then one more chance to try out one’s spell
Price is via sliding scale: Tier 1 $60, Tier 2, $40, Tier 3 $20 | BIPOC Tier 3 Please see chart.
Sliding Scale: Hopefully the sliding scale fees make this workshop accessible for those who want/need to participate. DPI recognizes the incredible value of this work, and wants very much to make this workshop both accessible for participants, while also providing fair payment to both facilitator and venue. If the tiered, sliding scale, price structure does not work for you, and you are very much wanting to take this workshop, please reach and we will try to accommodate your needs [ [email protected] ] .
About the facilitator: Aaron Finbloom is a philosopher, artist, pedagogue and counselor. He is also the founder and director of the Deep Play Institute. Finbloom's work (and play) involves expanding and deepening transformative inquiry through games, performance, and structured play. After an initial 40-hour psychodrama training in 2018 Finbloom co-led a psychodrama group in Montreal, and has directed dozens of psychodrama sessions in the forthcoming years. His facilitation style is informed by training in Circling, Authentic Relating, Vipassana Meditation and is profoundly inspired by Internal Family Systems Therapy both in theory and practice. Finbloom has been seeing individual clients for over two years using transformative deep play techniques derived from these aforementioned practices. He holds a PhD in relational practice from Concordia University's Interdisciplinary Humanities & Fine Arts program, and teaches philosophy at the City College of New York and The University of Portland.
Disclaimer: This intensive is not therapy, nor should be considered a substitute for therapy. That said, the explorations we will engage in will have the potential to go rather deep, and may be quite intense. The Deep Play Institute upholds the belief that deep play lives on an edge between safe and dangerous. As such, we invite participants to play in this liminal space, and as facilitators we work to help participants stay on this edge. We see it as our responsibility to design a space that is trauma-informed, holds space for emotional processing, includes self-care, and normalizes opting out at any time. We ask participants to gauge when their experience has crossed into territory that they deem “too edgy” and take the steps necessary for their own emotional safety. Finally, we want to acknowledge that insofar as we occupy privileged identities we bring our personal limitations and biases into the space, and while we are working to educate ourselves and minimize harm, we recognize that harm may be caused and we take accountability for this.
Maximum # of Participants is 20.
Cancellation Policy Refunds are available up to 30 days before the event - minus a $20 processing fee. After this time we are unable to provide a refund for the event.
Some examples of relational spells (however, it’s possible none of these will feature in the workshop)
-Breathe for 1 minute very slowly, then look at each other’s eyes, then say the first thing that comes to your mind, then breath again for 1 minute slowly.
-Pretend to be an animal, switch which animal you are, write in a stream of consciousness, and then hold someone’s head with your palm while chanting some of the words you've written
-Say one word 30 times in different ways with different intonations while your partner waves their hand above you humming each word
The workshop will contain:
A) Introductions, Agreements, Safety Mechanisms
B) A brief talk about the framework of spell-casting and demo
C) Participant will journal about possible spells and interests, and then be placed in small groups for the remainder of the workshop to perform spell-casting.
D) Spells will be enacted, and then there will be feedback, and a chance to revise one’s spell, and then one more chance to try out one’s spell
Price is via sliding scale: Tier 1 $60, Tier 2, $40, Tier 3 $20 | BIPOC Tier 3 Please see chart.
Sliding Scale: Hopefully the sliding scale fees make this workshop accessible for those who want/need to participate. DPI recognizes the incredible value of this work, and wants very much to make this workshop both accessible for participants, while also providing fair payment to both facilitator and venue. If the tiered, sliding scale, price structure does not work for you, and you are very much wanting to take this workshop, please reach and we will try to accommodate your needs [ [email protected] ] .
About the facilitator: Aaron Finbloom is a philosopher, artist, pedagogue and counselor. He is also the founder and director of the Deep Play Institute. Finbloom's work (and play) involves expanding and deepening transformative inquiry through games, performance, and structured play. After an initial 40-hour psychodrama training in 2018 Finbloom co-led a psychodrama group in Montreal, and has directed dozens of psychodrama sessions in the forthcoming years. His facilitation style is informed by training in Circling, Authentic Relating, Vipassana Meditation and is profoundly inspired by Internal Family Systems Therapy both in theory and practice. Finbloom has been seeing individual clients for over two years using transformative deep play techniques derived from these aforementioned practices. He holds a PhD in relational practice from Concordia University's Interdisciplinary Humanities & Fine Arts program, and teaches philosophy at the City College of New York and The University of Portland.
Disclaimer: This intensive is not therapy, nor should be considered a substitute for therapy. That said, the explorations we will engage in will have the potential to go rather deep, and may be quite intense. The Deep Play Institute upholds the belief that deep play lives on an edge between safe and dangerous. As such, we invite participants to play in this liminal space, and as facilitators we work to help participants stay on this edge. We see it as our responsibility to design a space that is trauma-informed, holds space for emotional processing, includes self-care, and normalizes opting out at any time. We ask participants to gauge when their experience has crossed into territory that they deem “too edgy” and take the steps necessary for their own emotional safety. Finally, we want to acknowledge that insofar as we occupy privileged identities we bring our personal limitations and biases into the space, and while we are working to educate ourselves and minimize harm, we recognize that harm may be caused and we take accountability for this.
Maximum # of Participants is 20.
Cancellation Policy Refunds are available up to 30 days before the event - minus a $20 processing fee. After this time we are unable to provide a refund for the event.