"Creating a Poetic Life on Purpose" Workshop Coming Up at the University of Connecticut-Waterbury

The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Connecticut Waterbury Campus is presenting the "Creating a Poetic Life on Purpose" Workshop on Tuesday, October 1, 2013, from 12:30 to 2 p.m. It will take place in the UConn Waterbury Multipurpose Room. The workshop facilitators are Anne F. O'Reilly, poet, mystic and teacher from Dublin, Ireland, and Steven Dahlberg, director of the Connecticut-based International Centre for Creativity and Imagination.

To reserve your free seat, please call 203-36-9924 or 203-236-9925 TODAY or email osher@uconn.edu.

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP:

Imagine, connect and act on purpose to create the life you want to lead. This is an experiential session using poetry and imagination practices to help you discover new connections between your creativity and your purpose. Learn to think in new ways about your possibilities and challenges, as well as strategies for creative thinking. Explore how to unleash and harness your creativity living your purpose as a creative act.

ABOUT THE FACILITATORS:

• Anne F. O'Reilly, Ph.D., has more than 30 years experience of teaching and facilitating workshops in spirituality, creative writing and sacred poetry. She was a senior lecturer in religious studies in St. Patrick's College Drumcondra in Dublin, Ireland, until 2008, when she took early retirement and began working as a performance poet, celebrating the healing and transforming power of poetry. She brings to this work many years training with voice, poetry by heart, sacred clowning, drama and meditation. She is the author of Sacred Play: Soul Journeys in Contemporary Irish Theatre, and Singing from the Belly of the Whale, a book of poetry with original paintings by Caroline Hunter. The CD, Breathsong, with her own poems and music by Wayne Sheehy, was released in 2011.
• Steven Dahlberg is the director of the International Centre for Creativity and Imagination, which is dedicated to applying creativity to improve the well-being of individuals, organizations and communities. He serves on the board of the National Creativity Network, co-hosts the Creativity in Play online radio show, and authored the foreword to Education is Everybody's Business. He has taught courses and seminars at the University of Connecticut, Yale University, Rhode Island College, and Saint Mary's University of Minnesota, among other places.

Visual/Performing Artists Health Issues Conference - April 14 in Connecticut

The International Centre for Creativity and Imagination is pleased to be one of more than 100 arts, health, educational and advocacy organizations co-sponsoring the Artists in Transition conference on April 11, 2010, in Danbury, Connecticut. Additional co-sponsors include Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation, Actors Fund of America, Chamber Music America, and Merce Cunningham Foundation, among others. Steven Dahlberg will be leading a session (I-9) on "Creative Thinking, Aging and Living: Engaging our Strengths, Living our Purpose." This session will take participants on a journey through creativity, more specifically the creative thinking process, which engages our strengths and purpose. You will explore insights about positivity, strengths, adaptability, and neuroscience in tapping into and harnessing one's creativity in living more meaningful lives.

[1 March 2010 - Artists in Transition] Artists in Transition -- an organization that works with artists and performers facing physical and/or mental health issues that affect their ability to create or perform -- is having its inaugural conference on Sunday, April 11, 2010, from 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, Connecticut, USA.

The conference is being co-sponsored by more than 100 local, state and national arts, health, educational and advocacy organizations.

Inspiring architect/sculptor Tom Luckey will keynote the event and awesome musical entertainment will be provided by Our Time Theatre. There will be outstanding networking opportunities and 15 information-packed breakout sessions on diverse subjects such as healthcare, maximizing employment potential, grant writing, creativity and purpose, etc. Speakers will include artists and performers who themselves are dealing with health and disability issues and making their art and lives a creative force.

Sign up now to be part of this informational and inspirational event. Check out the event Web site for complete conference and registration information (REGISTRATION CLOSES MARCH 13).

• Breakout Descriptions
• Registration Information

Dahlberg Brings People Together Through Creativity

[26 January 2008 - The Chronicle - Willimantic, Connecticut] A Willimantic man was recognized for submitting one of the Top 100 breakthrough ideas for the Make It Your Own Awards -- awards that encourage community development. Steven Dahlberg, along with others in a group that have met since last summer, submitted their application to the Make It Your Own Awards, a new grants program that aims to increase and strengthen citizen involvement and looks for a more inclusive and innovative approach to grant making. Dahlberg -- a self-employed consultant for the International Centre for Creativity and Imagination -- is looking to open up the creative minds of those in town, as his project is titled "Weaving a New Willimantic." More

Art with heart ... Community banner project to brighten downtown Rock Hill

From my creative community work during the last week-and-a-half in Rock Hill, South Carolina ...

[7 February 2008 - The Herald - Rock Hill, South Carolina] A splash of color will liven up the winter blahs in downtown Rock Hill, part of a community arts program sponsored by the Arts Council of York County and the Rock Hill school district. ... The public arts project was brought to Rock Hill by the school district and arts center as a way to get children and community members involved in public art, said Kristin Sessions, resource development coordinator for the center. ... The community art project, titled Creativity: The Heart of the Community, is led by artists in residence Steven Dahlberg and JoAnn Moran, both from Connecticut. The project is a way for people to express themselves and participate in creating their own community through art, Dahlberg said. "It is a way to engage people in creating their community and bring people together that wouldn't normally work together, like youth and adults." Dahlberg said. ... Dahlberg said the project is collaborative, so everyone can add something. More

Creativity is ...

[12 March 2007 – Steve Dahlberg, International Centre for Creativity and Imagination] Participants at the "Creative Wisdom Workshop: Composing a Creative Life" at the Hartford Public Library (Hartford, Connecticut) generated the following definitions of creativity last month.

CREATIVITY IS …

* Looking at the ordinary and seeing what others don't see
* Passion – being own voice
* Responding to conflict
* Coming out from under
* Inspiration
* Energy
* Perseverance
* Universal
* Sharing
* Spontaneous
* Intuitive
* Your own way of interpreting of things around you
* Coming with your own ideas
* Drawing, dancing, walking, singing
* Unique, genuine, given easily, capable, reliable
* Freedom to think of new ideas and ways of doing things
* Sense of bringing to well-being
* New interest, focus, happiness, fulfillment
* Thinking out of the box
* Ideas practically formulated into reality
* Imagination acting on life
* Spiritual – from God
* Co-creator with the divine
* Being able to visualize
* Bring unrelated resources together to make something new
* Making something from nothing
* Tapping into the great unconscious

Workers Crave 'Meaning'

[10 January 2007 - TrainingZone - UK] Interviews with over 10,000 workers in the last five years show that companies who fail to create meaning for employees risk business failure, according to corporate psychologists YSC. The consultancy says that its results show that people do not want to just work in a business that is successful, but want to feel engaged in something worthwhile and that they can make a difference. “People spend up to one third of their waking lives in the workplace, so asking the fundamental question of what they get out of that time is important,” said Gurnek Bains, CEO of YSC. More

This raises the issue of how to engage employees in meaningful activity -- which both gives the individual employee the opportunity to do purposeful work, as well contributes to the organization's bottom-line results. The topic of "meaningful work" is also relevant for older workers who are nearing retirement, as well as for those who have left their full-time work but want to stay engaged in some kind of meaningful activity. -- Steve Dahlberg