Workshops
Poets, Mavericks & Prophets will be launching alchemical storytelling workshops in Spring 2023 – joyful sacred spaces for psychological work and creative inspiration, drawing on alchemical symbolism, fusing storytelling, artistic expression & play. The first series of online workshops had been delayed due to both personal & collective circumstances, but are now planned to start in May 2023. The Spring 2023 Course, The Sacred Tree will take place online on Saturdays & Sundays, and the dates will be announced by end of March 2023. All online workshops & webinars will be held in English. Please find key workshop info & curriculum below, along with my academic references, as well as pricing details. To introduce the curriculum – a free online webinar will be held for Poets, Mavericks & Prophets subscribers in the lead-up to the start of the workshops, so please stay tuned for that. A Zoom link will be sent a day ahead of each webinar to all attendees. If you are interested in participating, please register below. For all further enquires please email me at: milana@lolaonfilm.com
AUTHOR: ©MILANA VUJKOV
KEY INFO
The Sacred Tree is envisioned as a series of eight individual workshops, aimed at symbolically reforesting our lives, creating a more lively, connected, joyful daily existence through an alchemical approach to key elements of our embodied psyches. The course is dedicated to Anima mundi – the World Soul. The goal of all my alchemical storytelling workshops is to find enchantment in simple, everyday experiences, follow our hearts and let our minds open to unusual perspectives, while nourishing a kind of talent for the peculiar, which restores in us the state of childlike awe, clearing the daily debris of our mechanical existence, reviving our connection to life, its gifts of co-creation with others, and with the Divine. All online workshops will be 3h in duration and divided into three parts. In the first hour I will talk about the theme of the individual workshop, in a lecture format, the second hour will be allocated for group journeys, helpful techniques, and alchemical art exercises. The third hour is for sharing our experience, thoughts, mutual support and guidance.
The workshops are intended for everyone with an interest in alchemical psychology and art – for novices, as well as seasoned practitioners, with an openness to new perspectives. Please take care to book on time, as the online workshop places will be limited to a minimum of 8 and a maximum of 24 participants, so everyone has their own space within group dynamics. The workshops will take place on Zoom, and links will be sent to all participants one day ahead of the workshop.
PAYMENT & BOOKINGS
All workshops will be available for purchase either separately, or as one package, as soon as the workshops are announced. Prices for individual workshops will be €22 or 2,500 RSD per participant, and for all eight workshops, as a package – €136 or 16,000 RSD.
THE SACRED TREE SCHEDULE & CURRICULUM
I
Sacred Space, Ancestor Work & Roots Of The Tree
Connecting with the here and now, our bodies, physical presence. The concept of cellular memory. Importance of environment. Sacred space – temenos, in art, hermetica, and psychology. Creating habitat. Element of Earth. Sovereignty & acknowledgment of territory. Reverence as daily observance. Our family tree. Saturn in our charts – the anchor. Guardians, patron saints, survival of the tribe. Maternal line, paternal line. Insignia. Clearing practices. Rooting techniques. Grounding materia.
Homework: Choose one ancestor and trace their life journey in detail.
Recommended literature for further research.
II
Temple Of Venus: Creativity & The Divine Feminine
The re-emergence of the Goddess archetype in the World, the feminine aspect of the Divine. Collective desire for harmonisation between polarities. A brief chronology on the perspectives on femininity in different cultures. Feminine force as the creatrix. Daily practice of beauty. Venus in myths, comparative cosmology. Understanding the Venus placement in our natal charts, our own love nature. Expressing Venus through an art form, as dedication. What does our own Venus look, sound, feel, taste like? Art exercises expressing our Venus nature (colour, clay, scent). Group journey through Magdalene’s Garden.
Homework: Create a Venusian bath conjuring one’s own floral bath salts formula.
Recommended literature for further research.
III
Enchantments, Desire Lines, Visions: Expressing Our Will
Enchantments through a cultural, magical & psychological prism. Viewing the magician’s toolbox alongside key concepts and techniques in contemporary psychology. Jung on psychology & alchemy. The societal role of the magician – a cross-cultural perspective. Element of Fire. Mars placements in our charts – how we will our reality into existence. Training our desire through its fulfilment. The concept of manifestation. Vision-board techniques vs. embodiment practices. The masculine principle – the differences between the Solar and the Martial approach – presence vs. action. Relaxation exercises and Solar Plexus affirmations.
Homework: A direct & immediate fulfilment of a heart’s desire within reach.
Recommended literature for further research.
IV
Storytelling, Soul Food & Medicine Of Remembrance
Storytelling as an act of remembrance, oral traditions, weaving our existence into being with words. Psychogeography & family lore. What our Moon placement says about what nourishes us. The Lunar calendar, understanding its logic, following its cycles. Heart medicine. Element of water. Animal wisdom, and relations with other than humans. The philosophy of animal totems. Our favourite fairy tale in childhood. Our favourite food (prepare it as snack for online session). Share our impressions of what feelings the food we loved, and the stories we were told bring up in us. Protective group heart meditation.
Homework: Find a story that was important to you in childhood. If possible, the actual book you first encountered it in. Read it to yourself, out loud.
Recommended literature for further research.
V
Soundtracks, Rhythms, the Vocalisation of Intent
Power of prayer & importance of vocalisation. Sound as guide to the pulse of the universe. A brief history of incantations. Twinship of rhythm of timing. Element of Air. Mercury in our charts, and what it touches within. Our styles of oration. Words we love to say, sounds we love to hear. Compiling soundtracks to help solve a personal crisis. Solving riddles in our sleep with music. Group percussion session Tricking the Trickster – bring any percussion instrument to our session (drums, rattles, chimes, xylophone, bells, etc.)
Homework: Compile the soundtrack of your youth– twelve tracks. Listen to it for twelve days. Compile a soundtrack of your present and the road ahead – twelve tracks.
Recommended literature for further research.
VI
Divination – the Art of Tracing the Invisible
Intuition, instinct, prophecy – the precognitive spectrum. Divination & fortune-telling: temple to tavern, and back. Possibility, probability, certainty – the crossroads of free will and fate. Third Eye hygiene. Psychology & the hermetic arts. Natal placement of Jupiter, our relationship to spirit. One’s own divination toolbox – working with the aethereal (cartomancy, I Ching, tarot, astrology, numerology). A Jungian view of the Major Arcana. Group exercises with found objects – divine its trajectory to you (bring an objet trouvé to the session).
Homework: Choose a Major Arcana card that most represents your present state of being and place it on your altar/bedroom table (or an image of it). Recall & record your dreams each morning, for seven days.
Recommended literature for further research.
VII
Poetic Imagination, the Gateway to the Divine
Soul intelligence, synchronicities, the poetic mind. Imaginal spaces. Dreamscapes. Magic & the arts. Holy juxtaposition, ways it can help realign us. Connecting to Anima mundi through being with Nature. Flower lore, colour therapy, fragrance frequencies – blooming into being. Importance of libraries, where we go to be with the abstract. Clearing virtual pollution. Training inspiration, evoking the numinous – techniques. Devotional practices – commit to a personal ritual for six weeks.
Homework: Write a poem. Visit a local library.
Recommended literature for further research.
VIII
Crystal Lore, Soul Protection & the Custodians
Our aethereal habitat, understanding dreamscapes. Cosmologies of Gaia. Sacred trees, plant wisdom. Custodianship & developing communal creativity. Urban activism, eco consciousness. Natural design, re-aligning with our environments. Constructing the invisible. Planets & their emissaries. Meet the Giants. Soul tribes, star lore. Cosmic origins, star families. Crystals and gemstones as storages of the Akasha. Collaborating with our crystal kin, protective techniques. Bring a pre-selected crystal to the session, introduce it to the group.
Homework: Befriend a tree, adopt a gemstone, gaze at the stars.
Recommended literature for further research.
FULL CURRICULUM available for download here:
My academic references & certificates: Certified Transactional Analysis Practitioner, TA Centre, Novi Sad, 1996. Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology, Faculty Of Philosophy, University Of Novi Sad, 1997. MA in History Of Film & Visual Media, Department of Film, Media and Cultural Studies, Birkbeck College, University Of London, 2005. Around 600 hours of theoretical & practical work, as well as workshops, at the Serbian Society For Integrative Art Psychotherapy (IAP), Novi Sad/Belgrade (2010-2018). I also attended workshops & courses in psychodrama, fine arts, dramatic arts, dance therapy, astrology, and various hermetica.
Poets, Mavericks & Prophets 