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Dear subscribers,

This is a reminder that you are receiving this email because you have subscribed to Miriam Hall/Herspiral Contemplative Arts' Newsletter. Please unsubscribe or make other choices about which emails you prefer to receive at the bottom of this email.

What an incredibly full time it's been this late autumn and early winter, for me and for the world. Let's pause together for one moment, to breathe together.

(really. for real. let's breathe for a moment.)

This is a very newsy newsletter, packed with all kinds of offerings and information for the coming months. As I write this, snow is falling in Dejope (Ho Chunk name for Madison Wisconsin, where I live) and I can feel my body winding down toward the darkest day of the solstice. Herspiral Arts closes up shop from December 22 to January 3, so this is likely the last missive before 2025 (though I am still plotting a digestation on kids' books).

Included are announcements about the January 2025 writing retreat, a single spot left in Return 2025, the second year of the Ourspiral Scholarship Fund matching grant, a Karuna Live on compassion, and a a special multi-modality offering in the first quarter of 2025 - Paradox. I've also included a link to the next Karuna Training cohort (I'm on lead faculty!), Leesa Renee Hall's Inner Field Trip community, and a link to me on Insight Timer.

I wish you deep wellness,

Miriam

January 2025 Writing Retreat

Saturday January 4-Thursday January 9, 2025

Registration now open!

This annual online writing retreat will involve our basic format online, alternating group and solo practice, for eight hours each day. I recommend you attend from the first day, Saturday January 4, as that is when we set up our community. If you wish to attend just one day, that’s the best one.

The cost is $50-$150/day. You can pay anywhere on the scale. If you have the ability to pay more, know you paying more will help someone who has to pay less. The inverse is true; if you have to pay less, know someone else will pay more to balance out what you need to pay.

For detailed schedule, further information, and registration, visit my store here and pick which price you can afford!

Return 2025

Return to Your Inherent Wisdom

Only ONE spot remains!

Begins January 11, 2025

Return is hard to describe. It's become a favorite program for many of my community members over the years, and one of my favorite things, too. In the beginning of the year, we find an intention word for the year, then throughout the year, we meet weekly and/or monthly (depending on your preferred structure) to explore teachings and themes. I've often said another name for Return could be "refuge" - and that is something many of us will need in 2025 and beyond - communal refuge.

Return is a year-long commitment, and registration is now open for 2025. If you would like to read more about it, visit the Return page of my website here.

If you know you are already interested, the next step is to email me to schedule a call. Because Return is an intimate community (no more than 20 participants), I have conversations with each person before signing them up, to make sure it's a right fit in all ways.

"What stands out for me among the ongoing experiential learnings of Return is a few primary life-sustaining things: the way that Miriam shares and invites us to the practices with an abundance of heart, care and thought, for the people she brings together and in respect to the teachings she draws upon with simultaneous depth and lightness of touch. Return has been a practice of feeling as much as learning, of getting to know myself among others, and that's been vital - being witnessed, witnessing others' journeys, simply being there with each other, navigating our way through the rollercoaster of living. The community that Miriam has created and held space for, has been a real balm for the mind, heart and spirit. On an individual level, the weekly practices have been an anchor for me, a reminder in my calendar to pause and contemplate. Even if I haven't made each session, and especially when I've wobbled in life and work, the commitment has been affirming."

- Aliya Mughal

If you would like to read more about Return, visit the Return page of my website here.

If you know you are already interested, the next step is to email me to schedule a call.

Ourspiral Fund - matching up to $5000

by December 31, 2024!

We have $1000 so far

This project for Herspiral Arts began in early 2023, when I approached a few funding sources for scholarship money for students. After receiving $2500 from one organization for local activists, I received $5000 from an anonymous donor, with the caveat that it be a “challenge grant”, encouraging me to ask others for funding. They have offered it again this year.

Often, someone pays at the higher end of my sliding scales, and I am grateful for that. And, even that doesn't quite close the gap at times. I can't tell you what it means when I can sincerely tell a single working mom of color with two kids that she can stay as long as she likes in a program and doesn't have to pay a dollar, but that it also doesn't come out of my own pocket. In addition, the scholarship fund helps Herspiral support others who can't pay the full amount, but can pay something.

If you'd like to read more about the fund, please visit the page on herspiral.com. If you know you are ready to contribute - anything from $5-$5000 helps - please visit the checkout page on herspiral.com. Payments go through Stripe; you can use any card. If you prefer to pay another way, just reply to this email and let me know.

If you can't make a financial offering, please know I am grateful for your receiving my newsletter and following my happenings.

Paradox

A multi-media exploration

January - March 2025

We are living in a time of deep contradiction. It’s often painful to try and find a way to live with and within the both/and. An early teacher for me gave me a puzzle I continue to unpack: “In order to go toward truth, go toward paradox.” I offered the first version of this in 2022, and I am excited to return to it, with added enrichment, in 2025.

Through contemplative, creative practices, we lower our way into bittersweetness, then slowly attend to the widening gaps between ourselves and others, principles and actions, and other seeming divisions and separations in our personal, creative, and global lives.

This experimental, experiential offering is called Paradox, and will combine some of Level III Miksang (it’s ok if you haven’t taken it before) along with haiku, writing, collage, and movement. It is open to beginners, though having read about or studied haiku, Miksang, and/or contemplative practices is helpful.

There are two options:

​Sundays​

​Live dates via Zoom: Jan 26, Feb 9, Feb 23, Mar 9, Mar 23​

​1-3 pm Central US Time ​
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OR

​Saturdays​

​Live dates via Zoom: Jan 25, Feb 8, Feb 22, Mar 1, Mar 15​

​4-6 pm Central US Time​

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Set Your Compassion Compass

January 18th at 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM MST

Online - FREE. Donations are greatly appreciated

In starting the Western New Year, many of us wonder how to begin the year on the right foot. One way to support our intentions early in the calendar year is to start practices early on in the year, and establish habits so we can return to them throughout the months.

Especially for those living in the US, many of us are looking for ways to soften and strengthen our hearts. In this short event, get a sense of what different kinds of compassion practice can do for you, and then be led through a guided compassion practice.

One of Karuna Training's strengths lies in the many compassion practices we offer, including Four Immeasurables, also known as Maitri, Metta, and Loving Kindness, tonglen, four-step/FEEL, "self"-compassion, and compassionate exchange. Come live to ask questions about where you struggle with compassion in your life. Bring a friend, and you can help each other remember to practice what's important to your hearts.

​https://karunatraining.com/event/karuna-live-set-your-compassion-compass-with-miriam-hall/​

Karuna Training: Miriam is on lead faculty for the next basic cohort which is now LIVE! Begins late May 2025

​https://karunatraining.com/basic-karuna-training-overview/​

For the first time ever, I will be one of the lead faculty for a basic Karuna Training cohort (now a year-long program). This means that I will be leading or co-leading at least half the programs.

This is an amazing opportunity to dive deeply into the relational, embodied wisdom that arises in ongoing group learning. We study classic Tibetan Buddhism, use postures and colors to explore the Maitri Space Awareness/Buddha Family teachings, and apply all of this to healing and communication within relationships and social change situations. Karuna Training infuses much of what I offer - especially Return, but also writing, photography, and social justice work.

If you have any questions, take a look at the website, and then reach out to me if you can't find an answer. I am also offering a FREE CALL with anyone who is strongly interested in applying.

Want more of a sense of Karuna Training? Listen to my recent talk podcast with them, or practice podcast with them, and/or read the accompanying newsletter.

Inner Field Trip (the book) is one year old!

For those of you who have followed me a long time, you have heard about my colleague and friend, Leesa Renee Hall (author of the new-ish book Inner Field Trip, a multi-award winning workbook). Her community, Inner Field Trip, where I am one of the main mentors and facilitators, is OPEN! Hop on over and consider joining us - highly sensitive folks interested in working on biases, complexity, and politics with kindness, community, and integrity.

​Link to ways to join.​

Last but not least, I finally got a teacher profile going on Insight Timer, where I have posted one free guided practice ("Synchronization for Creative Inspiration") and will be posting more soon.

Please listen and review/rate!

Link to my profile and the recording.

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Love,

Miriam

If you'd like to join me over on Mighty Networks, where you can chat with me and other contemplatives/artists/Buddhists/recovering perfectionists in a private platform, please do!

Public plans for the Herspiral Mighty Network are either $5 or $10 a month.

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