Workshops
NATALIE’S TRANSFORMATIONAL WORKSHOPS
Natalie Reid offers The Spiritual Alchemist workshop throughout North America, along with seven others. As she schedules new appearances, she will list them at the end of this page.
If you wish to arrange for Natalie to give a workshop in your area, please visit the Contact page and email Natalie the particulars of your request.
Natalie’s workshops are:
Co-taught with award-winning writer Pat Carr:
Following the workshop descriptions are:
Natalie's Workshops are:
THE SPIRITUAL ALCHEMIST: Working with the Voice of Your Soul
[an evening and a day, two half-days, or one full weekend]
The Spiritual Alchemist is an in-depth workshop in learning to listen to, engage with, and create from the voice of one’s own soul—our purest source of wisdom, creativity, and inspiration. It is the voice that can reveal our true purpose for this lifetime, and help us navigate and overcome all obstacles to our emotional and spiritual growth.
Through a series of engaging exercises, participants begin learning spiritual alchemy, a practice involving nonlinear forms of organizing, thinking, writing, and understanding. They discover how to create and work in a profoundly life-changing inner “laboratory” that transforms habitual ways of perceiving time, self, and the world. They ultimately develop a form of listening that bypasses normal channels of perception—conscious and unconscious—and takes them straight to the heart of the divine spark within. What they learn will help them set their life’s compass—as the ancients did—by their soul’s intent.
The Spiritual Alchemist is for all creative, spiritual, or growth-oriented people who wish to deepen their self-knowledge, strengthen their inner connection to the divine, and find the key to the purest source of creativity they have.
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FROM FALSEHOOD TO FREEDOM: Writing Our Way Out Of The Masks We Wear
[one day, two consecutive evenings, or one evening followed by a half-day]
[The Spiritual Alchemist is a prerequisite.]
[often given with The Spiritual Alchemist in one full weekend]
From early childhood, all of us have created various personas—personal masks that bind us to small personal “truths” and keep us from tapping into the larger Truth, the source of wisdom and creativity. In this one-day workshop, participants learn to recognize and “write their way out of” their three major masks: the mask they wear to the world; the mask they wear to their closest friends; and the mask with which they face themselves.
The Spiritual Alchemist workshop is a prerequisite to From Falsehood to Freedom, because the participants’ primary tool will be one they developed in the earlier workshop. Using this tool, participants will face, melt, and transform their masks, thereby freeing themselves and their creative energy for new, insightful, and exciting writing.
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WRITING IN THE INSPIRED VOICE
[half-day or evening]
When we approach our creative work, many of us equate inspiration with lightning—as something that strikes at random. But inspiration is around us at all times, and we can learn to tap into it at will. Inspiration, after all, means the act of breathing in that which is outside of us. This workshop will focus on forming the intent to call inspiration in, creating the space in which to receive it, and learning how to "breathe back" what we have been given in a way that honors our intent to receive.
We will discover new techniques for hearing the "voice” of inspiration without interference, and to work with it in a committed way. We will also learn to distinguish that voice from the voices of ego, fear, and the internalized critic.
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WRITING IN THE MYTHOLOGICAL VOICE: Elevating The Mundane Into Myth
[half-day, one-day, or weekend]
While writing fiction or memoir roots us in a particular time and place, elevating our truths into the mythological language of ancient story-telling allows us to reach more people—and more profoundly—with the same message. Writing in the "mythological voice" takes us out of this time and place—and out of ourselves—into a timeless space of archetypes and magic, a space from which our deepest truths emerge. We will learn how to transform humdrum, boring, and taken-for-granted parts of our daily lives into powerful writing that touches people at all levels of their consciousness.
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FIRING THE SACRED FURNACE: Writing from the Center of Your Fears
[one-day]
Creative people usually find it easy to express emotions such as love and hate. And, being intimate with our pains, we rarely have trouble describing what hurts us. The one emotion that most of us avoid exploring is fear. Because maintaining our fears uses up a huge amount of energy, this experiential workshop helps writers, as well as artists in all other media, to free that energy and convert it into powerful creative work.
Facing our fears in a self-created "fiery furnace" results in dramatic, exciting writing. With guidance from the sacred inner fires of their own truths, participants learn to create, fire, and enter the furnace at will, using not only present but past fears as fuel. Above all, we learn that all fears, revisited, still fuel and stoke our greatest creative fires.
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DON’T WASTE YOUR CRISIS: Reaching for Joy in the Midst of Chaos
[half-day or full day]
Betrayal, illness, divorce, job loss—any crisis can destroy our illusions of safety and stability. A "survivor's workshop" for people stretched beyond their normal coping limits, this workshop teaches anyone whose external or internal support structures are collapsing the remarkable lessons of transforming fear-based living into joy-based living. Participants learn a practical, long-term behavioral practice extrapolated from meditation practice (including but not limited to mindfulness), allowing them to permanently integrate their transformational insights.
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Co-taught with award-winning writer Pat Carr:
FROM THE PERSONAL TO THE UNIVERSAL: Making Your Stories Speak to Everyone
[one day]
Co-taught with award-winning writer Pat Carr
(Author of The Death of a Confederate Colonel: Civil War Stories and a Novella, winner of the 2007 PEN Southwest Fiction Award)
From the Personal to the Universal will teach you to discover stories that you didn’t even know you had to tell. You will learn how to find universal characters, create archetypal events, elevate your personal stories to the mythic level, and write in the mythological voice. You’ll come away knowing how to take your life stories—from the most prosaic to the most profound—and turn them into stories that grip your readers (or listeners) in their very souls.
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WRITING the BODY, WRITING the SOUL
[weekend or weeklong]
Co-taught with award-winning writer Pat Carr
(Author of The Death of a Confederate Colonel: Civil War Stories and a Novella, winner of the 2007 PEN Southwest Fiction Award)
Writing the Body, Writing the Soul shatters the misconception that body is separate from soul—or from character development. Participants acquire the unusual skill of entering the very souls of their characters and discovering the profound connection between a character's soul consciousness, word choice, and body language. Participants also discover the critical distinction between the truth of knowing their characters and the illusion of being their characters.
Exercises involve learning how to:
Pat Carr, prize-winning author of 15 books and nearly 100 stories, takes "show, don't tell" to stunning new heights while teaching the craft of precision and focus. Natalie Reid, spiritual alchemist and writing teacher, opens hidden doorways into a character's deepest motivations. Participants emerge knowing not only how to understand their characters' souls but also how to translate that profound awareness into vibrant action and speech.
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Bios for Natalie and Pat:
NATALIE REID
Professional Qualifications
Natalie Reid (M.A., applied linguistics) has worked in written communications for over 20 years, creating workshops in English language skills for a multinational clientele. Her clients have included the Peace Corps and the Smithsonian Institution. She edits books for European scholars, does technical editing and writing for scientists from all over the world, and consults throughout Scandinavia in the field of contrastive rhetoric.
She was a research and language consultant to Professor Leon Litwack on his Pulitzer Prize-winning historical work, Been in the Storm So Long, and worked with him on Trouble in Mind. She has also edited an award-winning graduate thesis on the nature of consciousness in autism, as well as Gail Harris’ Your Heart Knows the Answer.
Natalie is the author of The Spiritual Alchemist: Working with the Voice of Your Soul (River Daughter Press, Albuquerque: 2008) .She has also written Dictionary of English Phrasal Usage (Taishukan Publishing Co., Tokyo: 1985), America Grows Young (Asahi Press, Tokyo: 1982), Making Choices (Asahi Press, Tokyo: 1992), and an expanded version of Making Choices (1998). Her short fiction has appeared in Aura, Knock, Natural Bridge, Sistersong: Women Across Cultures, Sofer, 13th Moon, and Women's Words. Her short nonfiction and book reviews have appeared in Venture Inward, Releasing Times, and Spirit at Work.
A member of the National Writers Union and a workshop director at the International Women’s Writing Guild's annual weeklong summer conference since 1998, she presented "Write Unto Others" at the Seventh International Conference on Business and Consciousness. She has also been a member of the Inner Circle Dialogue at the annual “Language of Spirituality” conference in New Mexico. She is included in Who's Who in American Education.
Spiritual Background and Studies
An internationally known soul reader, Natalie designs and conducts workshops focusing on the confluence of creativity, self-awareness, and spirituality. Sponsors have included the Center for Women and Religion at GTU, Nishmat HaNashim, and the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. She also edits Ph.D. theses for divinity school students, writes modern midrash, and is fluent in Hebrew.
Natalie has developed a four-step method for using the writing of fiction to heal from a crisis in faith. She is now working on a three-book project on the way in which our souls determine the major purpose of our individual lives, and the ways in which we can each discover and fulfill that purpose.
"It was as if all my previous work had been to empty myself of everything
that wasn't real, so that I could come to this workshop and be totally filled
with what is real and true about myself."
—workshop participant [The Spiritual Alchemist]
PAT CARR
Professional Qualifications
PAT CARR has a B.A. and M.A. from Rice, and a Ph.D. from Tulane, all in English literature. She has taught in colleges and universities across the country for over 30 years. She teaches annually at the International Women's Writing Guild summer conference in Saratoga Springs, NY, as well as holding writing workshops throughout the United States. Her publications include fifteen books, among which are The Women in the Mirror, winner of the prestigious Iowa Fiction Award, and Mimbres Mythology, a seminal study of ancient Pueblo pottery.
She has published nearly 100 stories and articles in such places as The Southern Review, Yale Review, Texas Monthly, Chariton Review, and Best American Short Stories. Her stories have won such prizes as a Library of Congress Marc IV, the Texas Institute of Letters Short Story Award, and First Stage Drama Award. Her articles have appeared in publications such Modern Fiction Studies, Guide to American Women Writers, Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century Literature, and Afro-American Literature Forum.
Pat is the recipient of numerous awards and writing fellowships, including an Al Smith Fiction Fellowship and a Swiss Foundation Ledig-Rowohlt Writing Fellowship. Her first young adult novel, If We Must Die (about the Tulsa race riots of 1921), was nominated for a PEN award in 2002, and The Death of a Confederate Colonel: Civil War Stories and a Novella (U. of Arkansas Press, 2007) was winner of the 2007 PEN Southwest Fiction Award, as well as chosen by Foreword Magazine as one of the top ten university press books of 2007. See her website at www.PatCarr.us.
“Pat Carr is a storyteller in the meaning that term had around ritual fires.”
—Miller Williams
Praise for Natalie Reid’s workshops—
—“I came away with a clear roadmap for the next section of my life.”
Judith P., Duanesburg, NY
— “The workshop with Natalie assured me that I am connected with the universe and doing what I am supposed to be doing, wherever the opportunity presents itself.”
Carol P., Burtonsville, MD
— “Your workshop offers a unique and innovative approach to divine expression.”
Michael D., Eugene, OR
—“Natalie Reid is an architect of rooms of the mind.”
Linda H., Columbus, OH
— “I loved the exercises because they bypassed our head. They simply led us into our own inner world and the stories that live there—not fictional stories. True stories. The stories that guide us and shape our lives. Thank you for that gift.”
Marian G., Boston, MA
—“Natalie's work is wonderfully playful and powerfully supportive of where I am in my own creative and spiritual process. Her mystical voice, wedded with very practical tools and unusual techniques, helped shift my view of my life "as is" and the possibilities for change.
Yael F., Washington, DC
— “The exercises in your workshops are powerful, as they bring up a lot of hidden or unconscious material. Your gentle way of helping people to cope with what they have uncovered is what makes you special. From the beginning, when you spoke about the work involved, the sincerity and dedication to that unfolding that was in your voice appealed to many, including me. The work begun with you was a further unfolding of the soulfulness to which I aspire.”
Claudette W., Bayside, NY
— “The workshop spoke to a part of me that hadn't been ‘fed’ in a long time.”
Joann G., Alexandria, VA
—“I now see that what people do with the results of what they write in your workshop is that every word, every single syllable, is potentially (and literally) the key to their life.”
Rasma H., Madison, WI
— “Natalie Reid's new workshop offers an immensely safe space. In addition to the brilliant information she provides and the journey experiences she creates for her voyagers, one of the things that makes it so powerful and effective is Natalie's overall emphasis on the participants' well being.”
Paula M., Oradell, NJ
— “You created a very safe non-judgmental atmosphere, which was very important and very liberating.”
Monica B., London, UK
— “Natalie Reid is a wise woman who helps others look inside and find the riches within. She creates a supportive environment where you can face the darkness and walk through it secure that you will get to the other side. She helps bring you to a greater understanding of who you are and what you need to flourish. She brings a wealth of knowledge that she balances with a deep regard for the spirit and heart of all living things.
She helped me unmask my true self and understand how my life is part of the broader human story. You cannot read her work or take one of her workshops without being touched profoundly by the experience.
Leslie N., Niskayuna, NY
— “Natalie is the best at nourishing and nurturing tools to draw out spirit-centered writing. She takes you into your own inner, mythic realms, to infinitely access and create from. “
Jen K., Santa Fe, NM
—“Natalie Reid is the Alchemist of Soul-chitecture. Her powerful workshop led me on a heroine's journey through the many rooms of my own soul. Natalie gently opened all the doors and gave me the courage and strength to cross thresholds, and to begin the awesome process of honoring each room's intention.”
Anne S., Kerrville, TX
—"It was as if all my previous work had been to empty myself of everything
that wasn't real, so that I could come to this workshop and be totally filled
with what is real and true about myself."
Ann G., Tiburon, CA
—“Thanks again for being such an open and nurturing guide during the workshop. The way you live your life fuels me with the courage to evolve more boldly!”
Stacey M., Queensbury, NY
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Some of Natalie’s 2008 schedule:
June 13-20: Writing in the Mythological Voice, International Women’s
Writing Guild annual conference (www.iwwg.org) in Saratoga Springs, NY
June 27: Book signing, Page One bookstore, Albuquerque, NM
Aug 1-2: The Spiritual Alchemist, Albuquerque, NM (date TBA)
October 18-19: Big Apple Meet the Authors, Meet the Agents conference in
New York City (see www.iwwg.org for details)