THE FIELD OF ATTENTION
A TWO-PART EMBODIED WRITING SERIES IN PORTLAND, MAINE.
“ATTENTION IS THE RAREST AND PUREST FORM OF GENEROSITY” -SIMONE WEIL
Text messages, laundry piles, news headlines. With so much pulling at our attention, no wonder we’re overwhelmed and distracted. Even our language - we pay attention, have attention deficits - quietly suggests that attention is costly, and we are overdrawn.
But maybe we could approach this all a different way.
What if attention were less like a budget and more like an expansive field? What if your own body, voice, and creativity could guide you towards a different way of attending?
Join us for The Field of Attention, an immersive, two-part series to explore attention through embodied writing. Over each 5-week session, we’ll combine gentle movement and breath exercises with writing prompts and (optional) sharing in a small-group setting to tend to your attention, your creativity, and your inner unfolding.
Throughout, we’ll bring playfulness, curiosity, and deep creativity to our explorations. Our approach will be gentle and expansive, taking inspiration from poets, writers, musicians, children, the natural world, body sites, seasons, fascia, bones, and the numinous. We’ll let our breath and body guide our writing, discovering new connections, and making space for intuition, mystery, and creative impulse.
“Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.”
— Susan Sontag
THE COURSE IS FOR THOSE WHO:
Want to step more fully into their lives and bodies
Appreciate spacious witness and collective support
Seek support and tools for tending their attention
Are interested in inhabiting their creativity with more self-trust and ease
Want to commit more fully to their own writing, embodiment, and inner rhythms
THE COURSE SUPPORTS YOU TO:
Strengthen your voice & writing in a community of care
Develop creativity and embodied writing practices
Discover new portals for connecting to attention
Become more familiar with your own rhythms & resources
Connect to your own creativity, intuition, & even joy
Learn body-specific exercises to unwind your own stuck places
Deepen your writing practice with ease and authenticity
THE FIELD OF ATTENTION INCLUDES:
Weekly Embodied Writing classes: In depth exercises and evocative writing prompts along with (optional) sharing in the context of a small, supportive group
Gentle, guided movement and breath exercises from a bodyworker with deep experience in anatomy, myofascial technique, and somatic approaches to the nervous system
Rich catalogue of poetry, music, body techniques, and other resources to keep you inspired and support your own explorations
A supportive, kind, & local community of fellow writers, movers, and empaths
Snacks & tea because… nourishment is essential ;) Course Themes
Each week we’ll be guided by themes to deepen our exploration through somatic writing. We’ll also leave room for fluidity in our structure - following the group’s evolution and interests.
Session I: Discovering
Jan. 5: Your attention please. Building somatic tools for resource and attention.
Jan. 12: Roots. Lineages & ancestries of attention.
Jan. 19: MLK Day. No class.
Jan. 26: Bone deep. Creating spaces that support attention.
Feb. 2: Of the earth. Working with seasons, nature, timing and the fascia to discern surface and dropping in.
Feb. 9: Love is space. How do we adorn the inner sanctum as practice? Letting sensitivity & intuition nourish attention.
Facilitator : Johanna Franzel, Med, LMT, BCST
I’m Johanna
a biodynamic craniosacral therapist, a teacher, a writer, an audio producer, and someone who knows autoimmune disease and the benefits of creative practice. I facilitate spaces where we can listen to what our bodies are actually saying in order to inhabit ourselves more fully. I believe in abundant permission, reverence, and the vitality of creativity. Read more.
My new book on embodied writing as a tool for living well in the body you have will be available in August 2026 from North Atlantic Books. I can’t wait to share it with you! More about the book.
REGISTER FOR THE COURSE: HERE