Your Right Livelihood

Your Right Livelihood in the Arts — By Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

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When I developed TLA, I knew that Right Livelihood, the Buddhist tradition of work that builds our communities and betters our world, was essential. By holding brave spaces for people to share their truest words and name and claim their own visions of healing and transformation, we are doing the work of Tikkun Olam, the Hebrew term for helping repair the broken world. Yet we can only do this work if we find ways to sustain our livelihoods and respect our time and gifts.

Likewise, many of the qualities we cultivate for TLA—showing up fully, starting where we are, trusting our innate voices, and taking creative leaps into what wants to be written, said, or sung—are the keys to creating livelihoods that support you and grow the reach of our work. That’s what called me to create the Your Right Livelihood class and retreat, which began as a project of the TLA Network, then grew to be its own small business with new co-leader Kathryn Lorenzen. What’s more, thanks to a generous partnership agreement, all TLAN members receive a discount on our class and retreat.

Both Right Livelihood and TLA are actively revising some myths that don’t serve us, such as the myth of the damaged, starving, or invisible artist, or the myth (so popular in the writing world) that there’s only so many ways the pie can be sliced, leaving many of us with only the crumbs at best. Both Kathryn and I believe that writers, storytellers, and other word artists should be paid (or otherwise compensated) fairly for our time, effort, experience, and education.

We’re big advocates for bypassing the old only-so-much-pie storyline by baking more pies. After all, we’ve had the power all along to create our livelihoods to nourish ourselves and our communities. It’s important we get cooking because artists and facilitators of the arts are essential to this world, especially in times of polarization and uncertainty.

We come by this understanding naturally: Kathryn is a singer-songwriter who found her way into cross-country touring and having her music featured in films along with her twin calling of coaching hundreds of people in career transition over the years. As a poet and writer, I discovered my twin calling in teaching and facilitation, which, along with writing are how I support my livelihood, do my service, and create my art.

It’s no wonder that what we do in Your Right Livelihood is rooted in so much of what we’ve discovered as writers, performers, coaches, facilitators, and teachers is at the core of TLA: deep conversation, expansive writing, the power of the stories we live, the guidance we can glean from our creativity, and the importance of building a loving and wise community. Our annual class, Jan. 23 – Mar. 19, features a combination of all of this to help us grow our vision, plans, courage, clarity, and community, including:

  • Weekly Zoom discussions, many featuring luminary teachers (including Eric Maisel, Yvette Hyater-Adams, Gregg Levoy, Kevin Willmott, and others),
  • Online exploration and writing (and other arts) about our callings as well as the inspiration and nuts-and-bolts resources we need to put them into action,
  • One-on-one in-depth coaching on how to integrate our dream work into our lives,
  • A guided, personalized portfolio to create step-by-step sequences and priorities to make our next work happen.
  • To find out more, please contact us today for a Discovery Call (you can reach me here or directly set up a call with Kathryn here), and please consider joining us for our Jan. 4th Life & Livelihood Small Group Coaching session. Our super early bird rate ends Dec. 10th, so please contact us soon.

To consider whether the time is right for you, please take a look at Kathryn’s new blog post, “Waiting for the Perfect Time: Why?” Surely this is your time to shine, especially when the world needs your gifts so much, so please consider how to write and live your own Right Livelihood story in TLA.

P.S. Many wonderful people in the TLA Network (including a bunch of past and present board members) found the Your Right Livelihood class especially helpful in their work — see their testimonials here.

In Gratitude for Martin Swinger’s Life and Music, by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

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Martin Swinger, singer-songwriter

Martin Swinger, a virtuoso singer and songwriter, died suddenly in early July, leaving behind his husband (and partner of 35 years) Brian and many broken hearts in his Asbury Park, N.J. home community, and prior to that, central Maine, where he was a mainstay of the music scene for years.

But when I think of Martin, I see him at my kitchen table, serenading the then-coordinator of the TLAN, Deb Hensley, volunteers Nancy Hubble and Laura Ramberg, and me as we stuffed folders for the 2014 Power of Words conference.

He was like this: always bringing joy, humor, and the power of music to wherever he landed. He was gifted at helping in multiple other ways too: for the conference, he coordinator participant transportation, helped Deb with many pieces of the conference coordination, and generally brought a sense of peace and homecoming to all of us.

Martin Swinger keeping the TLA Network volunteers company as they prepared for the 2014 Power of Words Conference.

Then again, Martin knew how vital hospitality and art are to this world. He grew up gay in the South, falling in love with music and books of all kinds. In recent years, he went on to be quite decorated as a songwriter, winning many notable big-time contests and performing across the country, even to the delight of the late Pete Seeger and very-much alive Vance Gilbert and John Waters. His seven CDs won lots of well-deserved awards, including from American Song Competition, SolarFest, Rosegarden Coffeehouse and more. Audiences have adored him for decades for his warm and vibrant voice and eclectic blend of Americana, swing and jazz, traditional music, show tune, Klezmer music, and improvisation. Deb and Martin sang together like angels from an enchanted land.

Deb says of Martin: Martin was a true prince, a friend to me and to so many others who knew and loved him. He had a heart the size of Mars and talent to match. Frost says, “Nothing gold can stay.” But Martin’s songs will stay. Oh yes they will. And so will his love. 

His generosity extended in other ways: when one of our keynote performers for the conference didn’t show up, Martin graciously volunteered to perform on the spot and for free (although we did extend to him a small stipend anyway). When he performed, he lifted a full house of conference goers, who had been waiting a while for the keynote, to their feet with original songs such as “Betty Boop and Buddha,” “Consider the Oyster,” and my favorite, “Little Plastic Part.” That song, about how breaking a tiny part of a vacuum that “makes the whole thing work” speaks to having a little part of our heart broken so that it doesn’t work anymore.

I can’t help thinking about how Martin himself was a little vital part with a big impact himself. 

Find more about Martin here: https://martinswinger.com/

With great gratitude and appreciation for the life of Martin Swinger, singer-songwriter.

Your Right Livelihood, by Caryn Miriam-Goldberg

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As you might know, Your Right Livelihood started as a project of the TLA Network. As the founder of Transformative Language Arts and co-founder of the TLA Network (TLAN), I have long believed transformative language artists and practitioners needed a holistic training to unearth and integrate our real work into our lives. When the time was right, I enlisted a partner in crime, Laura Packer, who brought complimentary gifts and skills.

That was four years ago, and since then we’ve offered annual trainings that brought together people who are retooling their day jobs, leaping to new work, creating livelihoods, re-inventing their art or service, and re-envisioning their post-retirement life’s work. We’ve witnessed life-changing courage, compassion, and wisdom in all our graduates. This becomes even more vital as our lives have changed so much during the pandemic. 

In the last year, Your Right Livelihood graduated from TLAN to become an independent project, while simultaneously remaining in partnership with TLAN. All TLAN members receive a $50 discount on the YRL training, plus graduates of our training receive a $50 discount on the Power of Words conference and a one-time $20 discount on a TLAN class. 

Our next Right Livelihood training launches February 19, 2021 with a weekend retreat (via Zoom and other bells, whistles, and charms) followed by a 10-week online class that includes weekly Zoom sessions, guest teachers, one-on-one coaching, and guidance in putting together a portfolio of all that’s needed for your emerging work. We conclude with a weekend retreat April 30-May 1, 2021.

Laura and I would love to talk with you about Your Right Livelihood. Please contact us to set up a discovery call by emailing info@yourrightlivelihood.com. You can also sign up for our January 7th Life & Livelihood Small Group Coaching. Together, we can discover, develop, and grow our life’s work for our souls and communities. See more here:

Laura Packer and Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, PhD is the founder of TLA, past poet laureate of Kansas, and author of two dozen books of poetry, fiction, memoir, and anthologies. Her life’s work now encompasses coaching and consulting with people and organizations on writing and creativity, teaching and facilitating community writing workshops, and immersing herself in many collaborative projects to make and keep community, and find and live our callings. carynmirriamgoldberg.com.

Laura Packer is an award-winning storyteller, coach, and writer, as well as founder of thinkstory llc, one of the nation’s foremost organizational storytelling consultancies. Her work is focused on the power of story to guide, shape, and define our whole lives in the workplace and beyond. Laura’s performances, coaching, and facilitation are all intended to empower and connect. laurapacker.com

Facilitators for a Better World: Meet the Teachers

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Facilitation: Roots & Blossoms of Facilitation with Joy Roulier Sawyer & Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg sets sail October 28 – December 15 (with a week off for Thanksgiving).

This six-week online class also includes video-conferencing with people well-versed in facilitating workshops, classes, meetings, coaching, and
other sessions for change, community, and transformation. The class will include interactive sessions with guest teachers Seema Reza and Callid Keefe-Perry. More about all four of the teachers below.

Seema Reza is the author of A Constellation of Half-Lives and When the World Breaks Open. She is CEO of Community Building Art Works, a non-profit organization that brings workshops led by professional artists to service members, veterans, and clinicians, and which is featured in the 2018 HBO documentary, We Are Not Done Yet.

Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, McSweeney’s, The LA Review, and The Feminist Wire, among others. Case studies from her work with military populations have appeared in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Related Diseases in Combat Veterans.

Callid Keefe-Perry is a Co-Executive Director of ARC, a traveling minister in the Quaker tradition, and an advocate for the arts as a way of deepening spiritual practice. He has been a public school teacher, co-founder of a community theater, and Coordinator of the TLA Network. He believes it is OK for people to laugh a lot, that power cedes nothing without demands, and that creativity is a vital quality of adaptive and effective leadership.

During the class, Callid will share a bit about the field of theopoetics, and talk about using different modalities for group facilitation and what is gained by doing so.

The class is being taught by two wonderful TLA teachers, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg and Joy Roulier Sawyer. Both are featured below.

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Ph.D., and 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate, is the founder of the Transformative Language Arts Network and the author of 23 books, including Miriam’s Well, a novel; Everyday Magic, memoir, and Following the Curve, poetry. Her previous work includes Needle in the Bone, a non-fiction book on the Holocaust, and six poetry collections, including the award-winning Chasing Weather.

Caryn has facilitated community writing workshops widely since 1992 with diverse populations throughout the United States and in Mexico, and has taught to a wide variety of audiences, including people living with serious illness, intergenerational communities, women living in public housing, teens and young adults, and humans-at-large in big-life transitions.

Caryn offers one-on-one coaching on writing and right livelihood. She co-
leads Brave Voice writing and singing retreats with Kelley Hunt and the Your Right Livelihood training with Laura Packer. Follow her on social media: @caryn.mirriamgoldberg, and check out her Patreon campaign to create transformative writing, workshops, and podcasts, and offering patrons weekly inspirations.

Joy Roulier Sawyer is the author of two poetry collections, Tongues of Men and Angels and Lifeguards as well as several nonfiction books. Her poetry, essays, and fiction have been widely published. Joy holds an MA from New York University in Creative Writing and a master’s degree in counseling.

Her extensive training and experience as a licensed professional counselor and in poetry/journal therapy gives her special expertise in facilitating expressive writing workshops. Joy was selected by poetry therapy pioneers to revise and update Arleen McCarty Hynes’ groundbreaking textbook, Biblio/Poetry Therapy: The Interactive Process. For over a decade, she’s taught at Denver’s Lighthouse Writers Workshop, the largest literary center in the West. Along with her other creative writing and poetry classes, Joy helps facilitate Lighthouses’s Denver Public Library, Arvada Library, and Edgewater Library’s Hard Times workshops, designed for those experiencing homelessness or poverty, as well as the Writing to Be Free program, an outreach for women transitioning out of incarceration. She has also taught at the University of Denver and in the TLA MA program at Goddard College. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Don’t miss Facilitation: Roots & Blossoms of Facilitation with Joy Roulier Sawyer & Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, on sale now, and running October 28 – December 15.

Finding Your Life’s Work: Not By Lightning, But Conversing With Our Callings

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Most of us experience lightning strikes – moments when there’s a flash, and what we’re supposed to be becomes illuminated like the night sky – at some points in our lives, but we can’t depend on where, when, and even if that will happen.

What we can do is treat our discussion with our callings – for our work as well as for other parts of our lives – as a lifelong conversation, sometimes over tea in a lovely castle filled with antiques, and sometimes while driving our car through fog late at night, knowing that we will only be able to see where we’re going by going.

The Your Right Livelihood Training with Laura Packer and Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg offers you ways to listen to what questions, longings, resentments or joys keep occur to you about your work, look toward the signs and wonders that guide you, and engage with your big hunches, questions, and leanings at this moment to find your way forward. You can also find out more and get a taste of how we work with people at the Life & Livelihood Group Coaching sessions April 22, June 14, or Aug. 11 — more here.

The training begins with a soulful retreat Oct. 28-30 (leading up to the Power of Words conference) at the ElDorado Hotel & Spa in beautiful Santa Fe. It continues on with a 10-week online class, weekly video-conferences with guest teachers including Gregg Levoy and Heather Forest, one-on-one coaching with Laura and Caryn, and extensive resources and supports for making your dreams come true. Read testimonials from last year’s group here. 

Poet Theodore Roethke wrote, “I learn by going where I have to go,” and likewise, we learn where we’re being led as well as what we have to say to that calling by dialogue throughout our lives.

What’s right for one stage in our life will likely change over time, so by listening and speaking – asking questions, testing out ideas, thinking and feeling our way toward clarity – we will be able to continually use this conversation as a flashlight leading us forward.

Have questions?  Learn more about Your Right Livelihood here, and if you’d like to book a discovery call with us, please email Laura or Caryn.

Photo by Stephen Locke, used with permission.

Please Help the TLA Network Grow! – A Letter From Liz and Hanne

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Dear TLA friends and members,

Thank you for being part of the Transformative Language Arts Network. Our network continues to grow, and we are delighted to be building community with you – one of the powerhouse poets, writers, word-smiths, spoken word artists, storytellers, and deeply engaged community activists, health professionals, educators and others who make up our incredible network!

We write to ask you to consider making a contribution to support the work of the TLA Network, a not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) organization.

Your contribution will go far in helping us expand our reach, and build on our Power of Words conference, online classes, Chrysalis: A Journal of TLA, and blog to offer all kinds of communities ways to amplify voices and visions for a better world.

The TLA Network serves as a supportive community of thoughtful and engaged practitioners, activists, health professionals, educators, and community leaders dedicated to making the world a better place. In these times, finding our voice, sharing our words, and pulling people together to effect change through the power of words is especially essential. With the rise of corporate-controlled media and the increasingly fractured world of social media, it is crucial that our work and our voices find solid purchase, that we develop new audiences, and that our words continue to serve as invaluable calls to action.

TLAN is also on the cusp of greater reach and effectiveness than ever before with a renewed vision, a new director, and our delight in featuring U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo as our keynoter at our next Power of Words conference, October 30 – November 1, 2020, in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

At our recent Power of Words conference this past September, in Phoenix, Arizona, we met many amazing TLA Network members who eagerly shared what a difference the TLA Network and our conference make in their lives. In the short time since we started our roles as TLA Network Chair and Managing Director, we have witnessed how many dozens of people find greater meaning, vitality, and connection through our vibrant online classes, the Your Right Livelihood training, and our TLA Foundations certification.

We imagine you’ve experienced your own stories: friendships forged, collaborations created, and enormous good work enacted. People leave our conference, classes, and trainings feeling reconnected, rejuvenated, energized — inspired to continue doing powerful work that changes the world.

We ask you to contribute toward any of the following:

  • Scholarships for the Power of Words conference so that we can widen the circle to include more folks who are economically disadvantaged, more young people and people of color, those living with disabilities, and others on the margins who have something vital to say and share,
  • Scholarships for our online classes and to support people immersing themselves in right livelihood training,
  • Helping underwrite some of our keynoters, including Joy Harjo, for the 2020 Power of Words conference,
  • Website re-design to better communicate the scope of our work and depth of our vision, or
  • General operating expenses so that we can expand our capacity to reach more who would benefit from the power of words in their lives and communities.

To the power of words,

Hanne Weedon, Managing Director                                     Liz Burke-Cravens, Council Chair

Not too Late for the Power of Words Conference and Your Right Livelihood Training

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Friends and lovers of words! Please join us for two life-changing events: the 16th Annual Power of Words conference Sept. 26-29, and right beforehand, Your Right Livelihood: A Training in Doing the Work, Art, and Service You Love. If you’re in the Scottsdale, Arizona area or game for a road trip, there’s still room, and we’d love to meet you for these soulful events, all happening at the replenishing Franciscan Renewal Center.

The Power of Words Conference

Come to the Power of Words Conference to explore how we can use our words — written, spoken, or sung — to make community, deepen healing, witness one another, wake ourselves up, and foster empowerment and transformation. The conference features workshops, performances, talking circles, celebration and more, featuring writers, storytellers, performers, musicians, community leaders, activists, educators, and health professionals. The conference, founded in 2003, features workshops in four tracks: narrative medicine, social change, right livelihood (and making a living through the arts), ecological literacy, and engaged spirituality.

The 2019 conference keynoters include author and speaker, Gregg Levoy; storyteller and author, Noa Baum; and and poet and playwright, Usha Akella.  Over 20 other presenters will be sharing a variety of performances and workshops including:

  • Lisa Chu’s “Bad Asian Daughter” on transforming shame through embodied storytelling,
  • Loren Niemi’s “Walking Fields and Streets to Find Poems and Stories,”
  • John Genette and Doug Bland’s “Sacred Earth, Common Ground,”
  • Lyn Ford’s “The Path of Needles or the Path of Pins: Other Ways of Seeing ‘Red,'”
  • Valerie David’s “Fight Back Any Adversity in Life: Overcoming a Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer Diagnosis, the Pink Hulk Will Help You Find Your Inner Superhero” and
  • Rachel Gabriel’s “Writing Memoir for Empathy and Inquiry.”

As conference attendee Robin Russell wrote to us:

“The TLA Conference is an adventure of diving into a deep pool of unexpected discoveries. Some are delightful and awe-inspiring, some frightening and strange, but the immersion in diversity and the authenticity of the presenter’s (and participant’s) stories and presence is palpable and real. A necessary reminder of what we are so starved for in the current climate of media and political rhetoric. If change is going to be sustainable and humane, we need more people trained and working with the qualities of these warriors. The conference is a way to either dip a toe in or dive in head first.”

More at www.TLANetwork.org/conference

Your Right Livelihood

Consider Your Right Livelihood — a training with TLA founder and writer Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg and storyteller and consultant Laura Packer. Your work in writing, storytelling, theater, and related healing and social change arts can bring you greater fulfillment and enable you to help others find and amplify the voices and visions so needed to address the challenges facing our communities, culture, and planet. Whether you’re just starting out, making a mid-career transition or revisioning your life’s work after retirement, this training guides you toward what constellation of vocation works best for you and your community now and when the path meanders.

This 100-hour training begins with a 2-day intensive September 25-27th at The Casa Franciscan Renewal Center in Scottsdale, Arizona (where the Power of Words Conference will be held immediately following), and continues through mid-December with online study and community support, weekly video conferences with entrepreneurs and leaders in the field, weekly group check-ins and discussions, individual consultations with Laura and Caryn, and a toolkit of resources for planning, marketing, further training, and next steps.

Franciscan Renewal Center

The spectacular yet secluded 25-acre Franciscan Renewal Center offers a tranquil oasis in the heart of greater Phoenix for quiet reflection, prayer, learning, healing or joyful worship. Nestled in the lush desert valley at the base of majestic Camelback Mountain, The Casa is just a quick 20-minutes from the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. The campus features a newly remodeled 60-ft swimming pool and spa, gift and book shop, labyrinth, healing garden, desert walkways, buffet-style dining, and private bathrooms in every lodging room. Owned by the Franciscan Friars of the Saint Barbara Province, The Casa has been renewing lives through spiritual growth, healing and transformation, and service to others for over 60 years.

Find more on all of it here.

What a Deal! Your Right Livelihood and Power of Words Conference

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Hanne Weedon, our managing director, recently shared this email, giving Power of Words conference attendees a great deal when attending Your Right Livelihood training too.

As we approach our 16th annual Power of Words conference, we’re excited to share a special offer: if you register (or are already registered) for the conference, you are now eligible for a 10% discount for the pre-conference Your Right Livelihood: A Training in Doing the Work, Art, and Service You Love, led by Laura Packer and Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg.

Your Right Livelihood starts with a retreat at the Casa Francisco Retreat Center from Wed. evening Sept. 25 to Fri. afternoon, Sept. 27, ending in time for the conference. The 100-hour training continues through mid-December with online study and community support, weekly video conferences with entrepreneurs and leaders in the field (such as Harriet Lerner, Gregg Levoy, and Heather Forest – see special guest teachers here), weekly group check-ins and discussions, individual consultations with Laura and Caryn, and a toolkit of resources for planning, marketing, further training, and next steps. All participants receive a certificate of completion at the end.

It is no exaggeration to state that this training changed my life. The RLPT course not only taught me how to improve my professional portfolio, but, more importantly, how to live holistically as a creative person. I will continue to use the course materials for years to come, and will count myself very lucky to stay in touch with the outstanding community of people who were in my cohort.

~ Rachel Gabriel, writer and facilitator, Minneapolis, Minnesota

If you’d like to learn more about the training, please set up a free 15-minute discovery call here with Caryn or Laura.

To catch the 10% discount, if you’re already registered for the conference, please contact Hanne at Director@TLANetwork.org so I can get you registered. You can register for the conference and training together or apply to the training on its own.