Photograph by Ravi Roshan, at Unsplash
PURE CREATION SMALL GROUP MENTORING PROGRAM 2023
WHAT IT IS:
A year long program designed to support you to develop the work that brings you alive. Through mentoring, coaching, bespoke online workshops, peer to peer learning and practices to develop a more sustainable relationship to the natural cycles of creativity.
I wanted to create a program that nurtures imagination, instinct and ritual; honours the need for proper incubation, allows for depth and allows for uncertainty as core components to any process of creation. It aims to reconnect you with your creative essence and support it to have space to take form in what ever shape it wants to become, so you can be in better service of your unique gift.
The process is a bespoke and flexible combination of mentorship, teaching, supervision, coaching, facilitation, individual and community support and peer learning. The shape is built around planetary rhythms of light and shadow and the cyclical nature of the creative principle. It draws on my experience in the wellness arts, professional creative and artistic processes, actor trainings, improvisation trainings, embodiment trainings, somatic coaching, shamanic practices and somatic meditations.
THE PHILOSOPHY BEHIND IT:
This program has emerged from an observation that a lot of the way we are creating work in the world is heavily results oriented, product oriented and outward facing, which denies an essential part of how the creation principle works and provides a clue to why things have swung so dramatically out of balance in our relationship to the planet and our way of being in our bodies. I am excited by the possibility that we can be creators of visionary, life supporting, embodied work in a way that is juicy and sustainable.
THE WAY IT WORKS:
It runs for a full year, from January - December 2023 and is for the Northern Hemisphere.
Inclusion is via application.
THE PROGRAM:
This is a year-long program.
All of the 12 x solo meetings are online (unless you'd like to meet up), they are 60 mins each.
The 12 x group meetings are a mixture of online and deep dive get-togethers.
The online group meetings are 90 mins each.
The live get-togethers are between 3 and 4 days long and may be UK or Europe based, or online.
The live get togethers take place around significant points in the solar year in relation to developing your project. Our year begins in darkness in January, migrates into the full exposure to sunlight in summer then retreats again into darkness as the year closes.
The first get-together at the beginning of spring is around the vernal equinox and we work with coming out of the darkness using visioning tools, future self skills and dreaming work. I hope for this to be residential in Portugal, Covid-willing!
The second get-together is mid summer. It is about taking a risk in public, building the bus as we drive it, in the full light of day and inviting in public where appropriate. This session may be online or residential, tbc.
The Autumn get together is about harvesting, consolidation and identifying tools. This session is online.
This program is for you if you are interested in the support of a group as well as my mentoring and coaching and some more self development aspects. It will involve some re-membering via somatic tools for better self management, gaining more confidence navigating your unconscious resources, shamanic tools for re-wilding your imagination, vision and rites of passage work and support to grow your own community and networks.
I will be available to check copy, contracting, help you refine your ideas, develop your image and web presence and support you to feel well supported through the whole experience. There is also the chance to elect optional additional workshops to support exactly what you want to grow by inviting relevant guest experts (this may incur additional fees).
KEY DATES:
Program Length: 10th January 2023 - Winter Solstice December 2023
Application Deadline: 11th December 2022
Offers Made: 18th December 2021
Deposits due: 21st December 2021
Subsequent payments: 1st Feb (then 1st of the month, if monthly)
Live Workshops Dates (to be negotiated with the group): Roughly, 28 March - 1st April; 26 - 30 June; 19 - 23 September.
HOW TO KNOW IF IT IS FOR YOU:
This program might be right for you if you are someone who wants to make something, but needs some support in the creation... This may mean you know there is something in you but you don't know what it is yet. Or maybe you have an instinct, but you don't know exactly. Or maybe you know exactly and you need support to crack on and do it rightly. It is also a great program for creative people who are perfectionists in recovery.
Most importantly, if it is right for you, it will feel right. I will feel right and the whole thing will give you an embodied YES. It might sound overly simple, but this is what we are here to spend the year re-learning anyway - to listen more deeply to which parts of ourselves are being called to act or not. So we might as well start here. Listen in and feel if it is a yes.
I am available to chat if you'd like to run any questions by me.
THINGS PEOPLE HAVE SAID:
"Rachel has a masterful way of supporting others and holding a loving space of transformation.
Her mentoring is a piece of art and I can't recommend it enough."
Heidi Förster, Fellowship Leader and Movement Artist, Bonn, Germany
'Rachel seamlessly weaves the numinous and the deeply grounded together to provide a place for deep exploration.
There is no bullshit here, just honest, truthful and sensitive spaceholding. Rachel's ability to hold each person individually and also create cohesion in a group format is so relaxing to be a part of - I've felt supported every step of the way and never felt like I had to arrive as anyone other than myself.
Through the support of Rachel's gentle holding and the intimate group environment, I've felt comfortable to explore how I take up space in my work and gently approach my edges with softness.
I feel like this process has helped me create a clear path forward so I can continue becoming more of myself & feel confident with my work in the world.'
Sara Duigou - Somatic Coach, and Embodiment Facilitator, France.
"I feel deeply connected to my purpose and find I'm able to access conscious and unconscious resources within myself...
I have felt beautifully held throughout."
Rachel Sparks, Embodiment Coach, Dance Facilitator, London, UK
'Ever had that feeling of not sure why you want to do something and at the same time, bone-certain that you must? That. I mean, I didn’t even know I was looking for a mentor and no, I didn’t know what to expect from the year-long mentorship programme either. Standing at the end of it, I can’t really tell you what to expect either, only that as the programme has, with great ease and intimacy, softly and gradually evolved, I find myself in a very different position to the one in which I started the year.
Not only have I had opportunities to present and experiment with new work; gained clarity on where my skills lie and on what work it is I want to do, but I’ve also had space and support to heal and transform parts of me that were getting in the way of me following the work that is calling.
As we near the end of our time together, I’m beginning to sense the power and magnitude of my personal transformation. I’m weaving together my skills and expertise gathered over a rather disparate, umm “career” history into work that feels more and more aligned to purpose and am feeling more and more confident in my ability to deliver this work. Rachel really is quite remarkable, as a mentor she has been responsive and adaptable, meeting each of us, exactly where we are at, and using her wide array of skills and knowledge to offer timely support, guidance and encouragement.
If you feel a pull or even, just a light leaning towards this programme … follow it!'
Thandi O'Hagan, Expressive Movement Facilitator, Social Justice Instigator and Wise Witch - Johannesburg, South Africa
'I started the year feeling a bit stuck and lost in my professional project.
Looking back I cannot believe how far I have come over the year, with Rachel's unending support, dedication and insights. I also appreciated the warm feeling in the group which Rachel created for all of us. I feel grateful and inspired for what's next with my work.'
Ruth Friedman, Executive Coach, Brussels.
HOW TO APPLY:
Places are limited to 6-8 people.
Please take a look at the information pack for details on how to apply.
After a short email application, we have a brief chat to ensure we are a match and that I can indeed be useful to you.
WHAT IT IS:
A year long program designed to support you to develop the work that brings you alive. Through mentoring, coaching, bespoke online workshops, peer to peer learning and practices to develop a more sustainable relationship to the natural cycles of creativity.
I wanted to create a program that nurtures imagination, instinct and ritual; honours the need for proper incubation, allows for depth and allows for uncertainty as core components to any process of creation. It aims to reconnect you with your creative essence and support it to have space to take form in what ever shape it wants to become, so you can be in better service of your unique gift.
The process is a bespoke and flexible combination of mentorship, teaching, supervision, coaching, facilitation, individual and community support and peer learning. The shape is built around planetary rhythms of light and shadow and the cyclical nature of the creative principle. It draws on my experience in the wellness arts, professional creative and artistic processes, actor trainings, improvisation trainings, embodiment trainings, somatic coaching, shamanic practices and somatic meditations.
THE PHILOSOPHY BEHIND IT:
This program has emerged from an observation that a lot of the way we are creating work in the world is heavily results oriented, product oriented and outward facing, which denies an essential part of how the creation principle works and provides a clue to why things have swung so dramatically out of balance in our relationship to the planet and our way of being in our bodies. I am excited by the possibility that we can be creators of visionary, life supporting, embodied work in a way that is juicy and sustainable.
THE WAY IT WORKS:
It runs for a full year, from January - December 2023 and is for the Northern Hemisphere.
Inclusion is via application.
THE PROGRAM:
This is a year-long program.
All of the 12 x solo meetings are online (unless you'd like to meet up), they are 60 mins each.
The 12 x group meetings are a mixture of online and deep dive get-togethers.
The online group meetings are 90 mins each.
The live get-togethers are between 3 and 4 days long and may be UK or Europe based, or online.
The live get togethers take place around significant points in the solar year in relation to developing your project. Our year begins in darkness in January, migrates into the full exposure to sunlight in summer then retreats again into darkness as the year closes.
The first get-together at the beginning of spring is around the vernal equinox and we work with coming out of the darkness using visioning tools, future self skills and dreaming work. I hope for this to be residential in Portugal, Covid-willing!
The second get-together is mid summer. It is about taking a risk in public, building the bus as we drive it, in the full light of day and inviting in public where appropriate. This session may be online or residential, tbc.
The Autumn get together is about harvesting, consolidation and identifying tools. This session is online.
This program is for you if you are interested in the support of a group as well as my mentoring and coaching and some more self development aspects. It will involve some re-membering via somatic tools for better self management, gaining more confidence navigating your unconscious resources, shamanic tools for re-wilding your imagination, vision and rites of passage work and support to grow your own community and networks.
I will be available to check copy, contracting, help you refine your ideas, develop your image and web presence and support you to feel well supported through the whole experience. There is also the chance to elect optional additional workshops to support exactly what you want to grow by inviting relevant guest experts (this may incur additional fees).
KEY DATES:
Program Length: 10th January 2023 - Winter Solstice December 2023
Application Deadline: 11th December 2022
Offers Made: 18th December 2021
Deposits due: 21st December 2021
Subsequent payments: 1st Feb (then 1st of the month, if monthly)
Live Workshops Dates (to be negotiated with the group): Roughly, 28 March - 1st April; 26 - 30 June; 19 - 23 September.
HOW TO KNOW IF IT IS FOR YOU:
This program might be right for you if you are someone who wants to make something, but needs some support in the creation... This may mean you know there is something in you but you don't know what it is yet. Or maybe you have an instinct, but you don't know exactly. Or maybe you know exactly and you need support to crack on and do it rightly. It is also a great program for creative people who are perfectionists in recovery.
Most importantly, if it is right for you, it will feel right. I will feel right and the whole thing will give you an embodied YES. It might sound overly simple, but this is what we are here to spend the year re-learning anyway - to listen more deeply to which parts of ourselves are being called to act or not. So we might as well start here. Listen in and feel if it is a yes.
I am available to chat if you'd like to run any questions by me.
THINGS PEOPLE HAVE SAID:
"Rachel has a masterful way of supporting others and holding a loving space of transformation.
Her mentoring is a piece of art and I can't recommend it enough."
Heidi Förster, Fellowship Leader and Movement Artist, Bonn, Germany
'Rachel seamlessly weaves the numinous and the deeply grounded together to provide a place for deep exploration.
There is no bullshit here, just honest, truthful and sensitive spaceholding. Rachel's ability to hold each person individually and also create cohesion in a group format is so relaxing to be a part of - I've felt supported every step of the way and never felt like I had to arrive as anyone other than myself.
Through the support of Rachel's gentle holding and the intimate group environment, I've felt comfortable to explore how I take up space in my work and gently approach my edges with softness.
I feel like this process has helped me create a clear path forward so I can continue becoming more of myself & feel confident with my work in the world.'
Sara Duigou - Somatic Coach, and Embodiment Facilitator, France.
"I feel deeply connected to my purpose and find I'm able to access conscious and unconscious resources within myself...
I have felt beautifully held throughout."
Rachel Sparks, Embodiment Coach, Dance Facilitator, London, UK
'Ever had that feeling of not sure why you want to do something and at the same time, bone-certain that you must? That. I mean, I didn’t even know I was looking for a mentor and no, I didn’t know what to expect from the year-long mentorship programme either. Standing at the end of it, I can’t really tell you what to expect either, only that as the programme has, with great ease and intimacy, softly and gradually evolved, I find myself in a very different position to the one in which I started the year.
Not only have I had opportunities to present and experiment with new work; gained clarity on where my skills lie and on what work it is I want to do, but I’ve also had space and support to heal and transform parts of me that were getting in the way of me following the work that is calling.
As we near the end of our time together, I’m beginning to sense the power and magnitude of my personal transformation. I’m weaving together my skills and expertise gathered over a rather disparate, umm “career” history into work that feels more and more aligned to purpose and am feeling more and more confident in my ability to deliver this work. Rachel really is quite remarkable, as a mentor she has been responsive and adaptable, meeting each of us, exactly where we are at, and using her wide array of skills and knowledge to offer timely support, guidance and encouragement.
If you feel a pull or even, just a light leaning towards this programme … follow it!'
Thandi O'Hagan, Expressive Movement Facilitator, Social Justice Instigator and Wise Witch - Johannesburg, South Africa
'I started the year feeling a bit stuck and lost in my professional project.
Looking back I cannot believe how far I have come over the year, with Rachel's unending support, dedication and insights. I also appreciated the warm feeling in the group which Rachel created for all of us. I feel grateful and inspired for what's next with my work.'
Ruth Friedman, Executive Coach, Brussels.
HOW TO APPLY:
Places are limited to 6-8 people.
Please take a look at the information pack for details on how to apply.
After a short email application, we have a brief chat to ensure we are a match and that I can indeed be useful to you.