Writing Programs
Explore the writing program, both online and in-person in Minneapolis, offered by Eye of the Heart Center founders.
Deepen the sacred dimension of your writing through classes, community, and more.
Writing can become a life-giving, ever-deepening path to spiritual transformation. Writing programs at Eye of the Heart help seekers embrace writing as a connective, contemplative, and communal practice. When you tend to the mystical, meaning-making dimension of the creative process, both you and your writing thrive.
If you're interested in growing as a writer and becoming a more grounded, heart-centered human being, you'll flourish in Eye of the Heart's writing programs. Discover what will help you grow below:
Upcoming Writing Opportunities
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Writing as Transformation, Transformation in Writing
Are you drawn to write about some surprising, radical, or gradual change in your life? In this five-day retreat, we will contemplate memories of transformation both profound and ordinary by generating personal narratives. We’ll learn practical techniques for revising (re-seeing) our stories, inviting us into deeper understanding and making available to potential readers the gifts of our experiences. Along the way, we’ll also experience the transformational powers of the writing process.
July 22-26 at The Well in La Grange Park, IL
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Writing the Sacred Journey: An Introduction to Spiritual Memoir
This is a two week, self-paced introduction to the art and spiritual practice of writing memoir. We’ll ask, “What is memoir? What makes memoir spiritual? How can the practice of writing memoir, either for an audience or for no audience, support spiritual growth?” Using writing exercises and readings from model writers, we will start with the basics.
Online, self-paced. Opens on September 1st, with a live Zoom Q&A and 30-day access to materials.
A little more about our programs, which include:
Writing classes–featuring topics like revision, an introduction to spiritual memoir, and the basics of writing for spiritual growth..
Writing practice groups–like month-long Morning Pages and Meditation, or weekly co-writing in small groups
Writing retreats–on elements of the writing life like Welcome Resistance! and Writing About Transformation / Transforming Our Writing.
Writing community–a warm, inclusive environment for writers of all stages
Most of these writing opportunities are accessible online. If you are in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area, let us know by signing up for our newsletter and selecting your interest in “in-person events”!
The most significant outcome of writing is not what you’ve produced but who you become for having written.
Who are you becoming?
Let’s discover together.
Writing Classes Coming Soon
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Writing Your Sacred Journey Practice Sessions
Join Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew to explore the art and practice of spiritual memoir writing. Each session offers participants the opportunity to write, time for conversation, inspiration from model writers, and insights about craft, content, and practice. These monthly practice sessions are meant for writers of all levels, including absolute beginners.
Restarting in the Fall
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Re*Vision Workshop
How can we keep our hearts open to radical re-seeing throughout the writing process? In this monthly drop-in workshop, we engage in collective practices to keep us nimble, find new perspective, bring intention and efficiency to labor, and steer our creative energy toward what matters most—coming more alive, on the page and in our being.
In-Person Sessions - Restarting in the Fall
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A Spark of Inspiration Writing Salon
Reignite your creative spark each week and connect deeply with each other in a space free of judgment. Seasoned facilitator Elizabeth Philipose guides participants with images and prompts through spontaneous bursts of writing that are shared with the group. There is no feedback, pressure, or expectations in this process; just the space for your creative expression to be witnessed, strengthened, and affirmed.
New day this Fall: Fridays! September 4, 11, 18, 25
Asynchronous Writing Classes
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Asynchronous Writing Classes
Join Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew to explore the art and practice of spiritual memoir writing in these online, pre-recorded two-hour classes. Each online session will give participants the opportunity to listen, read, write, share within a community space, and practice their own writing.
Cost: $25/each.
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The Gifts of Writing Micro-Course
This micro-course welcomes you into a healthy and meaningful writing practice. We can extract ourselves from a transactional, market-economy relationship with creativity, with its relentless focus on the end produce and what others think; we can move into a life-giving, generative process that feeds our souls.
Free
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Your Story as Scripture
Your experiences are unique, significant, and shot through with holiness. Writing down memories is a way to nurture the sacred dimension of your life, participate in the creation of your identity, and offer others through your presence and stories the blessing of your evolving truth. This 75 minute sampler will introduce you to the art and practice of writing spiritual memoir.
Cost: $25
Online Writing
Community
Bring your creativity, doubts, questions, and willingness to connect into an online community that names the world as gift. Creation thrives in a flow of giving and receiving. In this space, we orient our hearts toward the gifts of writing–insight, healing, growth, and meaningful presence. Each of us is a gift to the whole, and our best gifts to others are hearts widened by creativity.
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Take a short, free writing course from Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, which will put all community members on the same page as we gather online together.
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After you complete the course, you’ll be invited to join the donation-based writing community, where we will host events, classes, and foster a space for writers to encourage one another.
Writing Retreats & More
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Sept. 11-13, 2026: The Release: How Writing in an Economy of Gifts Liberates Writers – with Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew
The spiritual toll of writing in a capitalist society begins long before our pages go to print. What writer hasn’t felt fraudulent, feared rejection, or self-censored for fear of what an audience might think? We imagine our work’s value (or even our own) is determined by its reception. Inspired co-creations slowly, imperceptibly, morph into commercial products. Our spirits suffer.
Is there an alternative? For writers of faith, writing is a chance to practice a God-centered orientation. Creativity thrives—and the Spirit moves—when we turn our hearts toward the gifts moving in and through our writing. This retreat reframes the writing process as a gift exchange, helping writers lift our heads out of the product-oriented sandbox to find a freer, Spirit-led way to play.
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July 22-26: Writing as Transformation, Transformation in Writing
Are you drawn to write about some surprising, radical, or gradual change in your life? When personal transformation is our inspiration, story-telling patterns offer us easy, practical guidelines. In this five-day retreat, we will contemplate memories of transformation both profound and ordinary by generating personal narratives. We’ll learn practical techniques for revising (re-seeing) our stories, inviting us into deeper understanding and making available to potential readers the gifts of our experiences. Along the way, we’ll also experience the transformational powers of the writing process.
Some areas we’ll explore together:
- The periods before and after moments of change
- The importance of articulating expectations
- How to use chronology to honor our felt experience
- How to link the outer story’s movement to its emotional and spiritual import
This retreat is for those new to writing as well as experienced writers looking to learn how transformation works in their lives and their stories.
Conversations
We believe connection happens over curious conversations, so we seek to foster those both in person and online. These conversations often leave us in awe of the creative capacity we humans are gifted with.
For online conversations, we record the conversations every chance we can get, but only leave them up for 30-days publicly. After that, we shift them into our online writing community.
Past Conversations:
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This in-person event in Minneapolis featured film-maker Lucy Mathews Heegaard for an immersive film and conversation experience centered around her documentary, Diplophonia: A Diary of Voice Loss.
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Charity E. Yoro left us wondering about how poetry can help us channel our rage and reverence both in a world that is falling apart at the seams, or at the very least, seems to be. Listen and be inspired by her poetic voice and learn about how writing can be a transformative practice—for all of us.
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Long-time writer friends Mona Susan Power and Elizabeth Fletcher discuss the part intuition plays in their writing practices. Readers often imagine that creative writing is a wholly cerebral enterprise where each step of the way authors make conscious choices regarding craft, character, and plot. In reality, some writers surrender to the mystery of a process that can never be controlled, but rather is accessed by an open-hearted trust in the deep intelligence of our connection to all beings, past and present.
Inactive Writing Programs
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Contemplative Writing Circles
Modeled after Quaker clearness committees, The Eye of the Heart’s Contemplative Writing Circles cultivate the aliveness moving within both writer and text. The circle magnifies our listening and holds us accountable to our creative source. These circles ask for a longer commitment from participants so the group can build trust and learn contemplative dialogue skills.
Currently closed. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up-to-date!
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At the Contemplative Heart of Creativity
This program is designed for dedicated artists of all experience levels and disciplines who consider art-making to be their spiritual practice or regularly engage in some form of contemplation, who want to grow in their capacity to heed inspiration’s movement in their art and life.
Over two retreats and six small group sessions, participants cultivate our ability to listen—to the stirrings of our hearts, to what’s coming alive in our art, to one another, and to the needs around us.
