Join us on Thursday, March 22 at our Monthly Meetup to Cultivate Compassion through Contemplative Crafting with Ellen Gadberry. 

What happens to your thinking when you settle into a hands-on creative process? How can simple, repetitive actions of making, drawing, knitting, or building clear your mind from distractions and allow you to access deeper levels of attention, awareness, and compassion for yourself and the world around you? How does the work of your hands create space for the work of your mind when you are listening to a speaker, participating in a conversation, meditating, or praying?

Come consider these questions and participate in an experiment with yourself in this hands-on session of contemplative crafting. We will learn a few simple techniques (absolutely no art skills needed) for doodling and paperfolding, listen to one another’s stories about the meditative focus that can come with craft, and spend some time together quietly creating and cultivating compassion.

Ellen Gadberry is a lifelong learner, teacher, and maker. After a career in K-12 education and teacher training, she is now pursuing a Certificate in Spiritual Formation at Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta. Ellen facilitates art and creativity classes in diverse community locations including churches, libraries, her county’s jail, and refugee family literacy programs. She is a conference speaker and retreat leader, a curriculum writer for Wood Lake Publishing and an occasional blogger at contemplativecrafting.com