Tree of Life Workshop

Write about your life's moments of blossoming, growth and resilience

Join a small group of like-minded peers in an online reflective writing workshop to gain clarity in your life.

Sessions starting in August 2021

eight 2-hour sessions without leaving home

Acquire a powerful daily writing habit

achieve tangible progress towards your goals

Follow the blossom to the stem, to the branch, to the trunk, to the root...

Have you ever wanted to distill down the meaning of your experiences in life, mining entries in your journal, perhaps, or just casting an eye back on your experiences? A short, carefully crafted text — or a series of them — resulting from such reflection can be personally satisfying and have many uses. If they have the flavor of “lessons learned,” they can serve as a kind of legacy letter for your children or others. Or, they can simply allow you to better understand yourself and describe your experiences.

A human life can be likened to a tree. Like trees, we are anchored by roots, send out hopeful shoots as we grow over a lifetime, and bloom in season. If we look for them, we too have our “growth rings” showing our seasons drought or plenty. We are recognized by the silhouette our branches make against the sky, by the unique texture of our trunk, by our flowers and fruit, and by the subterranean web sustaining us.

Unlike most other life-forms we share the planet with, trees outlive us. Trees may predate the neighborhood you live in; many will still be living and growing long after you’re gone.

German Romantic poet Goethe and his contemporary Schiller thought that understanding trees was the secret for understanding human growth, too — especially spiritual growth.

We will have some fun in this workshop seeing how this metaphor fits, and you will produce some awesome personal stories by the end!

I'll be forever grateful to Greg for what I've learned during his course on journaling. He is a passionate reader and a natural teacher. He has a "lead by example" teaching style that motivated me and the entire group. With Greg's help, I was able to re-learn how to love writing, and how to let writing be an integral part of improving my overall well being.

Aaron Curtis

Front-End Developer

Greg creates a calm, creative and supportive atmosphere in the Life Sentences workshop. His approach to journal-writing is inspiring. I really enjoyed the casual, relaxed vibe at each session and hearing my fellow classmates' writings. I came out of the experience having formed a daily habit of writing that I feel like I now can't live without!

Liz Demarest

Communications Professional

This was more than a writing class. It was an inspiring community where listening other people's stories inspired me to write more. Thanks to Greg, I started my journal and now I see writing as part of my life. I also really liked the reflective aspect of this workshop. Greg is a dedicated and experienced writer. Seeing his own journal amazed me.

Yi Ma

Investment Banking Analyst

I couldn't have imagined the improvement this class, and the in-depth journaling habit it has fostered, would make in my thought life. I have much more clarity, and routinely delve deeper than I would otherwise, both on and off the page. It's particularly useful for an artistic life, because you record, explore, and remember ideas that otherwise might have flown away moments after they arrived. It also banishes a relationship with the self where you are that person in your house with whom you avoid eye contact, replacing it with the heady expansion of getting to know someone.

Amy Denninghoff

Professional Artist

Greg creates a wonderful mix of structure and curated serendipity. While learning and practicing a wide variety of journaling techniques and approaches, we also formed a warm and collegial bond with our fellow journalers. Whether you are dedicated to keeping a journal or just want to give it a try for the duration of the course, you will finish with a Swiss Army knife of writing approaches and techniques, which you will undoubtedly use in your personal, academic and/or professional life.

Richard Boly

Former Career Diplomat

Though I do a lot of writing, I haven't journalled regularly for many years. This course re-ignited a neglected practice and brought with it Greg's immense wisdom about the process and what we produced. I am still journaling regularly and find it a linchpin for my day and an opportunity to give growing space to thoughts which would otherwise have disappeared with the sunset.

Jack Peterson

Management Consultant

YOUR HOST AND INSTRUCTOR

Gregory Robison

After more than 50 years of keeping a journal, I know that the major milestones of life aren’t always apparent at the moment they occur. The significance of events and the evidence of patterns usually only emerge after the patient piling up of observations and reflections. In fact, it often takes a different turn of mind, or observation from a higher elevation than ground level, to see clearly the contours of a life. This different sort of recording might be called “reminiscence” to distinguish it from the immediate act of recording. Reminiscence is an act of recall that looks for the meaning of events, not simply for the observable facts.

As with other kinds of personal writing, it is by searching out words and trying them out in a text that we discover what we have to say. The writing process itself is a tool of discovery. We use it to uncover the significance of recalled events.

I look forward to accompanying you on this process of discovery and creation!

YOUR REGISTRATION INCLUDES

Use this time of forced isolation to explore your creativity, hold yourself accountable, and produce some awesome work.

How will this help me get unstuck?

A writer is someone who writes. Whether it’s a novel; a memoir; an op-ed column; a venture idea; a marketing pitch; a sermon; a family history; a collection of poems; a private diary or journal; a play for stage or screen… It’s all writing. Whatever its purpose or final form, it’s all worthwhile.

But like all creative work, it takes discipline, skill, and the right attitude. Producing anything worthwhile in this world is a struggle.

This workshop will dispel the illusions and misconceptions about that struggle — illusions and misconceptions that may have kept you from cultivating your creativity and achieving your goals.