Description of PFTS Process:

PAINTING FROM THE SOURCE (PFTS) is a Process Painting (or drawing ) Work Shop/ Retreat, where a group of people, paint, share, move, sound, and do ritual together for between 2 to 7 days and nights. No prior experience is necessary.

PURPOSE: The natural and ancient way to create authentic Art, is healing to the maker, viewer and community. Similar to meditation, yoga, trance dance, chanting, and dream tending, the Arts, (particularly spontaneous painting and drawing), are a potent
and effective means to mystical revelatory states of consciousness with the bonus of a stirring visual record. Painting taps into both the personal and collective flow of mysterious archetypical imagery which empowers, inspires and transforms the painter.
The PFTS workshop is designed to aid contemporary people in reconnection with nature and the original Source of life, which in turn leads to practical benefits such as improved health, work, relationships and heart open practices for community and environmental
sustainability. Creativity and sacred presence are the same.

METHOD: To support the above purpose, here are some guidelines I use which are also universal to spiritual and Shamanistic practice:

1. Create a Safe Container, i.e., have a schedule which we follow, protect everyone's anonymity, commitment to come for the opening and stay to the end, no comments on anyone's process, only those in the workshop can be in the room, each person deserves equal respect.
2. Weave/ Invite The Presence of The Sacred throughout , i.e., candle lighting, opening and continuous
   prayer, sacred words, chants and sounds, presence of an alter, rituals, include awareness of current season, moon phase, and holidays etc.
3. Conduct Retreat in Nature and away from participants daily life if possible.
4. Use inexpensive children's paint and paper.
5. Stay In Only One Painting for the entire time, although it may have many layers and grow organically by tapping on papers.
6. Encourage Less Words; use movement and sound to express painting.
7. Welcome/ Encourage Shadow material, i.e. any images and emotions that feel uncomfortable or alien.
8. The Tribal Experience; support, love and being witnessed by the group.

LOGISTICS: People paint standing with paper on walls or boards. Number of people ( 8 to 30), depends upon size of room. Table with supplies. Circle for group seating. This basic template can be adapted to any situation.

Please note: Workshops involve a commitment to inner work and group process. The book, Painting from the Source, is required reading prior to all workshops, and is available at the PFTS Online Store.

More about the process:

Painting from the Source® is for men and women who have considered painting, but never thought they could. It is also for people who are trained in the arts, and would like to explore and expand the source of their creativity. The workshops are for anyone who wants to awaken their artist's soul. It will rekindle your sense of freedom and will affect other areas of your life as well. Many who have experienced the workshop have found this painting process to be genuinely transformative. For a tiny taste of the vast soul feast available in Aviva's workshops and book try this sampler: HANDS ON: A "taste" of The Painting from the Source Experience.

PAINTING FROM THE SOURCE: A VISION QUEST THROUGH CREATIVE EXPRESSION

Come, venture in, apply paint to paper as a Path to radical breakthrough, a path to awakened artist soul, to open heart, to love, to renewed vitality and purpose. Imagine staying in one single painting that can be multi layered, can shrink and grow, for 5 days! How can this be possible? Certainly, previous painting experience is not an advantage here. Anyone with a willing heart and adventurous spirit can vision quest Painting From the Source.

Just show up at the empty paper in our safe, sacred, kindergarten painting chapel, available to and your fellow soul seekers around the clock. Paint vibrant colors, fire orange, midnight black, deep pool blue, all of creamy sensuous child Tempera paint. Paint your heart out. Paint as deep prayer. Paint your worst fears and deepest passion. Paint to feel, experience, be embodied. Paint not for outcome, but to experience "being" in the moment. Paint as if you will burn it, as your yoga, riding your edge, cuddling up to your challenge. Paint till your mind releases judgments, comparisons, interpretations, and personal stories. Paint ugly for beauty, death for rebirth, beauty for grief. Move, dance, scream, cry, growl, clown your painting. Paint till the painting paints you. Speak the Beauty of its authentic unashamed truth. This is the Indigenous Medicine way. This is living poetic myth. Alter an image from this place, and your body and dreams are altered. In this setting painters and paintings bond into a united open hearted community where a triumph for one becomes a triumph for all.

PFTS is a deep healing intensive that uses paint and other creative modalities as a vehicle to go deep into the collective source of all creation and healing, similar to Carl Jung's process of "Active Imagination". It is not a painting class. But the subsequent authentic beauty far surpasses any painting class. For success and the necessary solid safe container, this workshop requires a commitment to an extended schedule, retreat from outside distractions, abstain from over stimulating substances, staying present with possible strong emotions in self and others, and to reading and following preparation guidelines that will be sent to you upon registration.

It is required to read Painting From the Source by Aviva Gold.

Aviva leads Painting from the Source workshops both nationally and internationally within the following forums:

• Workshops at alternative educational centers, Sacred Sites worldwide, and by invitation.
• PFTS Teacher Training for prospective PFTS Practitioners. Rooted in love and mutual support, individual leadership and a teaching style emerge while learning how to help others connect with their truth through creative expression.
• Corporate seminars to facilitate the intuitive process for problem-solving, team-building, stress-reduction, decisions with integrity
• Individual and group consultations for creative breakthrough.

Letter from PFTS Participant:

I wanted to write and thank each of you in Aviva's workshop this past week. For me, it was an extraordinary experience. Driving home on Sunday, and on Monday, and even today, my mind has been filled with images, memories, and appreciation of the gifts each of you gave, to the group and to me. I've been to personal growth workshops, yoga workshops, shamanic circles, Buddhist groups, you name it!, for years and years, and I've never experienced the degree of COMFORT, trust, and intimacy that WE created, together, in just a few days, with Aviva's guidance, of course.

For me, at least, this great ease came from my own belief that we all shared a willingness to entertain the possibility that a Source does exist, that it's beyond our normal conscious small ego, and that, furthermore, we can be willing for that Source to express itself through us. With that shared foundation, I then found each person's completely unique, different expressions not only acceptable, but mysterious, powerful, and wonderful, and I mean both our expressions in Paint AND our expressions in Personality.

Whether true or not, I assumed everybody else also accepted my own spontaneous expressions without judgment, and so I experienced an ease and naturalness in doing, in speaking (or being silent), and in painting, which I seldom if ever have experienced in a group of people,let alone a group of "strangers".

As an educator, I've long been committed to "valuing diversity", and in our interactions with each other, and in our painting together, I really experienced what it FEELS like to appreciate and delight in all the differences we brought into the same room, paradoxically making our shared humanity all the clearer.

The commitment to being open to Source, and to not judging anyone else's way of connecting with or expressing their own experience, was different than sharing a set of religious beliefs and practices. While I've certainly benefitted from my many years in various Buddhist groups, it was such relief NOT to have any "doctrine" built on top of that basic commitment. The specifics of belief and "right" and "wrong" didn't seem relevant . . . what a relief!!

Aviva's prayer, on the last day, seemed to describe my experience: she prayed for us humans to discover that we could put down our weapons and tools of destruction (and now I see that judgments are a thoughtform that can evntually manifest as guns) and would decide instead to play guitar for each other, or sing, dance, create beauty for each other. It seems so simple, yet so powerful. What we created, together, gave me a taste of what that would be like as a living, breathing reality, not alone, but with others. The ritual we spontaneously co-created at the end, when Eileen invited us to put purple trust dots on her painting, powerfully embodied that new way of being together.

After most courses and workshops, I'm eager to return to my peaceful house on the lake, with my cats. For the first time I can remember, I wished I could just stay there, painting, with all of you, completely unpractical, but on a feeling level I could have done so.

Blessings to you all and thank you again.

Lark Hammond, High School English Teacher