Mindfulness Meets Mystical Poetry
“I loved this course and it just keeps on giving! Fay introduced us to a way of being with a poem that doesn’t depend on ‘understanding’ it…instead, we each found our own response … and I continue to experience what a rich, supportive, life-changing resource poetry can be. It was a joy to be part of this group, led by Fay in such a respectful and gentle way”
“I’m a great reader but had never got into poetry until Fay read a wonderful poem during one of the evening practices. After doing her course I am a convert, now reading poetry, reading about poetry and learning some poems by heart. I am loving my poetry journey, thank you Fay.”
“The mystical poetry course has been inspiring, friendly and eye-opening. Fay creates a safe environment in which to explore beautiful poems in a completely new way with like-minded souls. Highly recommended.”
“Fay has opened up my whole being to poetry and Mindfulness. The course is inspiring, fun, and very useful to me in my daily life. It has opened me up to the world around me and the beautiful beings that inhabit it. I never let a day go by without inviting a poem in to support me. Thanks Fay for your wonderful facilitation skills. I have loved sharing such a kind caring space.”
“I loved Fay reading the poems alive and the connections made to mindfulness and life. It was beautiful.”
“There developed a lovely openness between the group. Touching the depths of Mystical Poetry alongside a deepening into Practice.”
“I particularly like talking with such a diverse group of people who are literally all over the world”
“I was fascinated by how different my responses to the poems were listening to you read them after our session of mindfulness, compared to my initial reading of them when you emailed them. I particularly loved your ideas about ways to receive a poem”
6 Week Online Course With Fay Adams
Live weekly sessions on Zoom on Monday evenings 7pm – 8.30pm GMT
The online session dates are:
Monday 19th May 2025
Monday 26th May 2025
Monday 2nd June 2025
Monday 9th June 2025
Monday 16th June 2025
Monday 23rd June 2025
To book please click ‘Book Here’
In this course we’ll be hovering at the crossover between mindfulness practice and spiritual or contemplative practice, and we’ll see what the words of mystics of the past and present can teach us.
Poetry has a special power to reach the heart, and mindfulness can clear a space to enable us to receive and digest the wisdom in a poem. What a marvellous combination! Letting the words of the world’s mystics into our practice may offer comfort, open the mind/heart, inspire insight, or touch us where we need to feel. Mystical poetry can reach within us to ignite a flame that connects us to the universal and the divine.
Though these poems may sometimes use religious terminology or ideas, we will be taking their teachings as wisdom that we can each relate to in our own way.
The course will be exploratory, with everyone relating to the poetry from the context of their own practice, whether they would consider it spiritual or secular. As such we will hold an attitude of ‘no right or wrong’ when it comes to interpreting or understanding a poem. We will also experiment with taking the poems as meditation instructions and there will be guidance on how to do this at home between meetings. We use the word ‘mystical’ in a loose way, to include all poetry that opens us to perspectives that take us beyond the personal and towards a universal wisdom – whether we call this by the name of a deity or whether we refer to it in another way.
Each week we will listen to poems and practise being present for a while, allowing the teachings in a poem to ferment and find their truth within us. After this we will have space either for journaling (or writing our own poem) in silence or for mindful sharing in small groups, followed by inquiry and discussion in the larger group. There will be opportunities for those who want to, to volunteer to read a poem (written or chosen by themselves) to the group at the end of the session.
Expect poetry from Sufi, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian mystics and from others that don’t identify with a particular tradition. We’ll draw from the likes of Hafiz, Rumi, St. Francis of Assisi, Saigyo, Mary Oliver, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Jeff Foster and many more.
This course is open to all. We welcome those with mindfulness experience or without, and those who haven’t done a Mindfulness meets Mystical Poetry course before, as well as those who have (for the latter there will be new poems).
I am making a home inside myself. A shelter
of kindness where everything
is forgiven, everything allowed—a quiet patch
of sunlight to stretch out without hurry,
where all that has been banished
and buried is welcomed, spoken, listened to—released.
I whisper hallelujah to the friendly
sky. Watch now as I burst into blossom.
Excerpt from The Most Important Thing – Julia Fehrenbacher