Enhance your well-being with a new series of creative courses and activities
Mon, February 14, 2022
Introduce some creative inspiration and wellbeing into your life with a new series of online and in-person courses from Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council.
Offered as part of its Creative Causeway and Art Beat initiatives, there’s a host of activities to enjoy in the weeks and months ahead beginning on Monday 21st February with a six-week online drawing class for adults led by professional artist, Robert Peters. Participants will learn traditional drawing techniques with a focus on the enhanced benefits of the visual arts to overall wellbeing.
Through each session, you will be encouraged to quieten the verbal reasoning side of your brain, connect with others, learn new skills, and enjoy the moment. The course is suitable for beginners – all you need is some pencils and a sketch pad.
On Tuesday 22nd February, unwind and restore at Portrush Town Hall via a Sound Bath Experience delivered by Tessa Ann from The Sound Healing Spa. This is a unique immersive experience where you will relax to the therapeutic sounds of Tibetan bowls, crystal singing bowls, gongs, voice, and percussion. Sound Bath sessions are contact-free and will leave you feeling soothed and uplifted. Please leave your phone and your worries behind, wear comfortable clothes and bring a mat, pillow, and cosy blanket.
Two additional six-week online courses are available from Wednesday 23rd February. ‘Mindful Mornings’ with Fiona Montgomery runs from 10am-11am and ‘The Guitar Social’ with Brendan Popplestone, from 7pm-8pm.
The Mindful Mornings series will support you to develop or refocus your mindful meditation home practice and emphasise how formal meditation practice can impact our daily lives and help with our creative expression. Each session will include gentle, mindful movement, meditations, journaling and will begin and end with a poem.
At the Guitar Social, multi-talented musician and facilitator Brendan Popplestone will offer group guitar lessons that focus not just on technique but on the magic that emerges when musicians meet. It’s not just about complicated scales and theory, although this will play a part, but the creative expression that emerges from learning and playing together.
Nature and wellbeing walks are also on offer starting on Friday 25th March at Downhill Beach from 11am – 12pm. Led by Tree & Tide, a wellbeing company passionate about increasing your capacity to handle the hard things in life and savour the good stuff, the theme for the walk is ‘Nourish’. Slow down and connect with the natural environment and find a calmer, quieter pace, learning ways to nourish ourselves in body, mind, and spirit.
The second walk takes place on Friday 1st April from 11am – 12pm at Bishops Gate Forest, Downhill. The theme for this walk is “Rooted”, with participants journeying slowly through the forest, immersing themselves in the natural environment and learning a way of being that is more rooted for the many storms and challenges of life.
For more information and to book a place on any of these upcoming initiatives please visit www.roevalleyarts.com or www.flowerfield.org or email karen.smyth@causewaycoastandglens.gov.uk.