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JOIN FARAWAY IS CLOSE: SPAIN
write   journey   embody
in a magic mountain town in southern Spain
CAPILEIRA, GRANADA
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What will emerge when you give yourself the gift of a retreat to evoke la naturaleza dentro – your true nature - earth  wind fire water and ether –and embody the encounter in writing and movement? 

Min group size 5, Max 8
June 2022
(dates tbd)

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 what is waiting for you in the memory of old mountains
Encounters with land, story, and community in one of the most beautiful villages of the Alpujarras.
(read about us in The Olive Press, expat newspaper in Spain)


​​Facilitated by Shebana Coelho, an award-winning writer, filmmaker and traveler and ​founder of Faraway is Close, a new experiential cross-cultural project - with Sonia Moslero Mellado of Zahorí Massage, Cristina Serrano Paz of Flamenco la Fuente and a lovely group of Al Pujarras residents to guide you in encounters with your imagination, the language of your body, nature, dance, culture and history.
seven days out of time, and in place, to write, journey, embody
deepen your vision and profoundly refresh your body, spirit and imagination.


​​WHY NOW
In a sped-up digital world, divided by fear and more fear - of other cultures, other communities, “other others” - I believe it’s vital to nurture encounters that give us time to slow down and dissolve the borders that keep us from our shared belonging  - to each other, to land, to story – creating one word, one step, one dance at a time, a collective network of resonance and healing. 
CRAFTED TO:
  • inspire visceral writing through evoking the elements within and without to create embodied prose and lyric pieces
  • awaken and reconnect into the language of the body 
  • deepen equilibrium and bring clarity  
  • embrace the mystery of what happens when you pay attention to what seeks it 
  • open the story of the senses through visualizations and healing sessions
  • help integrate body story spirit

​​WHY CAPILEIRA? ​

Steeped in story and history, Capileira lies under the snowy peak of Mt. Mulhacén, in a landscape of valleys and rivers, chestnut and walnut trees, senderos paths edged by acequias of water, with starry skies and views clear across the valley to the shade of sea. 

On my first trip here, as I went walking, someone pointed that way and said, see that beautiful blue in the distance, parece nubes pero es africa, looks like clouds but it's Africa. 

This region of white towns in the Sierra Nevada mountains was the last place the Moors held before they were expelled from Spain; here, they once made silk and the mulberry trees they planted still live in certain forgotten corners. 

I’ve spent two summers and two winters here and I’ve chosen it for this retreat because it’s a place where the natural elements are so tactile:
the earth surrounded by verdant mountains and valleys, and dotted with flattened grass circles of Eras where ancient inhabitants threshed wheat
 
acequias line the paths going into the mountains and in the town itself, small fountains of spring water greet you in corners
 
The town is lit by the fire of an abundant sun that makes some winter days feel like warmer seasons.
 
Sometimes, short spells of wind run through the narrow streets like the memory of a dervish, and then die away to a sublime stillness;  and around it all, through it, under it, over it - is the
 
aether, the ambiente that which you cannot name but it enters every one of your senses and you feel the myth and metaphor of this place -
once populated by Tartessians, Moors, ancient Andalucian farmers and herders - 
…you feel the earth remembering its own stories
and inviting yours…

Guided by these elements, calling on each one everyday, we will imagine, dream, dance and above all, write memoir fiction lyric -  seed new visions and deepen old ones, nudging the storypoems under the skin to rise and manifest, responding to sound, dance, stillness, color and light - all in a nurturing environment.

GETTING TO CAPILEIRA
The nearest airports are Granada and Malaga.  Capileira is approx 1.5 hour drive from Granada and a 2.5 hour drive from Malaga. (Aiport pickup dropoff is included in our package) The Flamenco la Fuente website is a wonderful resource about the area. Also EXPLORE OUR BLOG for more info about Capileira
WHO WE ARE ​
Founded by Shebana Coelho, Faraway is Close seeks to create resonant cross cultural experiences that connect us to different cultures and also to what may feel distant within us, the stories under the skin, indigenous to each of us, the stories only we can tell.
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FACILITATOR - CROSS CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS IN  WRITING, METAPHOR AND MOVEMENT

Shebana Coelho 
is a writer/director, originally from India, now based in New Mexico. She
 received a Fiction Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts and a Fulbright to  Mongolia. Her work spans genres, fiction, films, radio, and theater. Her stories and poems have been published in US and international journals and her documentaries have been broadcast on BBC Radio Four, PBS among others. She is currently also touring the solo play, The Good Manners of Colonized Subjects about colonization and liberation, art and fear. She has facilitated creativity workshops for the past six years in Santa Fe, Mongolia, Palestine, Zuni pueblo and American Samoa. 

Read a full bio at shebanacoelho.com.




Shebana Coelho is one of those people whose natural grace and intelligence can't help but inspire the rest of us to shine brighter. Her natural voice in writing and open heart mixed with imaginative powers make her a fine teacher of writing.  -Joan Logghe  Santa Fe Poet Laureate 2010-2012  Writing teacher for over thirty years
This workshop was a game changer!  Thank you for lighting a fire inside me. Your workshop was a great catalyst  READ MORE TESTIMONIALS


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encounter        inspire         create
catharsis     metaphor      deep play    alchemy embody
I live by these words, and create in them and facilitate through them.
Faraway is Close has grown out of everything I am – someone who grew up in India within Catholic and Muslim communities, then moved to the US as a teenager; a writer, director, filmmaker, poet, dancer, and a nomad who has traveled in South America, Mexico, Mongolia, Bolivia, Peru and Palestine and Spain and is now in the southwestern US, in New Mexico. What moved me as I traveled was seeing my true nature as I encountered land, story and song. As these encounters became embodied experiences, I began to dance, write stories, speak poetry and, above all, listen to the call to live the story that is true to me. Following that has led me to faraway is close…
I feel art heals through metaphor; it creates a safe space for what needs to be seen and borne and transformed. 
I believe the story only you can tell with transform you. It will illuminate us all.

​(Read the EN CAPILIERA blog for more stories)
CO-FACILITATORS
​Faraway is Close is so grateful to be collaborating with an amazing group of Alpujarras residents whose talents are making this first incarnation manifest
​in the mountains.


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Sonia Moslero Mellado

MOVEMENT and MASSAGE
 Zahorí Massage


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Cristina Serrano Paz

FLAMENCO
dancer and founder,
​Flamenco La Fuente
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Jaime Serveto
NATURE WALKS
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Lurdes García Prieto
ALPUJARRAS HISTORY & CULTURE
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​Agustín Sánchez.​


​​WHO YOU ARE
  • All levels and experiences of writing welcome.
  • if you long to walk and write, dream and dance, listen to stories, awaken cellular memories...
  • if you're already in the thick of a writing project, bring your characters, moods, settings and deepen and widen what and who may be hidden.
  • if you’ve never written memoir fiction or lyric before, bring your desire to write and the promise of a blank page and see what happens when you give yourself - and your stories - the time to awaken.
  • if you are birthing another type of creative endeavor and want to encounter nature and deep play that lets a true calling reveal itself….come for that!
  • if you seek to integrate the story of your spirit and body - to deepen the journey in this here, this now...​
  • if you cannot explain why you feel called to journey with us, except that you do…then you – especially you - come this way - let the mystery make itself known when your feet reach la tierra de Capileira.


​WHAT YOU GET
  • daily creativity sessions that evoke the elements within and without and interweave writing, sharing, reading, visualizations, movement dance - all to inspire visceral writing in memoir, metaphor, fiction and to create embodied prose and lyric pieces.
  • each participant receives one hour long private story consultations with Shebana Coelho
  • each participant receives one 50 min individual healing bodywork sessions with message therapist Sonia Moslero Mellado of Zahorí Massage  to awaken the language of the body and integrate it with story and spirit
  • group dance session with Cristina Serrano Paz of Flamenco la Fuente to inspire a llamada, a call to animate the fire and earth of your imagination and body
  • Tea with hints of fresh tomillo thyme that grows wild in the region, infused with views of the Poqueira valley and the Calima, the aura that carries traces of the Sahara - sipped in stillness and contemplation to bring you into the eternal present.  
  • storyencounters with  some of our Capileira friends  to connect us into an ancient lineage of listening to oral histories and evoke memories and fictions, the different story of our same lives, here and there, faraway and close   
  • guided excursions on the land and in museums - in the company of local biologists, historians and archeologists, to share the geology botany, culture and history of the region - all to deepen your encounter with earth and water elements and create oral poems, rising from the land.
  • welcome lunch and farewell dinner  
  • Airport pick up and drop off (from Malaga or Granada)


​​WHAT WE DO
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everyday - with Shebana - we write   embody    journey

…we affirm the blank page and the words (invisible, clamoring to be seen, as Nabokov imagined)

we  read   listen   write    share  move   evoking  image    ceremony    symbols



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Some days, Sonia guides us to move and dance to songs from this place, and the movements brings us fully into this here, this now.…

.... we enter the world flamenco with Cristina who guides us into its story and we move our bodies and arms and invoke the earth and fire of this dance.

With Jaime, we walk past the Eras, past chestnut trees to feel the energy of the Sierra Nevadas, which the Moors called the Mountains of Sun and Wind….

we visit the museum, an old house full of objects that remember – Lurdes and Agustín help us reimagine the past – memories of Moors and farmers….




....and everyday we write....we listen to stories and songs from different cultures and create from that encounter

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​on the first day, we share a lunch together                 on the last day we have a group dinner….
along the way, we meet Capileira residents, who might tell us tales of cortijos, rustic farmhouse and wheat songs, maybe we even sing…
we hear Spanish – and we hear it translated into English – but especially we listen to the cadence of this place, this now
we gaze on flowers and  and write to them. guided, we let inspiration rise...

there are one on one sessions with Shebana to talk through elements of story craft
there are individual body work sessions with the hands of Sonia so that body may speak and be gentled
​
                                                   ….and everyday we  write   journey    create   shape   embody 



Click below for
​SAMPLE PROGRAM
​

schedule_june2020.pdf
File Size: 348 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

 
​
READ OUR CAPILIERA BLOG - WE’ll HAVE UPDATES AND STORIES AND POEMS BRINGING YOU CLOSER AND CLOSER TO OUR TIME TOGETHER
GROUP SIZE
MINIMUM 5  - MAXIMUM 10




SUN & WIND
The SUN is strong in Capileira – it is known for its almost year around sunshine
and it’s also high - about 4,711ft (1.436m) above sea level; sometimes, mist and clouds may waft into town.
Other times, it might rain.  Or we might get a windy afternoon.
The Moors called the Sierra Nevadas the mountains of Sun and Wind. 

So - we adapt our program to these mountains and the weather, 
and are sensitive to the changeable elements.


WALKING COMFORT
The roads of Capileira are uneven stone paved streets and they slope up and down
– comfortable thick soled shoes are a must for the town
and for the rural paths (which are often more even than the streets!)
Walking is a significant part our workshop, up a gently curved paved road
to the house where we meet everyday, and down from it to the village square (about a 10 min walk)
Our guided excursions are on paths that are even in places and in other places
have roughly hewn stone steps.

INFO & DETAILS

CONTACT US VIA EMAIL (writeoutloud13 at gmail dot com) OR
PHONE/Whatsapp +1 609 651 5840 (US Mountain Standard Time) ​
follow us on facebook
CONTACT US FOR DETAILS 

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ADVENTURES IN LODGING
Explore these lodging options and special discounts from our friends in Capileira


US to SPAIN TICKET SUGGESTIONS
​– we love Norwegian Airlines which has great prices from the US to Spain,
also, we hear that IBERIA and UNITED sometimes have great discounts from the southwestern US

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THE HEARTH OF THE MATTER
Our day creativity writing sessions will be held at
CORTIJO LOS CASTAÑOS
a beautiful spacious property with a terrace, gardens, a pool and stunning views

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ADVENTURES IN LODGING
As a long time independent traveler,
I wanted this retreat to have elements of guided sessions and solo endeavors.

 I’ve always found choosing a place to lay your head to be an 
intriguing exploration -  an opportunity to encounter who lives in the places 
you will soon visit.  
 
Choose your own adventure in lodging!
We can recommend friends who have properties and 
one primary hotel in town that offers a special discount.
EXPLORE MORE
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over
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  • Home
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  • Testimonials
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