Curious Boulder: Tap Your Juju

Boulder, Colorado

June 24th – 26th, 2011

You see inspiration for art in the world all around you, but you haven’t picked up a paintbrush or even a piece of sketching charcoal in months. You know that you want to be a writer – but you have pages of notebooks left unfilled. You’re starting to think maybe you were wrong. Maybe you don’t really have the magic to create art inside you.

Don’t despair. If you’ve lost your creative juju, we know the perfect place to gather more – Boulder, Colorado.

Curious Excursions is a creativity workshop that promises to release your creative juju for you to enjoy for a long, long time. You’ll join an adventurous tribe of artists just like yourself – people who badly want to give in to the impulse to create, but lack the inspiration, the fire, the hidden magic.

That creative fire is called your juju. I think of it almost as magic dust. It floats in the air around the things that inspire you to create. Sometimes, though, we’ve looked at the same things and people and places so often, we can’t see the juju anymore.

That’s why every creative person needs a spare pocketful to pull out and throw in the air now and again, when the magic needs a little boost to get going.

We’ll take you on an epic quest for new juju in the city itself, and the delightful charm of Boulder will lure it out of you. This isn’t a travel tour and it isn’t the sort of workshop where you stare at an easel all day. This is a serious adventure, a way to seek out the wellsprings of juju all around you and gather it up for all those times when you feel lost and drained of your creative juice.

It’s a workshop like no other. Just enough structure to keep you challenging yourself, mixed with lots of room to roam, create, and break all the rules. You can’t imagine finding your juju by following the rules, can you? It’s not in the nature of juju to be caught the same way every time.

We’ll spend a weekend together in Boulder being as free and wild in our thoughts as possible, devoting ourselves to the creative quest of finding a precious cache of juju. When you find some – a place that brings a story to mind, a person whose casual lifestyle intrigues you, a hat bobbing above the heads in the marketplace – you’ll capture it between the pages of your Moleskine notebook.

And when you need some juju in your life in the future, all you need to do is open those pages again and set it free.

How to Gather Juju

You only have one weekend to replenish that creative well you’d thought was dry, only one week to collect as much juju as your Moleskine notebook, your brain, and your senses can hold. That’s why we use every one of our creative senses to find those hidden caches of juju that can be sought out all over this amazing city.

Friday, June 24th

Our quest to gather juju begins with a welcome afternoon party where I’ll share the basic secrets of finding your juju. You’ll learn how to break the spell of the blank page and start right away to capture your juju in your Moleskine notebook. You’ll also receive your Juju Kit, full of goodies to make your weekend magical and fun.

Then you’ll be free Friday evening to explore Boulder’s funky urban landscape, looking for the sparkle of juju in every nook and cranny. You may find it glowing from the tip of the almost touchable Flatiron mountains, glittering in a shop window or tucked in a brick-lined passageway that leads you to a whole new place. You might even find some under the hat of a wacky busker doing his tricks for captive audiences on the Pearl Street Mall.

When it comes to juju, we all see it in different places than everyone else. That means that you decide where, in Boulder’s boundless possibilities, you will seek it out. Trust your instincts; juju is fairly magical, after all. Logic won’t help you in your quest for it. We’ll offer plenty of suggestions for how to make the most of your free time in Boulder.

Saturday, June 25th

We’ll start the day in our downtown classroom, where I’ll hand you more keys to play in your journal. With these keys, you’ll be able to open the secrets to your surroundings and access the abundant creativity living inside you. These keys are deceptively simple and guaranteed to provide fun during the weekend and access long afterward to tap your juju anytime and anywhere.

At lunch time, you’ll be free to go on a ‘mall crawl’ letting your unique sense of juju lead you down the Pearl Street Mall, dipping into one of the many galleries or shops found only in Boulder. You might have your fortune told by a tarot reader or mystic who’s set up shop on the mall.

You can feast on lunch at any one of Boulder’s many eateries, or pop over to the Boulder Farmer’s Market, where juju is guaranteed. The riot of color, texture and flavor in the vendor’s fruit and vegetable stalls will spark your creativity and your taste buds. The market offers an excellent place to people watch (Boulder’s got quite eclectic citizens!) and get a bite to eat from one of the many delicious food vendors. I love the dumplings but perhaps you’d go for a market salad, a smoothie, or one of the best tamales anywhere!

Every time you gather a little more juju, tuck it away in your notebook for safekeeping, and keep listening for more.

We’ll digest the morning’s bounty at a creative play session at my all-time favorite store, Two Hands Paperie. We’ll gather in the studio in the back of the shop, get out our notebooks, markers, glue, scissors, and have a group session, pasting and playing and sharing our juju. I’ll bring my magical box of juju materials for you to rifle through and borrow from.

Before we scatter for the day, join me back in our studio for a fun yoga and dance party. I’ll lead you through a simple asana series designed to liberate your juju even more, then we’ll break into dance (not break dance, but if you can do that, more juju on you!). Movement and play are essential to free your juju and this will be the perfect way to play.

From late afternoon on, you’ll be free to indulge in one of Boulder’s many luxuries: a spa treatment, a walk along the creek path or a hike in the foothills. Time spent in contemplation, roaming in nature or honoring your body’s rhythms is essential to making all the juju you’ve gathered stick.

You can also schedule a special juju coaching session with me to help you gain clarity, get past a recurring issue, or make plans to further your project once you get home. Only a few of these will be available, and it will be on a first registered, first served basis.

In the evening, you can relax in the soft mountain air, take in a show at the outdoor cinema or a Shakespearean play on the gorgeous university campus, or dine al fresco at one of Boulder’s world-class restaurants. Everything is within walking distance and you’ll love the mellow vibe that will allow you to open up and enjoy your juju even more.

Wherever you go, breathe deeply. Scents and smells will deepen your empathy with what you see, and it is when you are most in tune with the world around you that you are most likely to hear the sound of your juju in the music around you, or see it in the face of the stall-seller who just sold a painting.

Sunday, June 26th

One more day together, and we’ll make the most of it! Bring your Moleskine and together we’ll spend the day in laughter, games, merriment – and lots of juju gathering.

We’ll start the day in our downtown classroom, where I’ll give you more tools to capture your juju. I’ll coach you past any lingering hesitations to fully embracing your creative exuberance.

At lunchtime, you can soak in Boulder’s mellow Sunday vibe and make any last-minute visits before our afternoon meeting…

Which will be very special! We’ll bus up to Chautauqua Park, perched above the city, where we’ll use the stunning mountain views and pine forests as inspiration for ever more compelling tall tales that might lure your muse closer. We’ll start with a small hike to gather juju from the forest and hills.

Then, we’ll spread our blankets out on the great lawn at Chautauqua, where creative juju has been known to linger in the grass and under the sheltering trees. Together we’ll share our juju, showing our journals and revealing not only the magic of the pages, but our process.

You’ve gathered a delightful hoard of juju over the last week; now it’s time to share the tale of your quest for it with your companions, so that you may all learn the true value of your own intuition.

Intuition helps us discover that we really do have the wisdom to recognize what we need locked away inside us, and we only need to trust in it to find new sources of the juju we need to badly to stay creative.

You’ll also discover more about your companions, where they seek their juju, and how they’ve learned new ways of finding some. Take these stories to heart. They’re rather like aficionados sharing the best place to find good wine or a beautiful restaurant. All the intuition of the group makes those chance encounters with your juju into places you can revisit again and again. Later, when you’re home, you’ll realize how much you learned not only from me but from your fellow juju journeyers.

By this time, you surely have no fear you will ever lose your juju again, for your notebook will be full of your harvest from the weekend. After dinner, you may choose one last juju excursion – a stroll to invite the unexpected. Now it’s time to seek out juju in ever-more unlikely places, for juju is fickle and without rules. The unexpected draws more unexpected things, and so it is when you play and laugh and explore that you’re most likely to pull your hand down – quite by chance – on a thriving pocket of juju.

Why Boulder?

If you’d been, you’d never ask – and if you have been you’re probably already aching to return. Boulder is a playground for people who have grown too tall for the ones our children enjoy. It is full of curious corners and creative inspiration.

Boulder is an epicenter of creativity, innovation and spiritual pursuit, and it’s no surprise that people come from around the world to inhale the fresh mountain air, soak in the mellow vibe, and gain permission to be just a little bit wacky. It is a city of artists and innovators, and if ever there were a place an unquenchable fountain of juju was likely to be found in the United States, this is it.

I lived in Boulder for eight years – this is where I birthed and built my business, Original Impulse. The size of the city, the mellow and creative vibe, the stunning beauty of the foothills, the permission to get wacky all contribute to make this a great place for a Curious Excursion.

What’s Included in the Workshop?

• Welcome afternoon reception
• Two and a half days of instruction in our classroom and throughout the city itself
• Our excursion kit! Which includes:
• Curious Passport – Going on a curious excursion without one is not recommended. It is our guide to explode your creativity, our creative travel tools, and our hints at places where juju is likely to be found.
• Moleskine accordion notebook – By the time you complete your workshop, you will have this notebook filled from cover to cover with new ideas, stories, thoughts, wonders, and moments of genius. This is your juju. Keep it safe.
• Boulder mini-guide – For purely practical purposes, including how to get to Boulder, where we enjoy creative lodging and eating and shopping, and how to get around the city in your quest for more juju.
• Plus more treats in your Juju Kit – I’ll keep those as a surprise for you!

What’s the Cost?

All of the above is only $450. Do sign up quickly – so many creative people out there need juju to perform their best, and they’re desperate to find some. Our workshops can and do sell out quickly, so make sure you get your spot reserved! You can download our application, with all the information and policies you need, right here.

A 45-minute private coaching session with Cynthia can be scheduled for an additional $99. This is for you if you want help to plan a project, get over a creative block or gain insight into a project you want to launch but don’t know how.

Curious to Know More?

Check out our FAQ here.

What Are You Waiting for?

The longer you wait, the more your supply of juju will deplete. There are so many sources of juju it breaks our heart to think of you going without it. Trying to make art without juju is, like the old tale, like trying to cook without salt. It can be done, but it is so unsatisfying that people have given up gold and jewels before they gave up that little pot of seasoning.

For an artist, juju is just as essential. Wouldn’t having that elusive, indescribable spice in your creative work again be priceless?

Come join us. Replenish your supply of juju, and your art will be full of that impossible to describe, magical, amazing quality yet again.

What are you waiting for?