Looking with the Heart: Bridging Art and Spirituality
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. ” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Photography and poetry invite us to slow down, pay attention, and encounter the world with fresh eyes. Together, they become creative and contemplative practices that help bridge art and spirituality, awakening us to beauty, mystery, and the sacred woven into everyday life.
In this course, participants will use photography and poetry as companion arts, exploring how images and words deepen one another. Through mindful photographic explorations, reflective writing, the work of contemporary photographers and poets, and gentle group conversation, we’ll discover how both image and poem can become pathways to presence, compassion, and wonder. No previous experience with photography or poetry is necessary.
Whether using a camera or smartphone, writing your first poem or your hundredth, you’ll learn that the goal is not artistic perfection but authentic attention. We’ll practice seeing beyond appearances, listening beneath the surface, and discovering how creative expression can deepen both our awareness of the world and our understanding of ourselves.
Open to people of every faith tradition, spiritual path, or no particular tradition at all, this course offers a welcoming space to explore the ways photography and poetry can become practices of reflection, connection, and transformation. Together, we’ll discover that art is not simply something we create—it is also a way of seeing, and perhaps even a way of being.
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