Coming January 5, 2026
The Writing Cocoon: Where Your Words Transform in Sacred Space
You have stories living inside you that need to breathe.
But when you sit down to write, the cursor blinks at you accusingly. The blank page feels like judgment. And that voice in your head—the one that says "Who do you think you are?" or "This isn't good enough" or "What's the point?"—gets louder than the words you're trying to birth.
Your inner critic is editing before you've even begun.
What if you had a protected space where your words could emerge without performance? Where your creative self could dissolve into formlessness and reorganize into something true?
Welcome to The Writing Cocoon.
This Isn't Your Average Writing Group
The caterpillar doesn't become a butterfly by trying harder or being more disciplined. It enters the cocoon—that dark, quiet, protected space—and surrenders to complete transformation. It dissolves into what scientists call "imaginal soup" before reorganizing into its winged form.
Your writing needs the same conditions.
The Writing Cocoon is a weekly gathering where women drop out of their thinking minds and into their bodies before they create. Where the blank page becomes a meditation, not a performance. Where you're held by other women who understand that the messy middle of creative work is the sacred work.
This is writing as spiritual practice. Writing as embodied wisdom. Writing as quiet resistance against a culture that demands we produce, polish, and perform before we've even had the chance to discover what's true.
How The Writing Cocoon Works
Every Monday, 12-1 pm PT (Virtual)
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We Arrive
We begin with a check-in—verbal or in the chat, whatever feels right for you today. No pressure to have profound insights or report on your week's accomplishments. Just: How are you arriving to this space today?
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We Drop In
Before we write, we leave the mind and enter the body through guided meditation, body scan, or visualization. This isn't optional—it's the foundation. When we create from our bodies rather than our busy brains, we access wisdom that thinking alone can't reach.
The writing guide for the day (a rotating role among group members) leads us into this embodied space, creating the cocoon-like conditions where transformation happens.
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We Create
Twenty uninterrupted minutes to write, collage, paint, move, knit, scribble—whatever form your creativity wants to take today.
The prompt is offered as a doorway, not a demand. Use it if it serves you. Ignore it if something else is calling. This is your cocoon time. Your dissolution. Your sacred becoming.
Try writing longhand. Try typing. Notice what your body needs today and trust it.
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We Share
What you created is worthwhile. Full stop.
No disclaimers. No apologies. No "this is probably terrible but..."
You share what you wrote (in full or in a timed block, depending on the day's structure). Then you mute yourself and receive—let the love from this circle wash over your brand-new creation.
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We Witness
While someone shares, we take notes in the chat about what we loved. The rhythm that moved us. The metaphor that landed. The feeling it evoked in our bodies. The line we want to remember forever.
We respond to the work itself—treating each piece as a brand-new being that just arrived in the world. A generous gift. Something to be held with care and tenderness.
We keep the personal out of our responses (ours and theirs) unless the sharer specifically invites deeper context. Each creation stands alone, complete, worthy.
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We Close
A brief landing, a collective exhale, a return to ordinary time—though nothing about what just happened was ordinary.
The Quiet Revolution
Every time you choose to create something that serves no "productive" purpose, you're pushing back against a system that wants to extract value from every moment of your life. Every stitch, every brushstroke, every word written for the simple pleasure of writing it—these are small rebellions.
And small rebellions, practiced together, change everything.
When we gather to make art that won't be sold, projects that may never be "finished," beauty that exists simply because we decided it should—we're modeling a different way of being. We're saying: My hands have worth beyond what they can produce. My time has value beyond what it can earn. My creativity belongs to me.
This is how we change the world: one person at a time, one creative act at a time, slowly rebuilding our capacity for presence, beauty, and genuine human connection.
What to Bring
Whatever creative project you're working on or want to start
Your own supplies and materials
Permission to work slowly, imperfectly, joyfully
An openness to the process, not the product
Yourself, exactly as you are—tired, curious, longing for something different
About Maggie and This Work
Mindful Making is led by Maggie, an artist elder and seasoned therapist who has spent 25+ years exploring the intersection of creativity and healing. I've come to understand that these aren't separate vocations—they're two expressions of the same deep belief: that we heal through presence, through process, through the courage to create even when (especially when) we don't know what will emerge.
As an artist, I know intimately the voice of the inner critic, the fear of the blank page, the way perfectionism can strangle joy. I know what it's like to struggle, to start over, to make something that will never be "good enough" and to love it anyway.
As a therapist, I understand how our creative wounds form—the childhood moments when we learned our art wasn't good enough, the cultural messages that tell us creativity must be productive, the way capitalism has colonized even our joy. I know how to hold space for what's tender, what's stuck, what's trying to emerge.
I created Mindful Making because I needed it. I was tired of the relentless productivity culture that had crept even into my art practice. I wanted space to create with no agenda, surrounded by others doing the same. I wanted to practice what I preach as a therapist: that our worth isn't tied to our output, that process matters more than product, that slowing down is a radical act.
Now, I hold this space for others—not as someone who has transcended creative struggle, but as an elder who has learned how to stay with it, how to be gentle with it, how to let it teach me. I bring my artist's understanding of the creative process and my therapist's capacity to hold whatever arises without needing to fix it.
This work is my resistance. My offering. My practice.
If you're tired of the hustle, hungry for authentic connection, and ready to reclaim your creativity from the productivity machine—welcome. There's space for you here.
Who This is For
Anyone exhausted by the hustle. Anyone who's forgotten what it feels like to make something just because. Anyone craving authentic connection in a world of performative productivity. Anyone who senses that the small act of sitting down to create — without rushing, without judgment, without profit motive — is actually a profound political and spiritual statement.
You don't need to be an artist. You just need to believe that beauty, slowness, and presence matter. That you matter, beyond what you produce.
Every 4th Sunday, 1-3 pm
Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane, WA
Coming Soon: Virtual Monthly Mindful Making
Frequently Asked Questions
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Absolutely not. You just need to be curious about working with your hands and willing to practice being present.
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That's okay. Bring something simple—a sketchbook and pencil, yarn and needles, a journal. The "what" matters far less than the willingness to show up.
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Come when you can. There's no commitment requirement and no guilt about missing sessions. Each gathering stands alone.
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No. While the space is held by a therapist with therapeutic awareness, this is not group therapy. It's a creative community practicing presence together.
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The meditations are brief, optional, and trauma-informed. You're always welcome to simply sit quietly or arrive/leave a few minutes late if that serves you better.
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Yes! Just make sure they register so we know to expect them.
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cancellation policy
A Final Word
If you're exhausted by the hustle, hungry for authentic connection, and ready to reclaim your creativity from the productivity machine—welcome.
If you've been waiting for permission to create without pressure, to value process over product, to practice resistance through beauty—this is your permission.
If you believe that small acts matter, that presence is powerful, and that we can build the world we want to live in one mindful stitch at a time—there's space for you here.
Your hands remember how to make beauty.
Your body knows how to be present.
Your spirit is hungry for this work.
Join us.
A Final Word
If you're exhausted by the hustle, hungry for authentic connection, and ready to reclaim your creativity from the productivity machine—welcome.
If you've been waiting for permission to create without pressure, to value process over product, to practice resistance through beauty—this is your permission.
If you believe that small acts matter, that presence is powerful, and that we can build the world we want to live in one mindful stitch at a time—there's space for you here.