Looking with the Heart:  Bridging Art and Spirituality

Looking with the Heart: Bridging Art and Spirituality

Art + Wellness | Registration opens 8/11/2026 9:00 AM EDT

114 W 30th Street Ste 200 Winston-Salem, NC 27105 United States
Generations Ctr. Tech Classroom - 213
All levels
10/8/2026-10/29/2026
10:00 AM-11:30 AM EDT on Th
$120.00
$108.00

Looking with the Heart: Bridging Art and Spirituality

Art + Wellness | Registration opens 8/11/2026 9:00 AM EDT

        "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.

Auman, Timothy
Timothy Auman

I am an ordained lay Buddhist, certified mindfulness teacher, and former university chaplain dedicated to the application of Taoist and Zen thought to the issues of everyday life. As a visual artist, my approach to photography focuses on learning (or perhaps we could say re-learning) how to see. My work is influenced by the Miksang (the Tibetan word for “good eye”) movement, having studied with John McQuade and Miriam Hall for many years. In contemplative photography, we focus on taking the time to actually see, to become aware of and present with what is actually happening in the phenomenal world, and then create an equivalent image with our camera. The main difference between Miksang Contemplative Photography and other forms of photography is that Miksang is based on clear perception before an overlay of thoughts, interpretations, preferences, story lines, likes and dislikes, what we think might make a good image and so forth arise. Meditation, dharma teachings and contemplation are woven into all I teach. If you want to know more about contemplative photography, please sign up for a class.