a word from previous participants

The Writer's Oasis is a 30-day spell! Gently and deeply, reaching into the subconscious obstructions to my creative visioning and flow.  I was profoundly re-minded of the wealth of my personal archives of memory, journaling, half-forgotten works-in-progress and years of wild dreaming around concepts that I later downscaled or left on the shelf, having lost faith or the initial fire of momentum. There were subtle layers like accumulated dust or cataracts grown over time, gradually blinding me to what has been here —within me— all along. The 30-day commitment to a dedicated and intentional space, has been a revitalizing practice of consistency, daily prioritizing my own deepest desires, grounding me in a paradoxically liberating routine. This simple showing up, day after day, has been healing my shaky confidence in keeping such promises to myself. I entered each session with joyful ease and anticipation of adventure, because I travelled into spaces within my body and imagination that surprised me again and again. Toni's ability to co-create a beautiful and safe container for this kind of re(dis)covery, is truly extraordinary. She clearly knows this path from having walked it and listened well to its teachings. I was tired of my old "not enough time and resources" song and bored with my own vocabulary even when approaching new projects. The prompts and encompassing processes embedded in this course feel like serious play, full permission to let go of self-imposed boundaries on what's possible in my work and life, here and now. The Writer's Oasis helped me shed weathered skin, reawakening my sensory and intuitive ways of exploring what I want to bring into the world through my art and my being. I am immeasurably grateful for this and excited about what more my older and current projects can reveal to me, through this fresh way of navigating.

Malika Ndlovu

Poet, Performer & Creative Applied Arts Practitioner

Thank you for helping me find my voice again in writting, I feel so much more confident now to use my written words

Nomathamsanqa Makade

Owner & Creator: Gaia's Love

It's an attempt to convey just how transformative and cathartic the live calls are with you. You have a gentle, yet unquivering way of evoking the deeper, grittier work to be done. I am so good at staying in the comfort zone, where it's cosy and easy, —but that's seldom where any real growth and healing happens. And learning to write, with you, has been more real, and more powerful in moving the tectonic plates inside of me, than many other therapies or ways of processing and learning. Thank you (and at the same time those two words don't feel nearly sufficient)!

Claire Coetzee

Artist & Writer

The Writer’s Oasis is imperative; not only for writers or those who want to write, but for all artists. It is a workshop which awakens. Where you are gently held and nurtured to reconnect with the heart and express and create from that enlivened place. The Writer’s Oasis evolved and transformed my writing and its practice. To feel the quiet yet exigent spaces within and give them voice and truth. It made me aware that this creative space is a refuge, a haven and the life blood of our inspiration and momentum. It allowed me to not only fully connect with the project I am working on, but to reconnect my writing and all my creative practices, with my heart so that it is an embodied experience of creation and play.

Nathaniel-Antonio Lloyd

Writer, Actor, Film Script Developer

One always longs for a safe space in which to bring the the vulnerability of one's writing projects and give them space in which to breathe, unfold, and find the courage to reveal their potential expansiveness and wonder. You have created that space for me. Instead of pressure and deadlines, this space gave me permission to allow my writing to unveil its treasures in its own time. I have learnt how to come to my writing with a buzzing anticipatory joy instead of feeling crippled with trepidation and overwhelm. I have learnt how to listen and breathe, and listen to what wants to be written. I have learnt how to find and activate the positive practices that support my writing, so that I am drawing on the abundance of a rich and resourceful foundation. And with all this, has come the clarity and patience to consistently show up at the page and trust in the process- that what needs to be written, the nature of its framework and the unfolding of its content, will reveal it’s form and structure in its own time. It has also empowered me with the knowing and affirmed that I am committed to my writing life, and that it is worth committing to because it fills me with the satisfied thrumming of a deep contentment and peace, which feeds and enriches my life exponentially in a myriad different ways. I am truly able to recognise and see the value of writing for my life and the need for it to be shared with with others.

Tina Schouw

Heartist, Singer-Songwriter, Writer

The Writer's Oasis was a transformational experience. I met that part of myself that writes with joy and ease, and gave her space to breathe and play. Toni's facilitation is gentle and deep. She nurtures, nourishes and invites you into creativity. She creates a safe space to go into the edgy areas where growth happens. The gifts from this month continue to unfold for me. I can't recommend this experience enough

Maia Marie

Healer, Facilitator & Writer