program

Mindful Photography for Joy, Awe and Gratitude

UPCOMING WORKSHOP ON ZOOM « Tuesday, June 9, 11 AM–12:30 PM (PST)

Awaken your sense of wonder, deepen your connection to the present, and capture the beauty around you.

Join with community members from the Hidden Truths Project and Chronic Pain projects for an immersive 90-minute online session exploring mindful photography as a tool for joy, awe, and gratitude. From wherever you are, through a window, from your seat, at your home. Lead by facilitator, Alison Beaumont, you will be guided through exercises that invite contemplation, encourage you to tune into your surroundings, and ask you to use your camera or phone to create images of these moments of wonder. Research shows that intentionally seeking awe significantly boosts joy, gratitude, and compassion.

Through guided activities and group sharing, you’ll uncover how photography can bring mindful presence and connection. No photography experience required, just curiosity.

Materials Needed

● Smartphone or tablet with camera capabilities or access to your existing images via camera roll on device

● Notebook/paper and pen for jotting down thoughts and reflections

● Ability to access Padlet (Padlet is a cloud-based, interactive software platform that functions as a digital bulletin board. It allows users to create, organize, and share content in real-time). We will be using Padlet during the workshop. You do not have to sign up in advance, we will have a QR code to log into Padlet. You can use anonymously or sign up for a free account – https://padlet.com

Workshop Outline

Open session & gathering
Intro to Mindful photography
Finding Joy – what is joy?
How to use Padlet and screen share
Find existing image representing “Joy” on your device (phone/camera) and post to Padlet (no words needed)
Breakout rooms session: of 2-3 participants to share their image and why it represents joy
Intro to Awe & Gratitude – How we may experience awe & gratitude?
Awe & Gratitude image: post your image to Padlet
Breakout rooms: Share images of “Awe and Gratitude”
Intro to optional POST workshop activities
Closing: Your takeaway and gratitude
Q & A

Register for the Workshop

The workshop is held on Zoom and is free to attend.

Tuesday, June 9 from 11 am to 12:30 pm PST

12:00 pm – 1:30 pm MDT
1:00 pm – 2:30 pm CDT
2:00 pm – 3:30 pm EDT

About Our Facilitator

Alison Beaumont, an English settler from West Yorkshire, England, earned her BA in Photography (honors) at Staffordshire University before relocating to the Sylix Okanagan Territory (Oyama/Lake Country), BC, Canada in 2008. Alison’s art practice is focused on the human and more-than-human interconnections, artworks take the form of site-specific and place-based projects. Alison has completed a Post-Graduate Certificate in Therapeutic Photography at Robert Gordon University. She applies this expertise to offer photo-based programs, including youth initiatives and therapeutic and mindful photography workshops. Through these endeavors, she harnesses the power of photography to inspire, empower, and explore social change.

spiritofthemoment.ca | @alisonbeaumont.art

Kathleen Kearns In Program

Musical Medicine

“IF NOT US, THEN WHO?” ONLINE WELL-BEING FORUM

Musical Medicine: Where Science Meets the Soul

Join us for Musical Medicine — an intimate, immersive look at how music shapes our bodies, shifts our emotions, and helps us make meaning of what we live through.

Music can do astonishing things:

Quiet or awaken the nervous system.
Unlock emotions too layered for words.
Offer comfort in moments of isolation or illness.
And, for some people with epilepsy, stir memories and sensations powerful enough to provoke musicogenic seizures — revealing just how deeply sound, feeling, and brain activity intertwine.

Musician and advocate Guy W. Stoker will take us inside Purple Universe — his newly released, genre-spanning album rooted in his personal journey with epilepsy. Through story and song, he invites us into experiences rarely shared: the fog of medication, the unpredictability of seizures, the loneliness that can follow — and the fierce creativity that refuses to be silenced.

In one of the album’s most striking turns, we even hear from epilepsy itself — voiced not as a condition, but as a presence that shapes, challenges, and transforms a life.

Thursday, December 11, 2025
10:30 AM PST | On Zoom

Music as knowledge. Music as healing. Music as storytelling — from the inside out.

Register for Musical Medicine

Have a story or question to share?
We’d love to include your voice. Email your thoughts to hm*******@*****************ct.com.

GUY W. STOKER

About Guy W. Stoker

Guy W. Stoker is a British pianist, composer, and singer-songwriter from Northumberland, now based in Paris. Living with epilepsy since early childhood, Guy has transformed personal experience into art that bridges music, science, and advocacy.

With a Master’s in Contemporary Composition from UCF, he combines musical performance with neurological research to illuminate how sound and emotion intersect with the brain’s complex workings. Through Purple Universe and his public engagements, Guy invites audiences to listen — not only to music, but to the stories it tells about the human experience of neurological diversity.

If Not Us, Then Who? is more than a well-being forum — it’s a gathering for truth-telling. A place where the realities of epilepsy, so often hidden or misunderstood, can finally be spoken out loud. Hosted by the Hidden Truths Project, this online event invites us to step into the human side of the condition: the fear, the creativity, the resilience, the daily unknowns — and the art that emerges from them.