Living in the Field of

Beauty

Learn a powerful practice of beauty that you can return to, especially in difficult times.

Tuesdays 22 + 29 Sept, 6 + 13 + 20 Oct 2026 on Zoom

7pm-8:30pm SAST/ 12pm EST/ 9am PST/ 5pm UK

R2995 (International rate approx $180 USD) or R1995 (for South Africans)

Listen, are you breathing just a little
and calling it a life?
Mary Oliver

You get up. Make the coffee.

Outside, the sky shakes out its wings and unfolds in all its morning splendour. You peer through the window, grateful it matches the weather report. You join the daily choreography, swiping and nodding. You say things like "Sure, sounds good!" with the calm authority of someone fluent in the performance. You pick up the kids and realise you can't even recall the drive. A rainbow appears.

"Look, kids, a rainbow!" you say, pointing to the sky. How nice. But it doesn't really touch you. It's more like a background screensaver, something to wade through on your way to your next meeting.

Sometimes you think back to your childhood, a time when the world felt stranger, more alive. That was a long time ago though. Rain is precipitation. Trees are oxygen machines. We've stopped seeing the world we actually live in. We've become very well-informed zombies.

Beauty has been repackaged as something to purchase rather than perceive. It has been flattened into prettiness or perfection, leaving us hungry for something unnamed and largely forgotten. The soul needs beauty as the body needs food. Without it, we stop engaging with life and begin merely enduring it. We become numb.

Some people refer to this disconnection from beauty as 'disenchantment'. More than a century ago Max Weber described this feeling. As rationality and science became the dominant lens through which we view the world, the texture and quality of our experiences dulled. The philosopher Charles Taylor calls it the buffered self. It's as if by naming and explaining things in good and practical ways, we wrapped ourselves up in intellectual cling film and safely sealed ourselves off from the real world.

What is the 'Field of Beauty'?

There are two distinctly different ways of being in the world. I think of them as the transactional mode, and grace mode. Grace mode gets is what gets us into the field of beauty, that magical space where we perceive the world for what it really is: a free gift. The core practices I will share in this course allow you to access grace mode, which in turn opens you to a deeper availability to the beauty that was there all along.

To live in the field of beauty is to have learned a way of seeing that finds the world alive, addresses it, and is addressed in return. It's what happens when you stop trying to extract something from what's in front of you and start being genuinely available to it. This course teaches you that practice. Over five weeks you'll learn a way of noticing that pulls you out of your head and into real contact with what's here.

The Details

What to expect

Week One. After introducing the basic shape of the course, we explore what might be keeping beauty at bay, and I offer an exercise that will begin to dislodge it.
Week Two. This week we look at two different ways of meeting the world. This is the conceptual heart of the course, and we'll be weaving it into all the other sessions, expanding on it week by week. Beauty grows out of one of these ways, while the other can often be an obstacle to our capacity to meet beauty more fully.
Week Three. We consider the power of living into mystery, and how it relates to our capacity for wonder and awe. There is a way of holding the unknown that opens us rather than closes us, and this week explores what that asks of us.
Week Four. We take a deep dive into the three primary beauty practices. These are failproof ways of reconnecting with beauty in hard times, and on their own they would be worth the price of admission.
Week Five. In the sangoma tradition I was initiated into, healing is understood as rejoining what has come apart, and beauty lives in the care of that rejoining. This week asks what it might mean for you to be whole, and offers wholeness not as something to achieve but as a direction you can keep moving toward.

Who This Is For

Artists, writers, and makers who've lost a sense of inspiration or aliveness in their work
Anyone feeling tired, uninspired, or overcome by the grind of daily life
People who have lost a sense of hope for the future
Anyone seeking a deeper, more creative and nourishing orientation to the world

Please Note:

This is not a course in aesthetics or art appreciation. Nor is it an intellectual breakdown of classical philosophy, though we will weave in some of these concepts as part of the practice itself.

The practical details

When: Five consecutive Tuesday evenings, starting 22 September 2026
Time: 7pm SAST (12pm EST, 9am PST, 5pm UK)
Duration: Weeks 1 and 5: two hours per session. Weeks 2, 3 and 4: ninety minutes per session
Where: Online via standing Zoom link.
Cost: R2995 (International rate approx $180 USD) or R1995 (for South Africans)
What you'll need: A small notebook you can tuck into your handbag.
Weekly time commitment: Allow 15 to 30 minutes daily for the practices. They are simple and nourishing rather than another obligation.

My name is Anél

Twenty-five years ago I was initiated as a sangoma in Botswana. That initiation introduced me to an older, deeper way of being in and relating to the world. It taught me that beauty isn't decorative or optional. It's relational. It's what happens when aliveness meets aliveness. It's how we know we're home.

For the past two decades I've woven together ritual, contemplative practice and creative work to help people gently break free from the tamed constraints of modern life.

This course is what I've learned about beauty, distilled into five weeks of actual practices you can use.

FAQ's

Do I have to be an artist or creative person?
Not at all. This course is for anyone who wants to cultivate a deeper relationship with beauty. No artistic experience or creative background required.

What if I miss a session?
All sessions are recorded and available for one month after the course ends.

Can I pay in installments?
Yes. Email me at anel.hamersma@gmail.com to arrange a payment plan. Full payment needs to be in by 22 September when we start.

How much time will I need each week?
Besides the 90-minute live session, allow 15-30 minutes daily for the weekly practice—simple contemplative exercises woven into everyday life.

Is this a religious or spiritual course?
The course draws on contemplative traditions and includes spiritual language, but it's not tied to any specific religion. It invites your own sense of meaning and the sacred.

Refund policy
You can withdraw for a full refund through the end of Week One. After that, the real work is underway and refunds aren't available.

What time zone are you in?
We run at 7pm SAST. That's 12pm EST, 9am PST, 5pm UK. If you're elsewhere, recordings will be available for those who can't join live.

What previous
participants say

Spending 5 Tuesdays with Anel was a privilege for me. She shares magical practical techniques to reconnect you to this mysterious beauty which surrounds our lives.

Anel has shared a life times worth of tools to hone my journey back toward a sense of magical beauty living inside and outside of me. This is no easy feat however shared with total presicion.
So inspiring and came just at the right time for me.

I am beyond grateful and will continue these practices.
Thank you Anel

- Juliet Wells

(Video: Angela Hough)