Thursday, June 16, 2016

Finding/Building Peace with the help of Expressive Arts Nepal

Finding/Building Peace with Expressive Arts Nepal
A mutually supportive, impactful friendship for the sake of building Peace!
We welcome your partnership with us!


Nepal and the U.S.? We are the same in some ways.  Many people in each place are struggling to refocus and regain solid grounding in our humanity, which is always defined in and by the way we stand in, hold, lift up and embrace community.  We have no future without one another. 

I teach Community Art Practice and facilitate Community Art events that we may bring forth the HOPE in our bones of having a FUTURE.  Community Art is practice in discovering a plan that imagines and fosters a way forward step by step that lifts communities into life abundant, full measure of JOY experienced and potential for peace.

Community Art Practice is the work of creating art-making frames that move participants away from struggles and into a playful, imaginative process that is focused on bringing forth what is longed for.  Community transformation occurs through individual realization of personal resiliency skills and strengths that contribute to the accomplishments of the group.  The participating community is in turn strengthened as participants work together for the sake of bringing forth one complete art piece through the receiving of each one’s contributions.  Resiliency in the art making community is increased as everyone works through naturally occurring struggles successfully. What is learned in the art making process is harvested and returned to everyday life that growth that occurs in Community Art Practice becomes real life community competency.  This work is always imaginative, improvisational and new to us all everyday.  This work is honest, at times hard, and always fruitful in some way.

In Nepal, in addition to teaching an Introduction to Expressive Arts Therapy, it seemed vital to introduce Community Art Practice as well, for the sake of growing community peace.  The students in this experience were diverse in more ways than I could identify.  And everyone in Nepal has had their very foundations shaken through long and difficult political struggle, environmental destruction, and literally by recent earthquakes and personal life events.  Below are photos of a mural created as we worked to hear and learn about ourselves in the company of one another.  The photo is followed by the aesthetic response, a poem written in response to the mural work. 

Perhaps, as we in the U.S. walk through painful, painful experiences of perpetrated violence stemming from the self-aggrandizement of some which are reflected in the suffering of many, even unto death, Mahesh Adhikari and the people of Nepal have some words of HOPE to help us.






Peace
I have searched long and hard for peace,
I have made countless attempts to understand it even.
And all that has taught me is that peace can only be achieved through freedom,
Certainly not through bombings and murder.
I'm saddened because there is no peace in the land of Buddha,
I'm worried because there is no peace of mind in the people of the land.
I want wings so that I can fly like a bird,
I want courage so that I can understand nature's true magnificence.
Everywhere I go, I look for peace, oh lord!
But even so, I fear for what awaits.
You can learn a lot about happiness simply from watching Buddha,
You can understand a lot about yourself and others by becoming free.
Look around - everything is empowering, everything is humble,
Always remember to pride yourself in being born a Nepali.
Everyone dies eventually, stop counting the hours,
All of us express differently, stop with the worry.
No matter how busy you get, I wish you'd remember to stop and sniff the flowers,


-Mahesh Adhikari

To partner with us in fostering peace in Nepal which breathes peace into our lives in the U.S. and Globally please DONATE Today! 

Tax Deductible Donations May Be Given At:
The Blue Butterfly Foundation:
http://www.bluebutterflyfoundation.org/


May peace be upon you and within you this day.
Mary

Monday, June 6, 2016

Hope Rising Amidst the Sharing

Expressive Arts Therapy: Sharing the learning!


Answering how Expressive Arts Practice brings forth peace is a long journey connected to the idea of sharing what arises with all the personal and cultural distinctives' the art forms through.  Expressive Arts work is all about the immediacy of the current moment as experienced through our senses and the improvisational rendering of this experience into artistic form.  Expressive Art work is immediately risky, vulnerable, revealing, often hard and beautiful even though not always pretty. Samjhana Thapa, a student in the Introduction to Expressive Arts Practice offered through Expressive Arts Nepal last fall, has begun to risk creating Expressive Arts opportunities for others.  Below she writes of the openings that came as she offered an opportunity for Expressive Arts Practice to others.




It is me Samjhana Thapa. I am a 3rd year Bachelor student in the study of social work and psychology. I work as a Social Worker in Amrita Foundation Nepal. It is a rehabilitation center that works from a family centered modal of therapy.

  Today I have provided an art therapy practice opportunity for patients suffering with mental illness. We began by moving into our senses through playing a name game with everyone.  We played by clapping, moving and sharing our names in a rhythm sequence with each other. After that I offered opportunity for everyone to choose the two colors which they don't like. Then I gave a blank paper. The participants began to draw something they liked or felt.  Clients found it was easier to talk with each other and share their feelings while drawing and even when they were finished. Each one wrote their feeling at the back of the paper.
  This process created a positive vibe amongst the group. The patients then shared with each other about their experience.  Expressive Arts Practice helps to build a kind of trust between everyone, people even smiled while making art. I noticed too that, through making the art, they start to look at their problem in a positive way. One participant told everyone, " I used to hate these two color but I didn't  know with these colors I hate, I can make a beautiful picture. " This sentence touched my heart. All patients said that they have really enjoyed this opportunity. The art making helped the clients to cope with their situation.
   Providing this Expressive Arts opportunity was a plus for me also. I gained confidence that I can offer something helpful to my clients. Before this experience they seemed to have a kind of worthless feeling about themselves. But after Expressive Arts Practice they can understand more about their situation. It make me happy and satisfied to see the smile of patients as they respond to expressive art therapy. It helps us all to cope with our shared  situation of finding a pathway of peace even with the struggle of mental illness. 
This is the story of my first experience offering of Expressive Art Practice with participants suffering with mental illness.


Samjana and many of the other students from our first Expressive Arts and Community Art Practice trainings continue to share what they have learned.  There are more stories to come!
  
As teachers of Expressive Arts therapy, Sadhana Thapa and I hope to continue to contribute to the development of the field of Expressive Arts Therapy and Community Art Practice grounded in the distinctive cultural perspective of Nepal.  Not only will this prove most culturally relevant and effective for Nepali people, this distinctive grounding will also then contribute to the Global efforts to establish Peace, Health and Healing through out humanity and all life.  

We need your support to continue to bring this dream forward. Please find full details of our project Expressive Arts Nepal: Expressive Arts for Inner Peace and Community Health at our Go Fund Me page:

https://funds.gofundme.com/dashboard/p5u74qd4




To Make a Tax Deductable donation: 
Checks with "Nepal" in the memo may be sent to: 
Sunset Covenant Church
18555 NW Rock Creek Blvd.
Portalnd, Oregon 97229