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
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