Hope Rising Amidst The Question of a Friend!

Hope Rising Amidst: The question of a friend!

A friend asked me what do you mean that Community Art Practice is a way of bringing peace?

The answer of course is found in the art making itself. Indigenous healers, our Creation myths, religious ways, legends, stories and human instincts and history have all taught us that Making Art has is way of making peace. Tensions, big and small are experienced as tightness, lack of room, closed spaces, roads we thought we were going down that have stopped with a jolt in the side of a mountain or edge of a cliff!  Violence, is often the out-BURSTING of wants, demands and desires that have not found outlet in any other form.  Fear and trembling come from places within our-selves and our communities that lurk in the shadows.  Even Joy when needing to be expressed and having no path, breeds frustration that is palpable. No peace can come when we feel boxed in, blinded, tense with what is in and around us which cant find way of being expressed. Choosing to respond to the senses, which are our first responders to dangers and beauty in our midst, can help us all engage in Artful Living, rather than frustrated, even reckless responding.

Community Art Practice is a way of engaging our senses. I would like to share a story with you of one the Community Art Experience's Sadhana Thapa and I led in Nepal with some of our first year students from Expressive Arts Nepal.

Imagine if you will, a quiet open air covered porch, like a window unto the world of Kathmandu, being flooded by 30+ school children between 8and 10 bounding in from one entrance!  Yes the pushing, shoving, running, yelling, tugging, irritating, frustrating entrances were happening! You’ve got the scene in all its frenzy for sure!  And we make a BIG circle of course!

Round and round the circle we went inviting each child  out of words and into  SOUNDS! “Listen for and make the sound you have within you right now!” we said! And everyone did! Some blasted out noise in Dr. Seuss trumpet fashion, animal sounds too came flying in like birds, and whispers, of life being imagined for the first time blew gently through! We even on the final round added gestures to enliven the space and sound! The sounds and movement were imaginative, the laughter was freedom of hearts opening.

We moved from sounding to color in our explorations! “Open up the world of your colors and land them on the page in the markings of your own creating!  This was our initial visual art -making frame.  And these children did make art perhaps tentatively at first, but not for long. It was marvelous indeed to see them moving into the work of letting Art find its way to their pages. 

There are children who are deemed lower cast children, subjected to the enslavement of their potential to fit the expectations of society as servants, as slaves, as those who are born to perform menial, mean tasks.  In other countries, some children suffer similar objectification because of racism, gender bias, religious affiliation and more.  Art does not discriminate or segregate, diminish or degrade.  It is simply gift that comes to all children and indeed all humanity reminding each one of their inherent value as unique and beautiful and able to receive inspiration and bring forth Art! 

The peace that settled into the group through our time together was palpable, noticeable.  We ended the day, talking together about the fun, the play, the value of each one and the Art!  We considered what the mural had to say to all of us.  We smiled together in the softness of honoring one another, our work and saying goodbye.

Community Art, engages the heart of each one and gathers the contributions of everyone! The art-making somehow brought the children into a space where grace and graceful treatment of each other, as if each one had value, was the right protocol. Their exit was different! What, but the Art making could have inspired, inspirited such transformation?

The Art these children are and expressed, are part of what inspires Sadhana Thapa and I to continue partnering for the sake of establishing Expressive Arts Nepal: Expressive Arts for Inner Peace and Community Health.  

To learn more about our project and the variety of ways we are together reviving art making as therapeutic practice and Community healing in Nepal, please visit us at https://www.gofundme.com/p5u74qd4 and look for my next blog soon!  More stories to come!

We HOPE you are Inspired to partner with us!

Expressive Arts Nepal: The Journey Continues!

Today!  Today, as I look back at the fruit Vulnerability brings forth,  Today!
We began our gofundme campaign to support Year 2: Establishing Expressive Arts Nepal!

Expressive Arts Nepal: Expressive Arts for Inner Peace and Community Health
This campaign is raising funds to support the establishment of Nepali owned and organized healing efforts and peacebuilding work in Nepal.

Our PartnershipSadhana Thapa, the President of Expressive Arts Nepal, lecturer for the Bachelors of Social Work program at Bright Vision International College in Nepal, and worker with Read Nepal, strives to establish pathways for whole and peaceful living for all Nepali people. 
Rev. Mary Putera, faculty member with European Graduate School Arts Health and Society Division, and PhD candidate in Expressive Arts is an Expressive Arts Therapist, Social Justice Artist/activist and Community Peace worker with 20 years of experience in culturally diverse settings. 
Two years ago Sadhana and Mary met in Nepal through Expressive Arts work efforts. During that time, Sadhana shared her dream to become an Expressive Arts therapist and begin an Expressive Arts Center in Nepal. In 2015 with the help of  an extraordianry team of Nepali people and generous economic supporters, the work began.

Expressive Arts Nepal, in its first year, provided 2 professional training for Nepali leaders in the fields of Social Work, Education, Health Care and Trauma Recovery work.  Expressive Arts Practice workshops have been held in a variety of settings including schools, hospitals, rural village gatherings recovering from natural disasters and safe houses. Supervision and support as Sadhana Thappa and her team engage the work are also in place.
YEAR TWO!Goals:
Sadhana Thappa will begin her Masters In Expressive Arts Therapy at the Eurpean Graduate School in June of 2016.
Bi-monthly Expressive Arts Practice studios will be in place.
Two 5 day intensive courses: Principles and Practices of Expressive Arts Therapy and Community Art for Social Transformation and Peacebuilding will be provided.
Four practicum experiences will also be provided as experiential learning opportunities in conjunction with each of these courses.

All Funds Raised designated as follows:$3,500 to provide 1/2 of Ms. Thappa's Educational expenses.
$1,000 to cover operating expenses including rental of office space, and internet service, and provision of Bi-monthly Expressive Arts practice for Asha Nepal, an organization caring for human trafficking survivors.
$5,000 to cover all expenses for the two 5 day training intensives described above including travel costs for the instructer, rental space of the training facility and art materials needed.
Our goal is to have all funds raised by June!

Equipping Nepali people with the practice of Expressive Arts and Community Art is to support the healing of Nepal and expand the efficacy of Global Healing and Peacebuilding.  All people groups, have within them, deeply unique art offerings needing pathways of expression and sharing for the sake of the healing of our world. Expressive Arts Nepal, as an orgainzation, is a pathway for the living artistry of Nepali people to be fostered and shared for the sake of local and Global healing and Peace.Sadhana and I are so grateful to receive every contribution no matter the size!  Please join our efforts today!  Consider giving
a One time gift!
Monthly Support!
Periodically as you are able!
Donation to this gofundme campaign directly!  gofund.me/p5u74qd4
Or:
To Make a Tax Deductable donation: 
checks may be sent to: 
Sunset Covenant Church
18555 NW Rock Creek Blvd.
Portalnd, Oregon 97229

Please know we are so grateful for every dollar given!
Together may we be Living Artistry!

Hope Rising Amidst Balance That comes through sensing!

Dear Friends,

I have returned from Nepal four months ago and today.

In my last blog, before leaving I wrote, "Peace is like Joy, flowing from the abundance of God's goodness experienced within around and through us, while in the company of one another.  This kind of peace is like laughter erupting from the belly!  Song leaping from the lungs! Colors VIBRANT and radiance dancing through space, embodied beauty in all human forms."

Upon my return, I would add "Peace comes as we engage in the hard work of self exposure repeatedly with a group of people over time, in particular space, amidst a deepening hope, bathed in prayer, and budding faith that we all are living artistry!"

As I arrived in Nepal, I had no idea how "cracks" would become the foundation of my experience, literally! The Introduction to Expressive Art Therapy and Community Art Practice for Peace courses would be held in a location that was full of cracks from the earthquake and aftershocks, and yet safe enough to hold us for a week before it was demolished.  We gathered, all 25 of us, our lives cracking open with curiosity about what our time together would be like and become!  These cracks, places where we were all willing to engage in something new, would become OPENINGS for self-disclosure, discovery, distinctive identity and group cohesion! Our cracking open into new experiences of art making became holding basins of our song, silence, drawing, painting, poetry and masterful making of wholeness from pieces. Yes CRACKS became Openings though which gifts could emerge! Cracks, became friendly openings just the right size for us to risk presenting ourselves in various modalities of expression welcoming the art emerging.

Our first day ended with everyone feeling a little bit "shaky".  We were crossing from the landscape of expectations into explorations and possibilities, and it was hard work.  This was a class like no other for these Masters of Social Work students, professors, professionals and school principles.  It was a class like no other for me as well.  So much deconstruction of original expectations, pedagogy, and plans had happened, the uneasiness, even queasiness  that comes when venturing into territory unknown was fully present by the end of the day! I had introduced Expressive Art practice in the room and the vulnerability of each one was palpable!  The Art had begun to emerge even through the noise of personal defenses that appeared as constant talking or perpetual silence, staying in previously established friendship packs, even role taking such as being the "helper" rather than participator.   And thats when I knew, we would be OK!  In the art emerging, people were being cracked open and that which was in them and within the group was being made visible, sensible through sound, movement colors and play! Here are a few pictures of the first day.

Our first skill came that very first day! We experienced within ourselves the strength to show up in the midst of difficulty!  We decided within us and amongst us we had the strength to continue saying yes to new experiences, new levels of exposure, and new places of vulnerability.  It was so much fun and so scary!  

Isn't this life though?  Wherever we go,  we are faced with people different from us,  aren't we?  Our everyday lives are filled with cross cultural challenges that we may accept of block.  We are faced with experiences and opportunities to risk curiosity and the potential that what we "know" may be challenged by what we experience as we engage with people different from ourselves!  This group of Nepali people amazed me with their courage, commitment, and care for one another and the process and me!  It is a joy to share what Hope Rising Amidst becomes when we engage the very center of ourselves, our living artistry! Stay tuned! There is more to come! And hopefully more to inspire!

Joy fill you!

Mary

Living Artistry: Moving through Delay!

September 17 is so close and its scheduled events more distanced.  I was to leave for Nepal in just 3 days, but the work has been delayed.  For the past ten years, following ten years of civil war, Nepal has experienced civil unrest.  On September 21 the government will announce the new Constitution.  In response, many Nepali have scheduled a nationwide strike to protest some portions of this new constitution.  I am so thankful for the courage of these people. The Expressive Art Therapy and Community Art Practice training has been rescheduled to take place in the first two weeks of November.

My respect for the Nepali people grows as we move through accepting this delay.  In a country where the incredibly urgent needs of fighting human trafficking, horrendously high poverty rates, impacts of climate change that are reeking havoc everywhere and devastation from earthquakes, people still remain concerned with what is important for bringing peace to their country long term.  I am impacted by this quite deeply.

There has been no great spike of concern, intensity in dialogue about "shoulds", just a simple discussion of what is best for a most peaceful ability to hold this training with as great an impact as possible.  It became clear that by moving through delay together, we could also increase the efficacy of this work.  Sadhana and I have increased steadfast sharing of concepts and ideas.  We now have two pages of Expressive Arts Therapy terminology and concepts worked through.  We also have had time to share in the work of educating Mary, yes Sadhana is effortlessly and diligently increasing my cultural competency.

There is a celebration this Wednesday.  Women will fast without even taking a sip of water, for the sake of gaining long life for their husbands through their prayers.  This is an incredibly difficult sacrifice only required by women for the sake of men.  I heard the great story of women suffering under this burden and the stance of men toward women as which remains highly oppressive.  What is it like to move through delay of experiencing ones own dignity to such great degree, even today.  I dare say so many, so many women know this experience even today, even in the United States, even to excruciating degree in many places around the world.  I wonder what is the experience for Indigenous people to still, after so many decades be moving through delay, waiting waiting to receive honor and dignity as fellow human beings residing in this planet earth.  My hear remains in anguish over these and many other delays we are moving through.

The Expressive Arts Therapy and Community Art Practice experiences are SHIFTING through our delay!!!! Sadhana and I keep returning to this idea of undergirding the whole endeavor in building works, fashioning artistry, speaking artistically, moving beautifully more deeply into "being peacefully" together through this training.  Peace is like Joy, flowing from the abundance of God's goodness experienced within around and through us, while in the company of one another.  This kind of peace is like laughter erupting from the belly!  Song leaping from the lungs! Colors VIBRANT Radiance dancing through space, embodied beauty in all human forms.  Nepali colors, we shall find them the day before we begin!  Nepali leaves from trees, we shall gather from the land as we move IN to the art taking shape through embodied responses to sights, sounds, sensations of the winds of our time together.

Yes as we are moving through delay, we are moving into greater competencies through the sharing of our strengths! Sadhana and I and Delight responding to each other in preparation for the Beauty that is becoming!

Living Artistry, moving through delay!
A good enough blog to encourage us today!

:)

Please consider donating

!  This change has resulted in over $500 in airfare change fees!  We have $1,340 to raise to be fully funded!
http://www.gofundme.com/hoperisingamidstne.