Last Friday I stayed for common cathedral’s Bible study after Boston Warm. I’ve been a bit hesitant to join Bible study because of some negative associations it brings up for me about my own religious upbringing, but lately I’ve been trying to approach it with a new perspective. I decided to look at the Bible study group as a way to not only continue to spend time with this community and practice therapeutic communication skills, but also as a sort of assessment time to learn about the spiritual perspectives and themes that community members are currently dealing with. Continue reading
Musings from the Margins
Talent Show
I am feeling excited for common cathedral‘s talent show this week, although a bit nervous to see how it goes, since there are many unknowns: whether or not everyone who signed up will show up, how big the audience will be, if the tech that people need for their acts will work or malfunction, and any other number of things I can’t predict. I am trying to practice flexibility and trust myself to respond to whatever comes.
I am thinking of my role for this project as something like “therapeutic stage manager”, someone whose job is to offer containment for the performances both on a technical/logistical as well as emotional level. I have already had a few conversations with some community members who expressed some anxiety about their performances and have tried my best to offer reassurance and solutions to their concerns. I also am planning on introducing and closing the show. For the closing, I plan to do a “fill-in-the-blank”-style poem using suggestions from the audience, which would reflect on themes and inspirations they took away from the performances. I am hoping that this would provide the participants with a sense of being seen, appreciated, and connected with one another.
I am also enjoying thinking of the talent show as a sort of assessment tool, a way for me to get to know these community members more deeply and see where their unique strengths, topics of interest, and creative capacities lie. I am hoping that what I observe will give me further insight into how I could continue to use the arts to engage this community with things that are important to them.
Colorful common-art session in our Parish Hall
Welcome our new Drama Therapy intern!
Mary Schwabenland
Hello! I am Mary, the new Drama Therapy intern at common cathedral / Emmanuel Church. I am a few weeks into the internship now and have really been enjoying getting to know the community members. One of my goals for this internship is to aid community members in the creation of meaningful expressive art experiences and projects. The first of which is our upcoming talent-show fundraiser, which was the idea of a long-time community member. We have about 14 sign-ups of varying talent acts, and I am very excited to see what everyone brings.
Rainbow Message
Last week I put on the plastic cover to protect our Rainbow Messages and placed it on the wall in the Parish Hall. I am deeply grateful that folks at Café Emmanuel allowed me to share my idea. I’m proud of everyone in the group. As a member of the LGBTQ community, I have witnessed how beautiful we are in our community and how much I have grown in the past eight months. Love is the power, and I know we all have it. I felt love sometimes hidden in interactions between people. I know I will still feel it even after we say goodbye. Again, I sincerely appreciate all the kindness and wisdom we have shared. I will use it to nourish my professional expertise in art therapy.
–Wanyi (pronunciation: wan-ee)
Note: Cafe Emmanuel is our weekly, well-being-luncheon-and-entertainment program for LGBTQ+ seniors and their friends. It has become a model of LGBTQ+ eldercare for the rest of the country.
Interfaith Honoring of Earth Cycles
Is it Lent or Pisces season? While it may not seem like it from the sudden dip in temperature, spring is officially around the corner. March 21st marks the spring equinox, which is both the first day of spring and the astrological new year, when old Pisces is reborn into fresh baby Aries. The equinox is also Nowruz, the Persian new year; and this year Ramadan will begin the following day. Just a couple weeks later are Passover (April 5th) and Easter (April 9th). While many religions, cosmologies, and belief systems are left out in this short list, I believe it’s safe to say that this earth-cycle period is celebrated internationally and inter-faithfully.
On Ash Wednesday I was struck by how many of the rituals and teachings surrounding Lent reminded me so much of how I have always honored Pisces season every year: self-denial, spiritual detox, abstaining from social media and more, spending more time alone meditating, praying, etc.. In fact, I have traditionally always tried to align my vacation time with Pisces season so as to deeply honor this cycle. It was pleasantly surprising to learn that Christian tradition has so many practices that naturally honor the wisdom of the ancient astrological water sign.
So, happy end of winter, everyone! We’re almost out the other side, just about to be reborn with the spring. I hope each of us has some time to go inwards, tend to seeds we may be growing, and, despite the cold, enjoy the process. |+| EAS
Let the art speak.
I first visited my internship site on Ash Wednesday a year ago. I still remember how nervous I was that day and so quietly hid among the people. Reflecting on myself this year, I have learned a lot from our community, about such things as my leadership skills, the history of its diverse cultures, cultural competence, nonverbal communication skills, and different life-stage experiences. The joy of self-growing also includes knowing so many beautiful souls here. They have welcomed me to join, even if it has taken time.
Learn, Unlearn, and Relearn
February is the national Black History Month in the United States. This is a way of remembering important people and events in the history of the African diaspora. I understand so many hurt souls have been mistreated for a long time. As it is never too late to have a space for discussion of social justice, this week in common art we started a group-based art project focused on it. Using a black marker to draw a line, each person connected to the line of the next person. After creating a group image of a line, we created art to express our intention toward a social issue we cared about. ( I want to thank my professor for bringing our class the idea of the structure for this exercise.)
The Space Between: On the Healing Power of Gaze
For the last three years, many of us have socialized and worked on Zoom, which, while convenient, is simply not the same as in-person, human-to-human contact, particularly in therapeutic contexts, particularly when it comes to affect regulation. This last Sunday at Tikkun Time, wanting to gently introduce a gazing exercise, I drew from Marina Abramovic’s work The Artist is Present as well as classic theater works. Gazing is a powerful, and often very hard, exercise. Trauma-informed bodies and neuro-divergent brains often struggle to sustain eye contact.
The Value of Giving
This weekend (February 3-4) when record-breaking cold was coming to Boston and surrounding areas, the topic of weather kept popping into every conversation at Boston Warm, common art, and Cafe Emmanuel. I noticed people reminding each other to take care of themselves and to close the windows as best as they could. My instinct told me that the deepest part of myself wanted to do something as a part of the community before the cold came.
On the Fear of Stepping into Ourselves
All year long, I have navigated resistance that seems to get heavier by the day, at times feels like depression; shape-shifts as needs be; takes on oh-so-many elusive forms; mutters in my ear that I can’t do it, that I shouldn’t do it, and even questions what is the point of doing it; finds excuses, blames others, drains me of all willpower to go forth. Resistance!
Where is it coming from? Anyone who has known me for a long time can attest that I am pretty much as strong-willed as it gets. I have never had any issue plunging into the unknown if intuition strongly told me to do so, never doubted my purpose, my path, or my mission. Only now, as the start of my professional life, which I have strived for for so long and in so many ways, draws closer, do I find myself pulling back. Shrinking. Disappearing. Resisting.