Musings from the Margins

Posts to this blog, also published in This Week @ Emmanuel, are written by our student intern from Lesley University’s masters program in Expressive Arts Therapy. This year, we are pleased to welcome intern Marielle Carpentier.

“Musings from the Margins” was founded in 2013, when The Rev. Susan Ackley was Sabbatical Priest and Artist in Residence with us. Over the years since then our Expressive Therapy Interns have faithfully and creatively recorded their thoughts about their experiences during the academic year at Emmanuel.

Empathy vs. Fear

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“A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one.”  — Bill Hicks

In light of what is happening in our world today, this quote from comedian Bill Hicks keeps coming to mind.  There are certain groups of people that provoke our fears.  We clutch our purses a little tighter, we look down and give them a wide berth when crossing paths on the sidewalk, and we choose not to engage (if we can help it) with people that we have been taught will cause us harm.  Continue reading →

Thanksgiving

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The significant aspect of Thanksgiving for me is not the abundance of food but the time to reflect on the things for which I am grateful. In my family, it is a Thanksgiving tradition that we each share with the others gathered at our table our most favored blessings.
This year I will credit my internship with Emmanuel Church as being my greatest blessing. From the start, I have felt honored to be accepted into the three programs that are a part of this internship, and anticipated this would be a tremendous opportunity. My association with Emmanuel Church has been enlightening and is providing experiences rich in ways no textbook or classroom could begin to relate. Perhaps what I am most grateful for are the relationships developed with people that I would not have likely met otherwise. These relationships have contributed to a newfound sensitivity for the wellbeing of populations not previously known. In turn, this has led me to being more aware in my choices of words or actions around others as I learn more about their lives.

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What color of the rainbow are you today?

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I’m very excited to share a project that Briana and I started this past week with the Café Emmanuel attendees.  As art therapists in training Briana and I appreciate the opportunity to present our ideas and be able to incorporate art therapy into the LGBT group. Although this is deliberately intended to be a small change in routine for the Café Emmanuel group, it is a big step for Briana and me toward our future professions.   Continue reading →

Being Observant

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I love to watch people draw and create. People reveal aspects of themselves through the way their bodies move and the facial expressions they make when they draw, paint, and play instruments. Some people move with aggression and furrow their brows, and others move with melancholic lethargy and have a sullen look in their eyes.  Some people make bold, confident gestures while painting, and others make tiny, meticulous brush stokes.  When we are engrossed in the creative process, we are not using our cognitive energy to monitor our facial expressions or body movements; instead, we are using that energy to create.  Our need for control takes a back seat and our sadness, anger, jubilation, and many other aspects of self rise to the surface when we stop using our mental power to stifle these things and instead use it to express ourselves through artistic media. Continue reading →

Reflective Listening

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A skill I’ve found valuable as an intern with Emmanuel Church is one that I learned when volunteering with the Center for Grieving Children called reflective listening.  Commonly when we are conversing with others, we may appear to be listening but instead we’re processing what the other person is saying by evaluating how it relates to ourselves.  This can result in unsolicited (and unhelpful) subjective responses or advice. Continue reading →

Sharing Stories

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Firstly I’d like to thank the Reverend Pamela Werntz and Emmanuel Church for the opportunity to participate in the Common Art program, Café Emmanuel, and the Art and Spirituality program. I consider it an honor to be chosen and believe this will be an exceptionally enriching experience because of the real life, real time dynamics of non-clinical settings.

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Witnessing

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One of the greatest challenges that I have faced at my internship this year at Emmanuel is of an interpersonal nature and relates to a challenge that I am working with outside of the internship realm. It has to do with my tendency toward leadership, my need for being seen, and my addiction to creating intended results. I am someone who likes to enter a space and influence an outcome that I can imagine being positive in nature. I am a change agent and have been identified as someone who possesses leadership abilities for as far back as I can remember. (My first dream when I was a child was to be the president.) At Emmanuel this year one of the main things that I have gotten to practice is putting my tendency toward leadership on the shelf and, instead, showing up as just another member of the group or simply as a witness to what is happening to those around me. It has been through these experiences that I have been able to practice the dance of therapeutic presence. Continue reading →

Attunement

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As my time at Emmanuel is coming to an end, I feel like I’m just getting started. I’m in a place where I feel comfortable taking risks, stepping outside the box, and sharing my ideas. Over the course of the week I have been reminded that it is okay to try something new, no matter how far along in the process I am.

On Thursdays, I lead a movement group with the folks from Café Emmanuel. I have had so much fun with this group. The participants vary from week to week, and there is one person who has not missed a session. Each week we dance and move with multicolored scarves to different songs, most recently Broadway tunes. The returning participant is always trying to get others to stay and dance with him. I feel his desire to have more than just me and a volunteer. So, in an attempt to entice folks to participate I played the music earlier than normal, gathered a few scarves and placed them in people’s hands. I physically invited people and resisted the urge to be complacent and just accept that folks are not interested in movement. It worked! We added people to our group, and I think it was the most enjoyable session yet! Continue reading →

Slow & Steady

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I just learned that one man finished the Boston Marathon at 5am Tuesday morning. He was the last one to cross the finish line. Maikel Melamed is from Venezuela and has severe muscular dystrophy. In watching video clips online of his crossing the finish line in the dark hours of early Tuesday morning, I was struck by Maikel’s sheer tenacity to finish but also by the group of walkers who stayed with him and walked painstakingly slowly alongside him. Step by step, they stayed clustered close to him and crossed the finish line with him. This gesture of support and solidarity with Maikel’s resolve to finish the Boston Marathon had me thinking about all the ways in which I get to slow down and walk with another at Emmanuel. I believe that many of my learning experiences have been shaped by times where the therapeutic presence needed in the moment necessitated slowing down. Continue reading →

Somatic Energy

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On Monday at Art and Spirituality I led the group in opening ritual, card making, and the closing ritual. I introduced percussive movement in the opening name share. During our closing sharing, conversation emerged, and there was a shift in the circle. I felt the energy move from sharing about the cards they were making for others to sharing about their preferences, their artistic desires and their ideas for the future art-making. I couldn’t help but notice the program officer and the two nurses who were waiting for the program to finish were drawn to our conversation. Usually I see the nurse sorting pills or making small talk with the officer. This time they watched, silently and patiently waiting for the women to finish. It was as though they were drawn to the increased energy of the circle. Continue reading →