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.
Musings from the Margins
Witnessing
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
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
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
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
Trauma Healing
It was not that long ago that I was writing here about the treacherous ice on the road near my house that caused my only bike wreck of the winter. I referred to the ice in that blog post as a metaphor for various elements in my life that had been unseen by me and thus caused some recklessness or even damage to others due to my blind sightedness. Well, it’s been a couple months since I let my painful and inflamed wrist go untreated for that time. On Monday I went for an x-ray (finally!) and got the good news that there were no breaks although there was plenty of swelling clearly illuminated. I’ll go back to the hospital in a week to see a hand specialist to see if some of the pain and swelling can be alleviated. So, here’s to not knowing. Continue reading
American Caste System
I have been thinking a lot about vulnerability and how it shows up. I have been thinking about how I can allow my own vulnerability to be a guide into deeper connection with others. I am also curious about the ways in which vulnerability can reveal the nuances of power, privilege, and oppression within interpersonal dynamics. There was a specific conversation that occurred a few weeks ago that had me feeling particularly vulnerable and has given me great pause to reflect on the intersection of vulnerability and systemic racism. Continue reading
Soul Medicine
While interning with Art and Spirituality, Common Art, and Café Emmanuel I frequently find myself explaining who I am and that I am studying to become an art therapist and mental-health counselor. Recently while at prison, one of the women asked me if I could prescribe her pain medication. I said that while I could not prescribe her any medication, I could prescribe her some meditation. This received a round of laughs from the table and others who had heard the exchange. We live in a fast-paced world where I, for one, can say choosing the option that takes the least amount of work to fix a problem seems extremely appealing. Have a headache? Take a pill with a large glass of water and presto, headache no more. In addition, I can take a moment to think about the cause of the headache in the first place, most likely for me being dehydrated, to avoid it in the future. Continue reading
Let’s work with what we’ve got!
A collapsing infrastructure is a time to connect and rebuild stronger.
On Monday night when the women came in for Art and Spirituality, we were greeted with a mix of excitement, eagerness, curiosity, and some mellowness. Overall I felt like everyone was glad to be back in that room with paper on the tables and art supplies ready to go. Since Art and Spirituality happens on Monday’s and so do all the blizzards in Boston, we have not been able to hold the group in four weeks. Part of our weekly opening prayer is “What we want is certainty. What we get is ambiguity.” I found myself referencing this prayer a lot in the past week. Continue reading
A Gentle and Generous Presence
This week I’ve been thinking a lot about power, leadership, and how these notions intersect with age. This comes to mind when I think about the group that Jessi, Bekah, and I started called Café Arts, which came out of a process of brainstorming ideas about how to provide an intermodal space for safe exploration of self as well as build deeper community connection for participants a part of Café Emmanuel. It has been an interesting experience in group process; Café Arts has been held in a collaborative spirit since its inception. From the design of the flier, to the overall structure of the groups, to our co-facilitation, the dynamics, which have existed and continue to blossom among us, have been the central piece of the project for me. This centrality is further emphasized in my mind by the reality that the group participants have been so varied and sparse throughout its time. Bekah, Jessi, and I have been the stable presence throughout and our group leadership has been quite fascinating and dynamic. Continue reading