Preparing to Sojourn

Well, once again, there has been a long time between blogs. Daily life, work, family and projects take up the psychic space that I need to think about writing a blog. Some of what I have been doing, I have done with my partner in life and career Michael Watson, who has been writing voraciously and beautifully. To read about his work I invite you to go to his blog here.

It is cold here. It is supposed to be about 5 degrees tonight. Fahrenheit.   I wrap myself in my Indian scarves and shawls to remind myself of the warmth of South Asia.

I keep myself busy! Besides my clinical work,  and my work  with the Centre for Playback Theatre (which has been ubber busy this past fall!!! We are gearing up for our winter session trainings- check them out at: http://www.playbackcentre.org/training-program), I have been teaching.  This past semester I taught various classes on Transpersonal Psychology and  expressive therapies. We dove in deep, and as is the case for many of my courses, bridged between the personal worlds that we exist in and the academics of understanding the theories behind why we would use the arts as a tool for healing. And as always, I experienced the deep richness and satisfaction of a co-creative and collaborative process – I as teacher being student at times, and my students teaching me so much that often isn’t written in textbooks.

I also have been collaborating on a book project with two other wonderful and fine art therapists. Just this week,  after a long year of writing and editing our own and 26 other fine writers work from around the world, the book has gone for the final editing before being passed to the publisher. While I do not really think it is like “having a baby” (having “been there and done that” in real life 2 times), I think in many ways the process of writing, while challenging to me and my dyslexic brain, was one of deep clarifying and enrichment in itself. In the last couple of days I realize that there is now space in my brain…. Something that hasn’t been there much in the last few months as we got closer to the deadline….

And in the midst of this I prepare for another sojourn to India and Hong Kong to teach.  Or I should say, “we”. This time, my husband comes with me for the whole trip. We are both excited! Often my traveling means a long separation for us. While we have come to expect this in our relationship as just a fact of life, it certainly has challenges. One thing about this trip that is different from my many others is that I am allowing a time for us to vacation.  We begin our trip by having 5 days in Kerala, India  to rest and recover and to see the sights of this magnificent seaside area with tremendously rich cultural and spiritual history. Then we begin our work in Bangalore, working with the world renowned Yours Truly Theatre Company- a group that both of us have mentored in Playback Theatre. From there we go to Chennai where I will be teaching an  Introduction to Art Therapy and Core Training in Playback Theatre in the Expressive Therapies Certificate Program at the East/West Center for Counselling and Women’s Christian College. This is the second year of the program and I am happy to continue my long standing collaboration with the Director, Magdalene Jeyarathnam. As well, we are offering a short advanced Playback Theatre training and an Art for Healing  course before these trainings begin. Michael is offering a two-day course on Shamanism.  And then off to Hong Kong to work with the Arts for the Disabled Association teaching Expressive Arts for people with Disabilities. Michael will be teaching a narrative based workshop called Re-storying Disability. And the grand finale is taking 2 days to see Hong Kong!

We have been watching the news of late. There are a lot of powerful forces at work in our world. All around the globe there are protests of all kinds to bring out and make known the injustices of our world.  In our country and Canada, Native Americans are taking  a stand with the “Idle No More protests” . There are also protests against Gun Violence and environmental injustice.  Equally, we are aware and watching the protests in India related to the beatings and deaths of 4 women on the public buses. We are deeply saddened and horrified by these heinous crimes. We are heartened by the world wide cry of protest. I am aware that in  our workshops  it will be important to make  personal space for deep reflection and healing about our world and how we are affected within and without.  I am excited! In a few weeks, I will be able to be with friends and colleagues, in the warmth of the culture and country of India where people are standing up to injustice. I wrap my scarf just a little bit tighter and smile.

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