Title: Healing Communities
Presenter: Amita Swadhin, Mirror Memoirs; Dr. Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu, 2021 UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Native American Studies at University of California, Davis; Caroline Lovell, Women’s Wisdom Initiative; Saundra Shanti, BCC, Spiritual Care/Arts in Medicine
Moderator: Diane Le Strain, Graduate Student Assistant, Gender-Based Violence Consortium, University of Utah
Date: 4/16/21
Copyright: copyright Amita Swadhin, Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu, Caroline Lovell, Saundra Shanti, & Diane Le Strain ©2021
Table of Contents
Transcript- Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu 22:26 – 23:46
Fuifuilupe Nieitolu: Thank you so much. Thank you so much, our relatives. It’s—it’s really a great honor to be here. I hope it’s okay with everybody—I actually just wrote some of my…just…I just wrote stuff, just because I thought it might be easier for me to read them because, you know. Often, I get a little emotional and I just didn’t want to forget things, so I’m just gonna—so I hope that that’s okay with you guys, because really I do love to always look into the camera and to see all of you, so I just wanted to say, mālō ‘etau lava, or “good afternoon, relatives.”
Transcript- Caroline Lovell 41:20 – 53:19
Caroline Lovell: Hi, everybody, thank you so much. I’m honored to be here today with all of you and to be here as a part of this panel on healing communities. I’m an artist. I’m not so much an artist in the traditional sense as a painter or sculptor, but an artist that uses creativity for healing and social change. Using creativity this way, I’m able to connect personally and profoundly with people and it’s also where I find my grounding and my connection to spirit.
As a survivor, I learned a long time ago that engaging in a creative process gave me a voice. I grew up on a large farm, the youngest in a family of five women, and I learned firsthand that women were strong and capable and very often victims of violence. For me, the place I grew up was a paradox. It was both profoundly beautiful and also filled with trauma and shame and fear and it was the land that we lived on which provided me with a refuge and help me to survive. My instinct was to creatively express the beauty it held for me, and it was through photographing the land that I saw my ability to act as an artist to fully express my voice and I was eventually able to match it with a cause that was both personal and universal. I grew to learn that my individual identity could be separate from the circumstances of my immediate situation. I became an advocate for the right of all women to be fully expressed, to say no, to be free of violence perpetrated solely on the basis of being female.
So, how do we personally connect with an issue like gender-based violence? It’s pretty overwhelming for most people and one answer I believe is through art. And more than 10 years ago, I created our signature workshop called “Traveling Postcards” and the idea came from thinking about the old-fashioned sewing circle where women would gather together in creative circles to make something for someone in community that was in need. And I believe when we use our hands, we step out of our heads and sink into our hearts and when we speak from that place of our authentic voice and when we’re asked to be of service, this is where empowerment and healing can occur. I also understood intuitively that when women gather and feel safe that life-saving wisdom is passed between generations and between survivors and that that was my intention with “Traveling Postcards.”
So, “Traveling Postcards” is a therapeutic workshop that centers empathy and connection and brings survivors and their allies to the table to make a handmade piece of art the size of a postcard as a gift for a survivor of gender-based violence. Each card contains wisdom, beauty, and compassion and is hand-delivered through our hospital bag program or via shelter safe house. Our participants will never hear back from the person who receives their card; instead, they’re asked to speak their truth to say whatever it is they think will help heal someone or whatever they need to speak to help heal themselves. Everyone who receives a card is asked to make a card. We have created and distributed over 5,000 postcards in the last 10 years and no two posts—no two postcards have ever looked alike. Not one postcard spoke of anger resentment; all contained voices of love, compassion, and empowerment. So, I want to play a video now that will show you much of what goes on in our workshop. We’ve recently created a campaign called “Speak Your Truth” that allows for us to collect voices of solidarity from anywhere in the world on a on a new digital platform that I’ll—I’ll talk more about after the video. I’ll let Diane play that.
Do you have sound? Can you hear that?
Annie Fukushima: No, we can’t. So, you might have to click…there’s a little carrot.
Caroline Lovell: Yeah, I think you know how to do this better than I do.
Annie Fukushima: There’s that little carrot next to the microphone. You might just have to choose your same as sound—yeah, there we go.
Video Sound: The “Speak Your Truth” campaign is an opportunity for survivors to tell their truth to heal and to share their resiliency. When we ask the question “what would the world be like without gender-based violence?” we are asking you to imagine a better and more just future for everyone. As the pandemic grows, so does violence against women: the so-called “shadow pandemic.” More and more women are trapped in their homes in unsafe situations made worse by growing poverty, illness, and stress.
Gender-based violence primarily affects women: Black, Indigenous, and women of color experience a disproportionate higher rate of violence. So does the LGBTQ community. One in three women around the world will experience violence in her lifetime. We can’t ignore it and the more we speak out, the more we realize that violence perpetrated solely because we identify as female. It’s not normal but it sure is pervasive. But how do you personally connect to an issue like gender-based violence that can seem so overwhelming?
It has been far too easy to stay separated by blaming and shaming victims. How do we begin to see the resiliency of women, not just the victimization? You really have a chance to touch someone else in a way that’s not so physical. It’s that you know that you are putting yourself into this into this small—you know—only a few inches of white paper, but it turns into this piece that is you and completely your own and there’s no wrong way to do it and you can put as much or as little as you want on it. And, at the end of the day, you know it’s going to someone that is going to cherish it and draw strength from it and in a way that strengthens you to know that you are making a difference in someone else’s life. And that female to female or survivor to survivor or hand to hand, we can touch each other in ways that are sacred and safe and positive.
How do we begin to see the resiliency of a woman who has simply survived? Well, I made this card to reflect that after we go through things, we begin again. So, I use the phrase “begin again” on the message of my card to let people know that it’s okay to start over that when you’re down, when you are broken, when you are exhausted, rest and then begin again. What we have learned is that engaging in a creative process engages you in a personal expression and that personal expression is what most deeply resonates, so I included the sun setting in the corner. I have different shades of blue because I know that blue and teal is the color that represents sexual assault. And I didn’t fix my heart or can’t explain my crooked heart because it shows that we are all imperfect but is suitable to us. So, someone may get this card and not even see that or think that it’s crooked because it’s suitable to them.
Art is healing and you don’t need to be an artist to benefit from creativity. Art has another language in which to process trauma, and, through their creative process, we can begin to feel again. When we say, “Speak Your Truth,” all we mean is speak from your heart, speak from your heart. Share with another survivor, share your resilience, share your wisdom. Just has a huge impact on the like deep emptiness of why does this even happen? To know that other people are in the same healing process. How can you help someone else heal? What do you need to say that can help you heal? We have found that when we ask survivors and their allies to share their resiliency in the face of violence, we all benefit. There’s nothing more powerful than speaking our truth. We invite all those who may or may not self-identify as survivors or who are a part of a marginalized community that understands what it simply means to survive to join us in creating a world without gender-based violence. We want everybody to know, every survivor to know that they are never alone. We’re super excited about the “Speak Your Truth” campaign and we hope that you’ll join us.
Caroline Lovell: Thanks. So, as a survivor, the best way I was able to use my voice to help others heal without being triggered was through art and it was really important that I found that that mechanism and I think it’s really important to create opportunities for survivors to speak their truth and share their resilience in a safe and nurturing way. When the pandemic hit, and I could no longer travel to lead workshops, I thought there might be a way to gather voices online instead.
So, we have now created a living piece of art—that I call it—and one that grows with every new voice that’s added. And through a unique photo mosaic platform, anyone can answer one of our questions, which is “what would the world look like without gender-based violence?” It’s a simple question. Or “what is your story of solidarity or resilience?”
And now for those who don’t know what a photo mosaic is: it usually has one large image that’s actually made up of thousands of smaller images and it sort of underscores that a single voice contributes to the whole. So, we have created that large, single beautiful image that fills in like a coloring book with each pixel containing a creative response and a unique voice and I just invite you to come to our website and participate in the mosaic. You can, anybody from anywhere in the world can, upload a story, a visual, a poem, a dance, and our hope is just to be able to, you know, collect all these voices and have them archived. And hopefully they are used to inspire healing and hope and I also just want to say you’re welcomed anytime to participate in a “Traveling Postcards” workshop. We’re having one next—just next week in this community and we’re offering workshops both online and in person, when we can safely gather.
So, that’s it. Thank you so much.
Soul Care for Survivors of Gender-Based Violence by Saundra Shanti
In my work as a multi-faith chaplain providing spiritual care for hospital patients, I regularly encounter people who have experienced gender-based violence and other forms of trauma. In addition to physical or psycho-social injury, patients have often also experienced religious trauma or spiritual wounding resulting from an assault or unhealthy environment. I refer to this as soul violation which occurs when the connection to one’s essential self, intrinsic value, or personal dignity is ruptured. In my role, I also witness spiritual abuse. This occurs when authority figures invoke God or the Divine to exert power or control over another human. Spiritual abuse is an affront to our humanity. If access to the Sacred, God, or Transcendence is cut off because someone feels threatened, betrayed, or shamed the solution is to create space for that person to lament and speak their truth. Survivors need to be heard and received through empathic connection. This article offers reflections from my own experiences as a practitioner and exemplars of activities that I have facilitated through art.
My purpose as a spiritual care provider is to come alongside people in pain and compassionately accompany them. I do not proselytize or advise or attempt to fix a situation. Rather I invite them to share their story, where I listen with an open heart and with precision. 1 Through listening patiently, I invite their own wisdom from within to be expressed, moving survivors toward healing.2 In this sense, something is offered and something is received. In our exchange I bring genuine interest in hearing what has happened in a person’s life and what they make of that experience. Together the survivor and I approach existential and universally human questions of identity, purpose, and belovedness. Involving religion in this discovery may or may not come into play.
Religion, one component of spirituality, comes from the root religio, meaning to reconnect, to bind back together.3 If people have this kind of connective experience with religious practice or communities of faith, then this is a source of solace and healing for them. Our imagination of what might be connective, provide meaning, or inspire awe needs to be expansive rather than narrow. I find the arts to be another domain where humans are able to explore both suffering and beauty. Consequently, one way I introduce care for the spirit is to facilitate art-making.
When someone is tangled in their trauma, it can be very difficult for them to sit face to face with a chaplain and articulate what is happening in their interior landscape. Creating art allows people to experience non-verbal and embodied healing, where participants of art-making bring forth their experience by putting color on paper. This is not art therapy to diagnosis mental health; this is care for the soul. Educator and spiritual teacher, Parker Palmer offers this: “In Western culture, we often seek truth through confrontation. But our headstrong ways of charging at truth scare the shy soul away. If soul truth is to be spoken and heard, it must be
approached ‘on the slant.’ I do not mean we should be coy, speaking evasively about subjects that make us uncomfortable, which weakens us and our relationships. But soul truth is so powerful that we must allow ourselves to approach it, and it to approach us, indirectly. We must invite, not command, the soul to speak. We must allow, not force, ourselves to listen.”4 Facilitating art with people, and then skillfully asking questions and listening to them, allows for rich spiritual exploration.
I usually offer a prompt to patients to initiate creativity. One concept which I’ve adapted from A Window Between Worlds,5 a non-profit that utilizes art to transform trauma, is “What big emotion is swimming inside you right now?” There are always multiple feelings, but people readily locate one that is dominate such as anger, fear, shame or anxiousness. After that emotion is named, I invite them to draw that emotion as a monster. “Show me what your Anger Monster looks like. It can be abstract color, or it can have literal form.” Once that rather nebulous interior feeing is imparted to the external, material world, we can look at the expression together. In safely held space, we collaboratively move forward through questioning and wondering, speaking and listening. Something is offered and something is received.
Another example of art-making as healing process is what I call “Detangling Story from Soul.” I offer a patient a large black and white photograph of an unidentified person. They are invited to make up this person’s story, imagining their name, history, and what is going on for them in the moment. Once the creative juices are flowing, they write the story in the white background behind the image. Not surprisingly, a lot of their own story shows up in the narrative. After reading this together, I instruct them to cut out the image so that now the image and the written story are separated. Then we wonder together by reflecting on questions like: Are we our stories? Are we separate from our stories? How much do we get to decide? Answers are not as important as the questions. After this open-ended exploration, I provide art materials like paint and papers and invite the patient to imagine what this person’s soul looks like. By engaging the senses in this playful process, new potential for life emerges.
Partnering with Women’s Wisdom Initiative6, another arts-based non-profit that focuses on healing gender-based violence, has led to the actualization of workshops in Utah. Take for example, the Traveling Postcards workshop at the university hospital attended by employees. Fifty professionals from across disciplines came together in small workshops to connect with each other around this topic, share their experience and wisdom, and create art. Ordinary white postcards are transformed by adding images and words to create unique expressions of love and support. These are then placed in beautiful cloth bags and gifted to survivors of sexual assault who enter our Emergency Department, or survivors of trauma who are on our hospital floors. This community process and tangible offering remind patients that they are not alone. Spiritually, we remind survivors that even though their soul has been violated, their wholeness is still present inside and healing is possible.
Hospital and hospitality have the same root meaning7 and can be expressed as “welcoming the stranger.” You have a home and I have a home. There are many places to reside and we can extend hospitality to one another by visiting each other’s homes. Similarly, when patients come to the hospital, I can extend spiritual hospitality through my care. We may have different religions or spiritual practices, but this does not need to divide. Rather, by extending hospitality, I welcome those of all faiths or no faith to the table.
The message I impart to patients and especially to survivors of gender-based violence that I offer as a means to conclude is, “You are loved and you matter.” When violence occurs, more than bones get broken; the heart is also torn in two. The goal of spiritual care is to extend compassion, receive story, evoke wisdom, and gently walk together toward wholeness.
References:
1. Brazelton, N.Listening from places of survival: the role of story listening in the empowerment of female victims of violence. International Journal of Listening. 2019; 33(3),154-157.
2. Evers, H. (Contemplative Listening: A Rhetorical-Critical Approach yo Facilitate Internal Dialog.Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling. 2017; 71(2), 114-121.
3. Rohr, Richard, Seeing with God’s Eyes, August 2016. https://cac.org/seeing-gods-eyes-2016-08-17/.
4. Palmer, P. J. (2009).A hidden wholeness: The journey toward an undivided life. john Wiley & sons.
5. A Window Between Worlds, Monster in Me, November 2019. https://awbw.org.
6. The Women’s Wisdom Initiative: empowering survivors of gender-based violence through the healing arts, https://womenswisdominitiative.org.
7. Online Etymology Dictionary. https://www.etymonline.com/word/hospital.
