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Creativity & Healing

The world is calling out for deep collective healing and there is no more powerful force than Creativity to assist us in this journey.

It has the ability to reach the depths of our expression, guide us to our truest selves, and encourage us to use our imagination to create new ways outside of what currently is.

Creativity creates language beyond word; breaking down barriers and building bridges between our similarities and differences. This is its power, the ability to share and relate to each other’s emotions and experiences.

The exchange of creative energy causes shifts in our being and becoming.

What is your relationship with creativity? How has creativity supported your growth?

And what part of your creative expression is calling to be explored?

#STWCreativity #STWHealing

The world is calling out for deep collective healing and there is no more powerful force than Creativity to assist us in this journey.

It has the ability to reach the depths of our expression, guide us to our truest selves, and encourage us to use our imagination to create new ways outside of what currently is.

Creativity creates language beyond word; breaking down barriers and building bridges between our similarities and differences. This is its power, the ability to share and relate to each other’s emotions and experiences.

The exchange of creative energy causes shifts in our being and becoming.

What is your relationship with creativity? How has creativity supported your growth?

And what part of your creative expression is calling to be explored?

#STWCreativity #STWHealing

Creativity & Healing Projects

  • Creativity & Healing, Equality & Anti-Oppression

Corporación Otra Escuela [Organization: A Different School]

Colombia - Abya Yala

Corporación Otra Escuela (Spanish acronym COE) is a non-governmental organization with 21 years of experience in training, raising awareness, and promoting peace education pedagogies and culture. We have offices in Bogotá (Cundinamarca, Colombia), Santander de Quilichao (Cauca, Colombia), Madrid (Spain), [and are] composed of a multidisciplinary team working on issues around the construction of peace education pedagogies and culture in different regions of Colombia and in other countries.

Our heart (mission) is to train around the Culture of Peace, starting from peace education, through art, cooperative play, and neuroconvivencia [new current that studies the brain’s biological functions and emotional reactions, and how these are changed by an individual’s social and cultural experiences]. And our dream (vision) is that by 2030 Otra Escuela will be a national and international model for the development of innovative pedagogies and methodologies in the field of peace education and building a peace culture.

  • Creativity & Healing, Equality & Anti-Oppression, Our Environment

Areito: Taino Voices

“Areito: Taino Voices” is an Indigenous virtual monthly gathering that features two different invited Taino guest speakers each month ranging from artists, activists, teachers, academics, etc. It is organized and hosted by artist and activist Ra Ruiz Leon (Taino-Borikua) and educator Gladys Yacely Aponte (Taino-Kiskeya). Taino people are one of several Indigenous groups in the Caribbean and have been resisting colonization since 1492 when Europeans arrived on our shores. Ra and Yacely began this virtual gathering in January of 2021 as a way for the Taino community to stay connected. Today Taino people live and work all over the world but remain connected to their ancestral homelands in the Caribbean (Cuba, Boriken aka Puerto Rico, Ayiti aka Haiti, Kiskeya aka Dominican Republic, Xamaica aka Jamaica, Bahamas). Areito is our word for ceremony and it is one of the ways that we maintain our culture alive and seek harmony with our mother earth. Our virtual Areito gives Taino people an opportunity to hear about other Taino people who are doing amazing work, and a way to stay connected to one another even in the face of a pandemic and/or distance. It is also an opportunity for Indigenous Caribbean folks who are looking to reconnect to their Indigeneity to learn new things and find community. For a year and a half this event has ran monthly without any funds. It is all volunteer work done with a lot of love and passion, however it has been a big goal to secure funds to be able to compensate all involved for their time, energy, and expertise. The community that tunes in each month has grown, proving that it holds a special place in many peoples hearts because they can stay connected to their culture and community through this virtual space and time. At the end of our gatherings we play a game called Taino Trivia, where we ask a question related to our session and the first person to get the answer correctly wins a gift. It can range from a Taino sticker to Taino jewelry, all made by Taino artists. We seek to support and uplift our people as much as we can.

  • Love & Kindness, Creativity & Healing, Equality & Anti-Oppression, PRIDE

Science is a Drag

An award-winning, community-driven and science-themed drag show, Science is a Drag celebrates science through the powerful art of drag. Established in 2019, the show was created to challenge cis-heteronormative stereotypes and archaic notions of professionalism in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), and to provide a safe and empowering platform for queer scientists to feel creative and unrestricted in their science communication efforts. It also provides a safe and accessible space for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community and its allies to engage with science without fear of exclusion or judgment.

Our kings and queens serve drama and science in equal measure, turning live DNA extractions into burlesque performances, highlighting the climate crisis with lip syncs and fiery costume reveals, challenging peoples’ perceptions of bees using Pictionary and showing us the correct techniques for flossing using feather boas. Whether through stand up, lip syncs, dance demos, or something else entirely, our performers share research in ways we can’t forget!

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Creativity & Healing Resources

  • Book
  • Creativity & Healing

Make Good Art, Neil Gaiman

In May 2012, bestselling author Neil Gaiman delivered the commencement address at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, in which he shared his thoughts about creativity, bravery, and strength. He encouraged the fledgling painters, musicians, writers, and dreamers to break rules and think outside the box. Most of all, he encouraged them to make good art.

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  • Book
  • Creativity & Healing, PRIDE

The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love – Sonya Renee Taylor

Humans are a varied and divergent bunch with all manner of beliefs, morals, and bodies. Systems of oppression thrive off our inability to make peace with difference and injure the relationship we have with our own bodies.
The Body Is Not an Apology offers radical self-love as the balm to heal the wounds inflicted by these violent systems. World-renowned activist and poet Sonya Renee Taylor invites us to reconnect with the radical origins of our minds and bodies and celebrate our collective, enduring strength. As we awaken to our own indoctrinated body shame, we feel inspired to awaken others and to interrupt the systems that perpetuate body shame and oppression against all bodies. When we act from this truth on a global scale, we usher in the transformative opportunity of radical self-love, which is the opportunity for a more just, equitable, and compassionate world–for us all.

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  • Book
  • Creativity & Healing

How We Show Up by Mia Birdsong

Through research, interviews, and stories of lived experience, How We Show Up returns us to our inherent connectedness where we find strength, safety, and support in vulnerability and generosity, in asking for help, and in being accountable. Showing up–literally and figuratively–points us toward the promise of our collective vitality and leads us to the liberated well-being we all want.

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