Soulfaring –

Colors of Longing, pastel on paper

Group Creation, mixed media on paper

Recently, five women gathered at Enbarr Studio for an eight week course –  Beyond Burnout Prevention: Creative and Spiritual Renewal for Social Service Professionals.  Over the weeks, we talked about our work as therapists, social workers, school counselors.  We acknowledged the grief, the frustration, the worry and the exhaustion that comes from such work. And we acknowledged our own dreams, our need for nature, our search for what is wild and  alive inside ourselves, our deep longing.

Reaching for a Star, mixed media

Every night, after checking in and talking about readings related to depth psychology, art therapy, and eco-psychology, we made art. And we began to see that our images are alive, with much more to tell us than could be grasped in only eight weeks. We met in our art work women with wings, birds, animal people, moving colors, mountains, rain and trees.

Who is This? - chalk on paper

On the last night of our time together, we brought to the studio everything we had made and we spent the evening looking at it again, seeing connections in each others work and our own.  More than one person said that the greatest gift of the group was learning that creating things together in community holds a power that is missed when trying to create alone.

Opening the Door, acrylic on canvas

After everyone carried their art back out into the night and drove home, I stood in the studio feeling how full it was with life. Here are some of our living images.

In the Rain, oil pastels on paper

This entry was posted on November 16, 2009 at 8:53 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.