A Healing Meditation

On August 24th, 2014 the town of Napa, CA that I live in experienced a 6.0 earthquake at 3:20 AM Not the kind of wake up call I was asking for. The earthquake lasted 21 seconds and it was horrifying. 

To say the least I've been on edge these past few days. While my house is structurally sound albeit there was a lot of broken glass and turned over furniture, I can't say my brain was really working at 100%. Most of the week I have felt very fatigued, and focusing on anything was pretty much impossible. It's not easy to admit that you are being affected by a traumatic event, but when I heard there was a healing meditation being held by Joni Dittricht I knew this was something I needed to attend. 

I don't know how exactly it happened but something changed at that meditation. When I came away I was feeling back to almost normal. No more spacey feelings or high anxiety. It was amazing. 

One of the things Joni talked about was how transformation comes about in our lives. It's not by hoping it will happen, but is sparked by uncontrollable event in our life, usually traumatic. From the ruin we feel and experience we can rebuild into something else. 

Think through your life and when it shifted course. What caused those shifts? Was there a death in the family, an accident, a natural disaster, losing a job, a divorce? And yet it's in these events we feel we have lost it all are when the amazing life transformation happens.

The Magical World of Labyrinths

Labyrinths have been fascinating me now for several years. I can't even explain exactly why this fascination happened. Before I even went back to school I was interested in drawing them. Then I started to see where I could walk them. One of my firsts and favorites is the one at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco that you see to the left. 










 I couldn't stop drawing and painting Labyrinths. Here's one I created several years ago. For a great site on how to draw these guys click here 

 Two years ago my wife and I had a commitment ceremony where I created a wedding labyrinth for us to walk through as part of our ceremony.








Labyrinths have once again cropped up in my life. I just discovered one of these quite by accident that was just a couple of blocks from my house. Sadly, I have found many labyrinths in my area are locked away and are not readily available to be used. There is a great site for locating labyrinths. It's called the World Wide Labyrinth Locator


Walking Labyrinths can be a very magical experience. Here's a few instructions for walking one.

1. If you can, walk a labyrinth barefoot.
2. Before you walk think about something you're looking for an answer to. As you walk to the middle ask for guidance about the particular issue.
3. As you walk back out try to clear your mind and be receptive to whatever answer you might get in whatever form you might receive it.

If you can, walk the labyrinth a few times in the next few weeks. Journal your experience and see what comes from it. Please feel free to post your experience. Happy Labyrinth Journeys!

The Healing Power of Music

I'm so excited to see this movie,  Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory. It looks like an amazing documentary on music being able to reach those who seem completely unreachable.

Thanks Piet Mondrian

This weeks work was inspired by the Dutch painter Piet Mondrain. I have to say sometimes I just don't know what art projects will work well with those with Alzheimer's or for the elderly for that matter. Sometimes you think you have a great project and it just flops. Well this project was a winner. I was shocked at how everyone settled in and just really focused on the project.

Here's where I got the idea for the project, Piet Mondrain for Kids. They do a great job explaining how it works. I would recommend getting some of Piet's work that is similar to what you'll be creating to show your participants. Having a little bit of history on this gentleman is great too. You'll find info at his website here.

I first made a sample myself to show the groups. Then I premade all of them by just adding a couple of lines of tape on each page of card stock. Each one was a little different, I had them pick one that spoke to them. Then I would ask them where they would like to put the next line of tape. Once they felt there was enough lines, I gave them red, yellow, blue and black paint to use.

What I love about my groups is I try to give them a few rules to go by and they usually break all of them. I LOVE THIS. While I tried to have them stick to squares and rectangles there were many triangles and other wild shapes. They'd mix their paint to come up with other colors and THAT'S what I love about the creative process.

At the end of the class I like to ask each person to talk a little about their work. I try to see if they can come up with a title and any other thoughts or feelings they have about their work. 

Love Week

I've been pondering what to have the peeps create for the week of Valentines. So I decided to head to my favorite site in the whole wide world...Pinterist of course, and start to do a little search. Came across the Useyourcoloredpencils blog and loved the art project that resembles the work of Robert Indiana's Love Sculpture. I like when I can show the peeps that what they are doing is inspired from a well known artist. Much like the painting with scissors project we did a few weeks ago that was inspired by Henri Matisse.

My cat Mike checking out the project. He approves!!

I've found that with elder classes, they actually do quite well when we do a drawing step-by-step. I'll use a white board and walk through each line with them. I like outlining the words in a black crayon and or oil pastel. It creates a nice resist technique so when you paint in the spaces, the paint is easily kept in the right spots.

I recommend bringing in pictures of Mr. Indiana's Love sculpture to show the class. It's also a great conversation piece to see if it triggers any memories in my early Alzheimer's groups. 

I took an 8 1/2 by 11 piece of paper,  folded it so it makes a squire and cut off the excess. Then I folded the paper in half both horizontally and vertically so I had four boxes the same size. This makes it easier to create each letter in it's own box. You could first use a pencil to draw in your letters, and then go over it with a dark oil pastel and or crayon. Then get out the paints, course you could use any type of medium really. I just like the watercolors with the oil pastels due to the resist technique that is created.

Just an FYI...I created these two Love pics very quickly. I didn't even use card stock, which I would recommend, or even watercolor paper. I tried a few different approaches with colors.

Painting With Scissors -- Thanks Matisse

I came across this project idea a couple of weeks ago and was able to use it in both my classes. I have to say this is probably one of my favorite projects. It's simple, it uses a lot of cutting which my peeps seem to love to do. It had to be modified just a little for each group, but my early Alzheimer group really got into it and didn't need much prodding from me at all.

I first saw the idea on Pinterest (of course) then started to do a little research and found this story about Henri Matisse and all about how he started to "Paint with scissors" later in life. Awesome story!!

What I like about this project is it's great for anyone who can use scissors. Old, young and in between. Feel like you can't draw? Well then this is perfect for you. Just start cutting colored paper and just see what happens.

The top picture above is the one I created in I'd say about 15 min. I call it "The Amusement Park" because some how...and I don't even know how I did it...I created what looks like a mouse. So then it got me to think about Mickey Mouse and from there I got my title.

So if you're feeling creative and don't know what to do....this is a great way to get your creative juices flowing. The other pic's you see are from my students. 

Chinese New Year Lanterns

This week with the peeps I decided to use the cherry blossom project and mix it with the Chinese lantern project (In honor of the upcoming Chinese New Year). The results were so amazing. First off, the people I work with are challenged in many ways. Blowing Ink around on a paper to create the limbs of a cherry blossom is not the easiest for those who are completely healthy. One young woman was totally exhausted from her first project, but was eager to make another one. When she was finished she told me it was probably one of her most favorite projects so far.

I have to say watching people be creative, never ever gets old.