When people lead, leaders must follow.
These two Special Projects are dedicated to inspiring conversation, connection, and working together toward our shared future. Collectively, we offer an invitation to reflect on what each of us can uniquely do to transcend division and build community.
Heart
People who stop and listen to their hearts
instead of all the chaos in their heads,
are able to feel peace and calmness.
The energy is felt throughout their bodies,
moving within the universe, causing
a ripple effect of compassion.
When individuals can calm the fire-felt rage throughout our communities,
express different feelings, is when the healing of the worlds are able to process,
and hearts unite.
Holding the Light
Holding the Light is dedicated to all
who have been affected by violence.
It is a reminder that each
person’s life is meaningful,
and that we are each
filled with purpose and beauty.
It is a call, not to seek out
the avenger with more violence,
but to look within to know
what has opened this door
and to participate in helping to heal
that which is broken
with wisdom and with love.
When people lead,
Leaders must follow.
Making Peace with Hands and Heart
We are one body making peace with hands and heart
Every person and everything in the world exists within us.
We are the mirror as well as the face in it.
We are tasting the taste this minute of eternity.
We are pain and what cures pain.
We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.
– Rumi
One
One man and woman – one love
– one people – ONE.
All are a child of mother, father God,
each in sacred communion
with the One rhythm of the One heart.
there is beauty and grace
in the re-cognition of our Oneness.
People to people to animals to plants
to earth to water to wind
to Breath, to you, to me.
to One.
Sun
When we accept our humanity,
I breathe in fresh scents of new possibilities.
I discover that I can put down my weapon of anger
and speak through my heart.
I begin to feel.
I begin to understand the meanings within my soul.
Voices become one,
communicating within our differences, embracing beginnings of hope,
knowing that our lives are and yet can be together.
Light and Shadow
Light and shadow
Constant opposites that occur together.
Hand in hand,
you cannot have light without shadow.
My shadow is my blanket,
my safety,
my ignorance,
hiding me from others.
My light is my fire,
burning hot inside me,
ablaze with passion to connect with another.
Human being to human being.
I believe in myself,
I believe in you,
And as we both work to understand our shadows,
we will be able to shine our light.
If I Could I Would…
If I could I would… If I could reach out over the sky
and touch your forehead I would.
If I could open up my arms so wide
that they folded backward around the world,
sweeping forward to catch all the birds at once to sing for you, I would do it.
I imagine your eyes and I pretend I can hear your voice, what you’re saying.
I would smile, I would nod.
If I could be your friend, I would.
We gaze up at the same stars.
My river reaches your river,
through icy flows and distant seas.
We are loving sisters, though we have never met.
My postcard to you would read,
“All the best to you and a long life and much happiness!”
Who is the Person Behind this Project?
Patrisha Thomson
I chose to place my photography and poem, Dialogue, in this section to anchor the Create a Bridge concepts as we complete this website.
Dialogue
Dialogue is a two-way highway.
In conflict, the loud, distorted mouth
of rage may look like madness.
The other retaliates.
Hearts have vanished.
I would like to be a source
of healing in the world.
I discover it is by finding what I need
to do within me to feel whole
and to heal my wounds.
Then better words surface,
and I breathe again.
My better breathing
changes the air for us both.
The inter-racial world in which we live has always been a concern to me as I grew up. The separation of cultures, dividing us into classes, and with varied degrees of importance confused me as a child.
We all have our own ways to engage, whether it is knocking on doors or singing a song. But the violence we witness around us cannot be addressed only by lawsuits and individuals. The time to connect is now.
By taking the time and the thoughts that go into doing meaningful work, we heal ourselves in the process, and we are reminded that we are not alone. I enjoy working with my team to provide this two-project website. The effects are layered and multiple. This site is to inspire engagement by more people, beyond what these artists have created for you.
How to choose what to do? My desire is to do what I do best, so that I grow in my talents, and, at the same time, offer the best of what I can do. When I am true to myself, I find that my energy and happiness increase. If I stifle my energy, I am not fully engaged.
When covid spread across the world, I had just completed recording the first stage of my 2nd jazz vocal album. All but one song was a solo, thus I thought to record Imagine as a solo. However, when George Floyd was killed, I invited singers of various races to join me in this recording. No matter our ethnicities, aren’t we are all affected by silent acceptance of injustice?
When I was teaching my Integrative Arts classes, there was so much violence on the streets throughout our country that it could not be ignored. Several of my Integrative Arts students joined me in workshops to develop the images and writings you see here. It is the goal of Expressive Art and Healing to engage in authentic creativity, to express in the present, at the level of one’s heart. I am happy to have participated with these artist/writers to have developed Create a Bridge many years ago. These two projects fit like hand in glove to enhance each other. I am grateful for these people and the time we all have taken to offer these works, at a time when our country and the world are facing extraordinary challenges.
All of us who contributed to this website invite you to pass it on – the artists you see – and my team behind the scenes.
Please return for new items in the future. For example, later, in the navigation, you will see a section that shares other people and groups who are fully engaged in healing our society, helping people to build communities of value and sharing in meaningful ways. Doesn’t it feed all of us to witness the growing ways to participate in bringing more genuine layers to our lives?
We would like to know about and share your contributions along with what this site has inspired you to do. If you like, please contact us at the email address below.
The Imagine musicians:
Singers, in order of appearance:
Larissa Lam, Chloe Vaught, Gitanjali Jain
Only Won, Patrisha Thomson, Ray Davis
Instrumentalists: Steve Rawlins, Grant Geissman, Edwin Livingston, Gordon Peeke, Craig Pile, Rec. Engineer-Eric Astor, video editor-Will Cook
Create a Bridge – Artist/Poets:
Helen Langley, Laura Gipsman, Prairie Prichett, Christel Gaurnier, Patrisha Thomson, 8 year old girl’s voice.
Behind the scenes:
Kristina Kury, Social Media
Tony Ferguson, Public Relations
Monica Campagna, Website Design
