HAICU has a core group of 8 women that meet once a week for 3 1/2 hours.
Each week we do a variety of things. We open with a poem or a song, do breathing exercises, some kind of movement (usually Qi Gong) and sometimes add some dancing.
The picture that is included shows one of the facilitators and one of the participants after they hung an art show in a local venue in December. This art was created over the past two years by HAICU participants.
Recently we have been working through exercises in a book called The 52 Week Motivational Journal. This has been led by one of our participants and we have all found it engaging and helpful.
An art project we have been doing over the past month or so is creating Intuitive Self Portraits based on a workshop from artist Robin Sturis. It is a process where we draw and paint with our non-dominant hand. Which is most interesting about the process is that we do not change or fix anything. When we feel the urge to do so, we walk away.
In the end we talk to the painting and it tells us why we painted what we did. It is a truly amazing process.
The Healing Arts programming is continuing with a hybrid model for group sessions. As we move into the winter months, when colds are more prevalent and travel more dangerous in the snow and ice, remote groups will be hugely beneficial.
Healing Arts Imaginative Care Unit, HAICU, is at capacity with 8-10 participants on a weekly basis. This group of women, mainly seniors, continue to be a supportive community for each other. They have been working on a painting project led by Mitch Beck.
We are partnering with the Central Vermont Council on Aging to be a resource for one another. Our hope is to provide another ongoing weekly group for seniors who would like to learn about the benefits of creative expression.
We are so thankful to everyone who supports our groups and our community.
The Healing Arts for Adults programming has continued to meet with the participants on a weekly basis. With warmer days of summer, they have been enjoying meeting every other week in person to learn about herb and plant medicines. Being outside in nature is a great healer.
SafeArt has received a grant from Central Vermont Council On Aging to help support the Healing Arts for Adults programming, especially for seniors in our community. We are thrilled for this partnership and to share resources between the organizations to reach more folks in need.
We are still taking Covid19 very seriuosly, as we work with many who are in a high risk category. Masks are required for in person programs that take place indoors and we are sanitizing after every meeting. Much of our programming still remains online. We are maintaining a hybrid format to accessing our programming, because we have noticed that by having both in person and online options we are able to reach more people.
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January is the time for resolutions, reflection, and for clearing the clutter on all levels!
This month in our Healing Arts for Adults group we took on a 9 day decluttering process we found online. The primary goal of the process is just as it sounds, to let go of physical objects that are cluttering our space and cleaning things up. But the deeper and more important goal is to let go of everything we no longer need on all levels, physical, emotional, and spiritual. Thereby making room for the things we would like to bring into our lives.
This opened some very unexpected surprises for most everyone as we noticed where the resistance was to letting go of certain things. Sometimes Connecting to fond childhood memories or past traumas. Other lives and people we may have had and are now gone. We found that by bringing consciousness and love to the process we were all able to see, learn, and let go in a beautiful heartfelt way .
We also decided that instead of just carting our treasures to the thrift stores, we wanted to share them with our neighbors in need. This was a slower process but was amazingly rewarding for us all. Those who received donations were so grateful. We felt like we were really part of a process and a community circle.
Perhaps some of you will be inspired to try this too!
Here is the website for the one we did.
Let go, Reach out, and make way for your dreams!
-Susan, Mitch, and HAICU
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