Rainbow Dreams and Art Blog

It’s a warm, breezy, summer evening, the kind of evening that feels like it will go on forever. As I reflect upon the week just past, I am grateful for the many opportunities that I had to connect with others…my students of all ages, my friends, and my family. It was truly a week of ups and downs, of losses and of gains, of reminiscing, and of learning and looking forward to new discoveries.

This week, while the losses got me down, I rejoiced in the new connections. While I grieved for my cousin who died this week, and for her family who will miss her, I found hope and joy in being reunited with relatives separated by time and distance. While I felt the loss of a favorite supervisor leaving, I was met with the promise of bright, new opportunities ahead of me. It is all life; of beginnings and endings and in betweens.

The Dog Days of summer continue, even as I know they are coming near to an end. Each week, I enjoy my kids in the YMCA Day Camp, and I get to know them better, to watch them grow as they create amazing things. Often there are new faces, or the reluctant kids join in when they see the fun we are having. This week’s them was Jungle Safari, and on a whim I decided to try our hand at the same Animal Finger Puppet project I did with my teens in our home school group. It was a great success, as the kids came up with the most creative ways to express themselves with clay and the many goodies I brought with me. It was interesting to watch how they learned from each other and began adding accessories to their animal puppets, such as hair, capes, hats, guitars, bows, and cups. Very cool!

Here are some images of our art. Click on thumbnail images once or even twice to enlarge!

On Thursday afternoon, we did a fun yoga session where we began with a Seashore Warm-up, and ended up crashing our boats on a Jungle coast. We each had a favorite jungle animal and we made up our own tale using those animals, and inventing poses for our animals. Of course we included some old favorites too, such as cobra pose, lion’s pose and crocodile pose. We had a great time – the kids have such great imaginations! We ended with an activity for meditation that the kids really enjoyed. I brought in fabric, and we created Yoga Animal Flags. It was a lot of fun to come up with symbols for our flags, and show the animal friends we wanted to represent on our flags. We simply used permanent markers on fabric, and the results were very nice. This was a project that seemed to appeal to all ages and to boys as well as to girls. As always, the time seemed to go by way too fast.

Finally, as the week came to a close, I truly enjoyed my adult classes on Thursday. We have so much fun in our Thursday evening class at the YMCA, and it feels so sincere and heartfelt that we not only learn and grow together, but we share so much of ourselves in the process. It is the most joyful yoga class I have ever taught. I leave there feeling so uplifted that it stays with me, and I think again and again how lucky I am to be there. We have a recent Gulf War veteran in our midst, and it brings to my heart how much this person was willing to give for us all, and how he now needs to be cared for and to feel safe and that he can at least relax. When you see first-hand what war does to our bodies and minds, it makes you realize how precious is PEACE. In my heart I dedicate my classes and my teachings to this man, to my cousin Audrey who died a week ago, and to us all, that we can at last know peace.

May we all know peace,

Lisa

Tags: Art, Art activities, Personal Storytelling, Storytelling, Yoga by Lisa
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Last Thursday at the YMCA, the day I teach yoga in the Day Camp After Care Program…we had so few kids that it was difficult to teach a class, as the numbers continued to dwindle as parents arrived to pick them up. Usually I am competing with a movie, so I checked in the next room where the movie was showing and it was only counselors and two or three kids watching! Well, after all it was July 3rd, so presumably many people were out of town. At first I was disappointed not to teach the yoga class I had planned, but, the afternoon turned out to be special in unexpected ways. The kids who were there asked if they could play with my puppets and tell some of their own stories, so they did. It was fun but that is when I also learned I need to set time limits as one girl had so many stories to tell that she would go on as long as she could hold an audience! We also looked at my book of American stories, and found the words to some patriotic American songs. One girl asked if we could sing the Star Spangled Banner! So we sang it together. It was so cute and a special moment I will never forget.

Then, I ended my time with them by doing some more body painting as I had done the day before. On Wednesday we had made Fireworks paintings in our art class, followed by me creating original Fourth of July tattoos on their hands or arms. Some of the kids wanted the same tattoo again. It was red, white and blue stripes with a white star, kind of like a shooting star! Some kids wanted their ankles painted and most of them wanted their faces painted. I painted a red, white and blue butterfly on one girl’s face. All were red, white and blue, and they went home looking really awesome. What was SO cute was hearing them all talk about how they were NEVER going to wash these off, and how they hoped their moms would not make them take a bath that night or they would have to take it with a bag on their arm or hand. So very sweet. A couple of the little girls came up to me and hugged me and snuggled against me, thanking me for what I had done. It was a joy and a pleasure to spend time with them, and to see them so happy.

This week at the Y, the theme is King Tut’s Exploration. Yesterday, Wednesday, I brought a painting project for us to do for Art Day. We painted a King Tut’s death mask, but we could do it like a self-portrait if we wanted to. We left borders around the edges of the page to write our names and other messages in hieroglyphics. Our paint was gold, blue and red metallic paint. I loved the look of the metallic paint! Some of the kids even used silver. These turned out WAY better than I could have expected and the kids were all so absorbed in their work that when their parents came to pick them up, they wanted to stay and finish their paintings. One girl wrote, “I love Lisa” in hieroglyphics on her painting. When she told me this, I felt happy and grateful to share this love and positive experience with her. I can’t really describe that moment in words, of feeling that connection, that appreciation of one human being for another, except that it was mutual. It felt as though we had known each other all our lives. She is a sweet and appreciative child, as are nearly all of the kids that come to this program each week. I adore them! So many kids thanked me for coming to spend time with them each week that my heart felt very full. They are so special to me and I appreciate THEIR time. Their love makes me want to do many special things for them, to try even harder to tell wonderful stories and come up with amazing art projects.

All of this abundance that I’m feeling, is so striking in contrast to what I feel about the job situation and how the economy is heading here in Michigan. Many companies attempt to cut costs by cutting pay and benefits and then we all suffer. So many of my friends and families have been getting laid off or losing benefits. The stinginess flows all the way down to the kids, who feel it too. I try not to let financial pressures affect the way I approach my life with my own three children, or with my children at the YMCA. If we skimp on kids, they feel it and how can we expect their hearts to be in it? My prayer is that somehow I can support myself and find income from other areas in my life, in order to keep doing the work I love to do with these kids. I am breathing right now, praying and calming my mind and my heart so I can continue to create abundance in the life of my own children, and those whom I spend time with each week at the YMCA.

With love and gratitude to ALL my kids!

Lisa

Tags: Art, Art activities, Personal Storytelling, Storytelling by Lisa
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