Abbie at Play!: 10/08

Friday, October 31, 2008

Smallest Witnesses: The Crisis in Darfur Through Children's Eyes

During a 2005 mission to Darfurian refugee camps in Chad, two Human Rights Watch researchers gave children paper and crayons while their families were being interviewed. Unprompted, the children drew scenes of devastation: pictures of their villages being attacked by "Janjaweed," bombings by Sudanese government forces, the shootings, the rapes, the burning of entire villages, and the flight to Chad. The children, from seven refugee camps, insisted the drawings be shared with the rest of the world.In Smallest Witnesses: The Crisis in Darfur Through Children's Eyes, participants discussed the images created by the children, and the impact the crisis has had on its youngest victims. The program featured Jemera Rone, Sudan Researcher, Human Rights Watch; Olivier Bercault, Emergencies Researcher, Human Rights Watch; Dr. Annie Sparrow, Third Millennium Fellow, Harvard University Researcher, Human Rights Watch; and moderator Jerry Fowler, Staff Director, Committee on Conscience, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.To learn more about Darfur's smallest witnesses, visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum at http://www.ushmm.org/conscience/analysis/details.php?content=2005-06-03&menupage=Sudan

Friday, October 24, 2008

Hello!

My blogger nickname is abbie-at-play and i am a psychologist in the philippines. i work with children, adolescents, and adults also.

in my work, i use play and creative expression to help my clients enhance their self-awareness, healing and growth. i use play and creative expression for my own growth too.

in 2006, with some fellow psychologists, i had the great luck to learn sandplay therapy from two very generous sandplay therapists from australia-- Karen Daniel and Anna Russo. (You can read more about their work at http://www.emotional-transformation.com.au/index.html)

since then, sandplay therapy and creative journaling have been my main tools in my work.

It works great for adults!

"Abbie" is the name i gave to the little "girl" in the picture here, in the very first sandtray that i made in my new playroom at home. i identify with her a lot. she likes to play and she has a lot of precious stories to tell, just like all of us.

Let's walk this journey together :)

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The Inner Self Communicates With Us Through Our Art

"For a person who works improvisationally most of the time, it may surprise you to know that art for me is about visual communication. The odd thing is that the communication is first and foremost from my heart to me. It's my inner, hidden self which speaks through the work of my hands.
The less I try to control the outcome; the less I fuss with "getting it right," the less I'm concerned about making art, the more of my truth is revealed. And when my truth comes out in the open, conveyed in my beadwork, I feel a great sense of wholeness, connection, and satisfaction."

--- Robin Atkins, bead artist

This is what I learned: that everybody is talented, original, and has something important to say. Everybody is talented because everybody who is human has something to express. Everybody is original, if she tells the truth, if she speaks from herself. But it must be from her true self and not the self she thinks she should be.

So remember these two things: you are talented and you are original. Be sure of that. I say this because self-trust is one of the very most important things in writing....

-Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write

The Voyage to a Place Inside Oneself

For a voyage to a destination, wherever it may be, is also a voyage inside oneself; even as a cyclone carries along with it the center in which it must ultimately come to rest.

At these moments I think not only of the places I have been to but also of the distances I have traveled within myself without a friend or ship; and of the long way yet to go before I come home within myself and within the journey.

And always when the curtains are lifted, the night is without, peering in steadily and constantly, with the light of the stars far beyond.

- Laurens van der Post, Venture to the Interior

Brother of the Sun and of Time

Let me hold your story
and fill my hands
with new sensations
that I've never seen before
which have never existed
which I couldn't have understood
without your song.
They bear your name
and trace out a road.
Let me take with me
a piece of our time together
and savour the warmth
a friend leaves behind.

Brother of the sun and of time
who cares what colour the wind is?
We are joined by the taste of a
dream.
Of being hand in hand
holding
a small piece,
a bit of a world
where you are allowed
to walk at your own pace,
to feel what you feel
and, although different,
to sing your own song

Let me take your conscience
and leave taking with me
the certainty
that although we are different
we're alike
That the heart beats
to the same beat
but your form
creates a new rhythm
Let me learn your music
and enrich my world
with the look of your eyes
and to find in your soul
a new home.

Brother of the sun and of time
who cares what colour the wind is?
We are joined by the taste of a
dream.

--- song by Margarita Boom
(see related post, A Beautiful Song of Friendship)