Poesis and football and pain and costumes

Expressive arts therapy rests on the premise that imagination is the healer, that encouraging the soul to speak in its own way transforms darkness into light, the hidden and concealed into the open, and thus provides insight and release. ~ Poesis

I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about trauma, hope, and the arts in the last month or so. My research paper for this class was on hope (and the lack thereof). My reading pod for class has largely focused on the Poesis reading. We’re all artists of one sort or another; it’s been easy to stay focused there. In the midst of those dynamics, my own childhood stories of trauma rose very close to the surface of my thoughts.

I can’t speak for the others in my reading pod, but I have been very greatful to (largely) stay away from discussions about the assigned feminist readings. I chose the group because I thought it could be helpful in addressing some of the pain and heartache I’ve experienced in the church because of my gender. As much as I’ve tried, though, it’s still too fresh, too present, to discuss — even if it is accompanied by academic and intellectual distance.

Perhaps this is the goal of all therapeutic work, to take the deepest loss that we have suffered, to abide in the immeasurable darkness, and yet to be the power that binds our senses, to continue to flow and be, when our very names have been forgotten. To say a “Yes” to all of life, even to loss and death. ~Poesis

My childhood stories? Those exist in large part because I was a girl in a family that wanted boys. The disappointment and rage of a family who called each baby Jason until she was born, who didn’t get to coach football, who (seemingly) didn’t have math and science-focused children. In the midst of that, I escaped into theatre and found hope for worlds I didn’t know could exist. My first therapists were playwrights, costume designers, and lyricists. They were green rooms filled with games, imagination, and laughter.

The stage is a magic circle where only the most real things happen, a neutral territory outside the jurisdiction of Fate where stars may be crossed with impunity. A truer and more real place does not exist in all the universe. ~Baber

Reading and discussing Poesis should be required for all of humanity. It gives language to the desire to create…something…beautiful out of pain, to hope against hope in the darkest of situations.