Some Thoughts...

A few of us at TAS are involved in developing not just the art and music program, but the Contemplative Education program as well.

The two programs have some overlap: in the art and music programs the idea is to push kids out of the perspective that art is something one “produces and consumes” and rather that it is a way of being deeply engaged with the world. The contemplative ed curriculum seeks to cultivate a small group of students who dedicate a school year to consistent mindfulness practice during the school day, which includes supporting each other in that practice and taking part in trainings to deepen that practice. I would like to bring in former students to discuss the ways that they use mindfulness in their own lives, as well as monks and teachers and practitioners of various modalities.

An important part of both of these programs is “seeing and listening”. A relaxed, meditative “taking in” of what is happening around oneself is in itself an integrative experience. We tend to analyze things first- put them in context, break down and seperate the elements of the experience, before we actually take the whole thing in consciously. Rather like when someone is talking to me and I focus just on the logic or the pausibility of their statements, missing the emotional tone, or the communicative intent of the things she is saying.

We do this with the arts all the time. It seems that most people who are not trained in one art or the other tend to like things for reasons that aren’t all that clear to themselves, and as such, attibute it to “taste”, which is a fairly passive way of experiencing something. They don’t analyze much at all. A lot of trained artists over-analyze, and are so busy contextualizing that they miss a more direct, communicative experience.

By learning to relax and observe more holistically as one experiences a film, or a painting, or a poem, or a piece of music, one has the whole experience available for later analysis, certainly, but also for later experience- in the sense that the experience is there for the mind to draw rich analogies to and from as new experiences trickle in.
This is an integrative experience. I am coming to believe that all experiences like these strengthen the brain’s ability to integrate new experiences and re-integrate old ones. And integration- neurologically speaking- is the main task for an adolescent.

That is the key to these programs: to ground them in the goal of integrative experiences. First, a relaxed, accepting awareness. Second, a physical, skillful application of materials. Third, the sharing with others. Self-awareness-> Skills-> Relationships.

The sharing with others is the feedback loop being completed, an important stage of integration which is the external representation of an internal process. There are parallels to therapy, where the stages of the deepening therapeutic relationship and the slow exposition of painful material is the indicator of the neural integration of painful past experiences.

Being a part of a community is a deeply healing experience. In a psychological or emotional or spiritual sense I presume "healing" to mean neurological integration. Art is the expression of a community. And for healing to happen, the experience must be shared. It includes others. It must. No one "heals" in isolation.

Thus, Art.