by Jennifer Lester

I have been “talking” about this idea of peace with the mentees and mentors.  It became more clear that I was living in the idea of “do as I say, not as I do” the Wednesday following our first night together.  My boyfriend took off for Los Angeles on Wednesday afternoon.  He travels with his job for the majority of the month.  For whatever reason it seems as though (every time) right before he leaves, we have some sort of conflict.  I’m not sure if it’s because our subconscious are protecting us and preparing for separation, so we disconnect mentally right before we do physically………who knows.  The point is I caught it.  I noticed my body tensing up and getting frustrated with pretty much everything.  When I realized this, the awareness made me think.  I decided to launch this journey with all of you & this group of kids.  The topic of this particular group of kids is the idea of peace.  I’ve been talking about this idea of peace when I wasn’t even practicing myself.  By being aware of the situation that was unfolding, I realized I had a choice to make a decision & choose differently.  At that moment of insight, I chose to stand for peace.  The outcome was a happy goodbye, unlike the path we were headed down.  I encourage you to try this experiment in your own life.  Stand for peace and stay awake to that as best you can.  When we, as mentors, are aware and choose to stand differently in our lives; the bigger impact we will have on the lives of our mentees.  The art is a tool.  Yes, we want to encourage learning new techniques and having a professional career in the arts (assuming that is their dream).  We also want to use the art to contemplate ideas, judgments or conclusions.  I’m sure you all have experiences relating to this.  It’s why we create art in the first place.

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 16th, 2010 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.