Patricia Pearce

Helping You Be the Change

Rainbow in the Night Sky

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Do you believe in rainbows?

At the end of each year and the beginning of a new one, I like to look back and do a year-end review to remind myself of the path I’ve traveled and set my intentions for the year to come. When I was reviewing my journals from this past year, I came across a dream I had last New Year’s Eve that I want to share with you.

I’m in a large gathering of people engaged in a group ritual. Each person is holding a candle, and I and the other adults are looking into the eyes of young people and singing to them. The intent of the ritual is to encourage the younger generation as they face the global challenges before them.

Then something unexpected takes place that wasn’t part of the planned ritual: the younger people reciprocate. Looking into our eyes, they sing for us, letting us know that they recognize that we too inherited warfare and other challenging problems from the past and we have worked with them as best we could. Their kindness and generosity moves me to tears.

Later, I am outside. It is night and the sky is dark. I am standing in a location that feels like the site of old ruins. Then, suddenly and improbably, a rainbow appears across the night sky. It is an incredible sight, and I weep, overcome with gratitude.

We happen to be living in an age in which old structures, systems and beliefs are crumbling into ruins. The world around us can seem dark and foreboding, and we may wonder how those who will come after us will be able to make their way through the world they are inheriting.Continue Reading

Keur Ibrah Fall

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We are here to learn with our bodies and our minds so that we can enter into a new level of relationship with the world.

Senegal

Sunday in June

A young girl, fifteen, takes my hand and leads me to her house. “Baila” she says. Baila means dance in Spanish, a language I do understand. She is, however, speaking Wolof. She hands me a broom made out of sticks, with no handle and I understand that Baila means sweep in Wolof. She motions to me in a gesture saying, “Sweep my house.”  Then I imagine the translation of the stream of words in Wolof: “I live here with my parents and seven or eight brothers. You came to help. We need the house to be cleaned so get started. I will show you how.” She has the smooth skin of youth, the color of bittersweet chocolate. She is wearing an orange nylon tee-shirt and a long cotton skirt with swirling lines of green and blue. It is tied at her waist. No shoes.

I take the broom and start to sweep. She frowns and shows me again. “Use the side of the twigs,” she says in Wolof as far as I know. She is moderately impatient with me. I smile weakly and try again.

The floor is dirt plastered over. There are a lot of holes and cracks where sand collects. It is Senegal, the Sahel. The soil is dry. Dust is everywhere. The desert is encroaching daily. “Baila” Somehow I understand the young girl’s name is Hilda or Hulda. She is insistent, directive but not mean with me. I am older than her grandmother by a few years I judge. I am ok with it all.Continue Reading

Bearing Witness

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Together hopefully we will share the light of love.

When Patricia asked me if I’d be willing to write a guest blog, I was honored and also a bit daunted. I didn’t quite know where to start, or how to follow her beautifully laid path. She suggested that I might write about my work as spiritual practice, and possibly share an excerpt from my newly written book Find the Medicine: How Theater of Witness Reveals Stories of Suffering, Transformation and Peace. So I offer the Prelude of the book and some subsequent thoughts:

I am crouching in the wings of the theater watching the performance of Children of Cambodia/Children of War. From the side angle I see Hong Peach’s graceful silhouette balance as she perches on her right leg and her hands glide through the air in slow motion. Her fingers touch and trace invisible lines in the soft blue light. Her beauty is pure and lingers like perfume. Then with a boisterous shout, the Cambodian teen boys bound through the space, cajoling each other as they flip and jump over higher and higher ropes before collapsing into a pile of limbs on the floor, laughing before one turns serious:Continue Reading