"COURAGE"at the Norman Rockwell Museum March 28th, 2014 2:30pm
Songs, poems and stories on the theme of courage are paired with Norman Rockwell and Wendell Minor's art as the focal point.
WHO? Norman Rockwell Museum staff, artists of all ages and audience members co-create a community performance.
Artists:
Mari Andrejco
Jan Hutchinson
Andrew Joffe
Andrew Joffe
Francesca Margulies
Teresa Thomas
WHEN? Created over several months for the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers, the event will take place on March 28th, 2014
WHERE? Galleries of the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA
Friday, March 28th 2:30 - 3:30 pm
(arrive by 2:15)
Norman Rockwell Museum
9 Route 183 Stockbridge, MA 01262
413-298-4100
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| Norman Rockwell's 'The Problem We All Live With' |
Learning the back story on Ruby Bridges
pictured here started the 'Karaoke Confession'
group inquiry into forgiveness.
What if we could have meaningful rituals and dialogue in everyday life with the ease and availability of karaoke?
This desire led me to put together the first of these guided walks in March 2012 for the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers that was called 'Karaoke Confession.' Its theme was forgiveness:
http://goddessloop.blogspot.com/
The second was on the theme of trust:
Berkshire Festival of Women Writers 2013
How fortunate to have the world class Norman Rockwell Museum as a welcoming laboratory to learn about
forgiveness, trust and courage. Imagine conversing with Rockwell's paintings and finding new stories each time you visit, changing the lens through which you see the story.
Norman Rockwell said that he never let the truth get in the way of a good story. His paintings are easily accessible, and at the same time layered with meaning. Walking with his stories alongside, your own story takes on depth.
"We learn by going where we need to go " - Theodore Roethke
Join Courage on facebook
For each of these events at the Rockwell Museum, I've made a rhythm stick or ceremonial object from nature to help understand the theme. For "Courage" I used the rabbit stick (left) I made for last year's "Trust."
'Scairt as a rabbit, bold as a bear' is what Amy the Wild Woman called Norman Rockwell when he was a young teen pulled into her sideshow at a fair near his home in White Plains, NY.
He started off scared, and became fascinated.. he came back to be paid for his second appearance in her show. This stick represented Courage as a Continuum. We often need time to step fully into the courage blossoming forth.
In my backyard there is an invasive plant that looks like bamboo when it is full grown. This pervasive plant represents fear and the flute made from this plant shows a way to make use of terror and fear. By naming it or making art it can be transformed.
That it is an empty reed is a nice symbol too.
How much easier it is to go forward with an empty mind instead of a head full of monsters.
Boogiemen/women under the bed, anyone?!
C o u r a g e definition
c.1300, from Old French corage (12c., Modern French courage) "heart, innermost feelings; temper," ..from Latin cor "heart" which remains a common metaphor for inner strength.
....How nice if core curriculum taught "heart, innermost feelings, temper, strength..."
The theme of the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers this year is 'Women Write the World.'
Emulating qualities of courage by naming them in others is a way to right the world.
Naming and appreciating have been the basis of songs for millennia.
I led the group in a Yay chant of acknowledgement for the courage of each of these individuals who are buried within a mile of the museum: Mumbet, John Sergeant, Norman Rockwell, Umpachene.
I asked different women I met at BFWW events their definition of courage.
This desire led me to put together the first of these guided walks in March 2012 for the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers that was called 'Karaoke Confession.' Its theme was forgiveness:
http://goddessloop.blogspot.com/
The second was on the theme of trust:
Berkshire Festival of Women Writers 2013
How fortunate to have the world class Norman Rockwell Museum as a welcoming laboratory to learn about
forgiveness, trust and courage. Imagine conversing with Rockwell's paintings and finding new stories each time you visit, changing the lens through which you see the story.
Norman Rockwell said that he never let the truth get in the way of a good story. His paintings are easily accessible, and at the same time layered with meaning. Walking with his stories alongside, your own story takes on depth.
"We learn by going where we need to go " - Theodore Roethke
Join Courage on facebook
 |
| rabbit stick 'carved' for 'Trust' ... and 'Courage' |
For each of these events at the Rockwell Museum, I've made a rhythm stick or ceremonial object from nature to help understand the theme. For "Courage" I used the rabbit stick (left) I made for last year's "Trust."
'Scairt as a rabbit, bold as a bear' is what Amy the Wild Woman called Norman Rockwell when he was a young teen pulled into her sideshow at a fair near his home in White Plains, NY.
He started off scared, and became fascinated.. he came back to be paid for his second appearance in her show. This stick represented Courage as a Continuum. We often need time to step fully into the courage blossoming forth.
 |
| flute carved from invasive bamboo |
In my backyard there is an invasive plant that looks like bamboo when it is full grown. This pervasive plant represents fear and the flute made from this plant shows a way to make use of terror and fear. By naming it or making art it can be transformed.
That it is an empty reed is a nice symbol too.
How much easier it is to go forward with an empty mind instead of a head full of monsters.
Boogiemen/women under the bed, anyone?!
C o u r a g e definition
c.1300, from Old French corage (12c., Modern French courage) "heart, innermost feelings; temper," ..from Latin cor "heart" which remains a common metaphor for inner strength.
....How nice if core curriculum taught "heart, innermost feelings, temper, strength..."
"Courage" began with me sharing this dictionary definition of courage and quotes from elders and others who I visit in my work with Community Access to the Arts.
Jenny Sutherland, activities director at Mt. Greylock Extended Care Facility, defined courage: Courage is doing. And courage is unexpected..We expect heroes like Luke
Skywalker to have courage, but it’s the ones we don’t expect, like Hans Solo,
who really have courage.
Ruby: Courage is helping people when they need it. Courage is getting up in the morning and doing something when it’s
needed. Not when you want to do it.
Julie: It takes courage to live and be happy in this world. A quote she shared: Courage is fear that has said its prayers – Dorothy Bernard
Sue: The Serenity Prayer - God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.
me: Who
ever ate the first artichoke had courage.Julie: It takes courage to live and be happy in this world. A quote she shared: Courage is fear that has said its prayers – Dorothy Bernard
Sue: The Serenity Prayer - God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.
Emulating qualities of courage by naming them in others is a way to right the world.
Naming and appreciating have been the basis of songs for millennia.
I led the group in a Yay chant of acknowledgement for the courage of each of these individuals who are buried within a mile of the museum: Mumbet, John Sergeant, Norman Rockwell, Umpachene.
I asked different women I met at BFWW events their definition of courage.
One woman said that acceptance and courage go hand in hand.
'When we are naked in our own truth, knowing we need to change our way of thinking, we need courage to accept and change ourselves.'
Another: 'Each of us bears responsibility to speak the truth.
Before you can be courageous you have to be self-aware.
On the national level, you need to speak the truth about your country.
On the religious level, your personal beliefs.'
Our deepest truths are fragile; they become more solid in principle when shared with others.
Gloria Steinem urged us in her talk at MCLA to speak the truth, to restore reality, to find a group where we can tell the truth.
I am grateful to the artists in this Courage event who spoke their truth about courage.
> > > > > > > >
Looking at Rockwell's "Four Freedoms," how do they speak about courage?
Suzi Banks Baum from Laundry Line Divine
was invited to write a poem about this painting
from a mother's perspective.
Freedom from Fear
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| Suzi Banks Baum by "Freedom from Fear" photo by Tammis Coffin |
Suzy's piece begins here:
"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee Lord my Soul to keep"
"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee Lord my Soul to keep"
I
bet these parents said something like this as they tucked these two children in
to bed. Turned off the light, closed the curtains. One more kiss.
Then,
they escaped to the living room below; follow the light streaming up the
staircase. They talk, compare notes; share the intimacies of tired parents
on
an ordinary day, they read the newspaper to each other.
Here,
you can sit with them, pull up a bench as they listen to the radio. Hear the
reports of bombs being dropped in Europe and
stories of young American men filling boats to head "Over
there"...or, wait. I can hear stories about barrel bombs being dropped on
Syrian neighborhoods where children are sitting in makeshift schools. I can hear
the drums behind the chanting of the mothers of Fukushima with babes in arms demanding no
more nukes. I can hear a story of a father covering his children with his body
as a bomb in a soup pot laid by the son of another man takes the legs off Boston marathoners.
Those
two parents hurry back upstairs to check, to touch the sweaty heads of these
two children. To touch and to know, for now, there is freedom from fear.
We
have all done this. Look at the hands of the mother, lifting the blanket
lightly so as not to rouse her children. Let them sleep, he says.
And
so, we do as Margaret J. Wheatley asks us to do, "Fearlessness demands
that we take time to look at whatever feels threatening to us in all its
complexity. We step in to the fear, in to the moment, and watch how by
acknowledging and moving closer, fear dissipates and fearlessness arises."
As
a mother you are on the front line of that complexity.
You
are on the playground or ride the subway watching, always watching.
You
stand in line with your teen-ager enlisting for a tour of who knows what kind
of adventure.
I
can only speak as a mother, but I witness this in my husband, as parents, we
step forward, in front of our children regardless of the threat. We wear out
the newspapers and guide books, bend the ears of our elders asking, longing to
know what it is that threatens and we study it in all its complexity.
Love
is very simple. Freedom, more complex. If we, as mothers, want freedom from
fear for our children, we cannot help but want that for all children. Like
Franklin Delano Roosevelt said in his January 6, 1941 speech that inspired
Rockwell to paint the Four Freedoms, we want that for people, "everywhere in the world". Freedom from fear requires us to know more
deeply all that threatens us. In doing so, we will know we are equal to
whatever is asked of us.
Step
in the way of fear today. Wipe your hands on your apron and dive in to it with
heart of compassion, for in the Tibetan tradition, fearlessness is an act of
generosity. If we want it for ourselves, we want it for all beings. Or, as FDR
said, everywhere in the world.
And
you know, your mother would want you to share.
Suzi Banks Baum
On seeing "Freedom of Worship," Jan Hutchinson
chose to write a poem about the courage of aging
chose to write a poem about the courage of aging
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| Jan Hutchinson by "Freedom of Worship" |
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| Freedom of Worship
Poems by Jan Hutchinson
2/27/14 Notes toward Courage
Courage is a thing of the heart,
a small bird who sings
way out on a limb
through a hurricane wind.
It takes courage even to be kind to yourself.
When your wicked stepmother
peering out of psyche’s mirror,
enumerates your faults and failures,
smile and tell her,
Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
I accept it all:
Beauty and ugliness
Success and failure
Living and dying
Fullness and emptiness.
Neither the outer challenges
nor the psyche’s
wicked stepmother
can have power
where there is courage,
where there is Grace.
12/3/2012b
Let’s
not let
the
inevitable
vulnerability
of aging
turn
into fear.
Let’s sit
and observe
our
vulnerability
from high
up
in the
life guard chair
of the
witness self.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tom Daly, Director of Education at the NRM, is ever-helpful in pointing out the stories behind the Rockwell paintings.
Last year's theme was trust, and Tom pointed out how the lineman in the painting of the same name trusted his equipment. This year he noted how the lineman's expression radiated confidence and courage. I placed Francesca Margulies near the Lineman painting so that her eurythmy movements would echo the courage felt in this painting.
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