Art offers sanctuary to everyone willing to open their Hearts as well as their Eyes

Last Sunday, Vidhi and I were invited to do our first HeART circle with the London community through art. It was a family circle, so we had kids and adults coming together. With the uncertainty hovering around us, this was an opportunity to come together and ask how each one's heart was doing.

Before the circle started, we could see the kids ready with their art material and ready to jump in the pool of paints. It was an opportunity for us to learn from the little teachers to shed inhibitions and bring authenticity.

Trishna di started the circle with a minute of silence. They warmly welcomed Vidhi to lead us through a super fun icebreaker where we mentally painted different parts of our faces one by one with our favorite colors. This opened up the doors of creativity in our minds. We moved to the theme of the circle after reading this passage as an invitation to check in with ourselves to ask ourselves how we are doing and express ourselves on the canvas through colors and words. The intention was to drive our own check-in bag and see how we were doing?

We divided ourselves into two smaller groups, and for the next forty-five minutes, we tried to connect to the voice inside us and write it down through different strokes and shades of colors. Part of me wanted to paint, but part of me wanted to witness the joy and focused attention of the kids while they were doing their painting and seeing the inner child coming alive for the adults.



During the reflection circle, I was blown away by the kids' authenticity by their being and sharing. And I was amazed to see how kids were so natural, clear about how they were feeling, and could share it without any filters. Many of us shared that this invitation came as a reminder to take a pause and step into our own creative spaces. For some, art was a part of their life that they had somehow become distanced from, and this gathering helped them reconnect with it again. For others, they hadn't picked up a paintbrush or coloring pencil in a couple of decades, and this invitation catalyzed experimenting once again. For some, this time was to connect with the emotions that the current pandemic was bringing to their doorstep. This space came as a reminder about how we forget to unlearn the complexities of life and acknowledge our own vulnerabilities—spaces like these support tuning our inner radars in simple ways.

In the end, all of us came to the bigger circle and shared in a word how each one of us was feeling at the end of two hours, and we concluded our circle with this inspiring video followed by a minute of silence. My take away from the circle is to nurture the child-like side in me through mediums that would serve the HeArtist inside me.

We want to share our immense gratitude to Tishna didi for inviting and weaving us to the London community. The smiles in the pictures tell more than my words about how each one was feeling at the end of the circle.



P.S- Anytime you feel your heart sinking, close your eyes and paint your face with your favorite color, especially the tip of your nose, and you will hear the tunes of your dancing heart once again.