Healing Corridor

No book has moved me more in recent years than the book, Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. The book offers an extended, powerful and clear argument for investing in girls and women around the world.

In the nineteenth century, the central moral challenge was slavery. In the twentieth century, it was the battle against totalitarianism. We believe that in this century the paramount moral challenge will be the struggle for gender equality around the world.

The first half of the book outlines the moral challenge. The problem of child prostitution and slavery. The problem of violence against women. The problem of maternal mortality. Much of the second half of the book highlights strategies that have been successful in empowering women in the face of such problems—notably education, public health strategies and microfinance.

The authors are not timid in their intentions. As early as the introduction they announce:

We hope to recruit you to join an incipient movement to emancipate women and fight global poverty by unlocking women’s power as economic catalysts. That is the process under way—not a drama of victimization but of empowerment, the kind that transforms bubbly teenage girls from brothel slaves into successful businesswomen. This is a story of transformation. It is change that is already taking place . . .

I consider myself recruited. Maybe it’s because of the emphasis on education. Maybe it’s because of this synergy of health care and education in freeing women from such daunting problems. Maybe it’s because as a teacher I find myself wanting to incorporate some of this work into my sophomore world literature course in the coming year.

One of the things I especially like about this book is the way Kristof and WuDunn highlight individuals and organizations around the world who are making a difference. Sakeena Yacoobi, an Afghan woman who runs the Afghan Institute of Learning. Ann Cotton, a Welsh woman who runs the Campaign for Female Education (Camfed). And Meena Hasina, an Indian Muslim woman, kidnapped and sold to a brothel as a young girl, now working in Forbesgunge, India as a community organizer, promoting education for daughters as well as sons.

Recently, I’ve come to think of these individuals and groups as an extension of a healing corridor that I imagined a few years back. I want to find ways to build connections to that healing corridor here.

Emotional Baggage Check: Song as Medicine

Posted by Diane Morrow on January 25, 2015 in Blog, Healing Corridor, Healing Poetry, Writing and Healing Prompts

A young woman in my sophomore class shared this website with me–and then with the whole class. She told us how the website had helped her during a difficult time–how she was able to check in some difficult baggage and receive some genuine help–and now she tries to go onto the site on the weekends and carry baggage for someone else–pay it forward. First, it’s a visually attractive site–simple and elegant–with few choices. You can “check it”–that is check in a piece of your own emotional baggage by writing briefly about it–or you can “carry it”–carry someone else’s baggage for a moment. The way to carry someone’s baggage is simply to read what they’ve posted–the problem they’re dealing with–and then send them a link to a song that you think might help them with whatever they’re dealing with. Song as antidote. Song as medicine. Not unlike a poem as medicine. This not a cure-all, of course. But a beautifully simple idea. You can also send along a few encouraging words with the song link if you like. Choosing either path could lead to an opportunity for writing and healing: condensing one’s most pressing problem into a brief description (no more than 1000 characters) or responding to someone else’s baggage–choosing the song–and composing a response (again no more than 1000 characters). What might your emotional baggage look like in 1000 characters or less? What response would you long to hear? What response to someone else’s baggage could itself become a kind of medicine? For me, hearing that this thoughtful young woman in my class had found the website useful–and was now moved to give back–gave the site some credibility. So this morning I decided to try it out. I clicked on “Carry it,” and read a brief and moving story by a young woman in England. There’s a surprising and appealing intimacy about the site. An opportunity for positive, if fleeting, connection–sending a bit of medicine out into the world. The story the young woman checked in is confidential. But here’s the song I sent: “When it Don’t Come Easy.” Emotional Baggage Check is here. A brief article from 2011 about the original history of the site, which was founded by Robyn Overstreet, can be found at Wired. Lyrics to Patty Griffin’s “When It Don’t Come Easy” can be found...

The Dalai Lama in Williamsburg

Posted by Diane Morrow on October 14, 2012 in Blog, Healing Corridor, Teachers

I had the opportunity last week to see the Dalai Lama speak in Williamsburg. He’s currently making a tour of small colleges and he was appearing at William and Mary, where my daughter is a student. It made for a delightful visit. Tickets for the event had sold out within 15 minutes. More than eight thousand people attended. The line into the arena began two and a half hours before the event—and these were all people with tickets. So interesting. The student who introduced him said we would likely remember this day for the rest of our lives. I loved that he marked the gravity of the moment. The student handed the Dalai Lama a green William and Mary visor, which the Dalai Lama promptly placed on his head to loud applause. He then placed a white scarf around the student’s neck and proceeded to wear the visor for the remainder of his talk. It was a lovely beginning—and a wonderful way to undercut the gravity with a sense of lightness. The Dalai Lama greeted us as brothers and sisters. He made a point that people make too much of secondary differences like status. He then began by emphasizing that we are entering a new reality which is going to require a new kind of thinking. His main emphasis was, not surprisingly, on the need for compassion. But there was a teaching here that I hadn’t heard in quite this way before. He made a sharp distinction between animal compassion and human compassion. All animals have compassion toward their young and those whom they have a positive connection with. Human compassion gives us the intelligence to extend our compassion—beyond our families and our groups. He repeated over and over that it’s a mistake to think that this compassion is primarily for the benefit of others. This compassion is first and primarily of benefit to ourselves. How our compassion is received is beyond our control—and not our business. A person might respond negatively because of their mind but we shouldn’t be afraid of that or pretend because of that. Compassion helps us. It benefits us. It changes us. He told a story about Cuban refugees who he met who were praying for Castro. They were praying that he would die and go to heaven. This story made the Dalai Lama laugh quite a bit. He seemed to be approving of their skillfulness in this prayer—that they had managed to extend compassion under difficult circumstances. He laughed often during his presentation, as if so much of what he said tickled him. He made a sharp distinction between actions and actors. We can believe, he said, that an action is wrong and still care and feel compassion toward the actor. He told about meeting George Bush. (I believe he meant the son, George W.) He talked about feeling such a good sense of friendliness. He called him his friend, and went on to say he approved of his motivation, wanting to spread democracy. “But not his method—force.” He went on to say that violence has unintended consequences. He was very clear that one could disapprove of a person’s action and still call that person friend. He was gracious throughout. He received at least 3 standing ovations. He thanked us for being attentive....

Through Corridors of Light: Poems of Consolation during Illness

Posted by Diane Morrow on March 27, 2012 in Blog, Healing Books, Healing Corridor, Healing Poetry, Resources

I have just become aware of a new poetry anthology published in the UK for people who are dealing with illness. The anthology is edited by John Andrew Denny, who writes, at his website: I was ill for more than twenty years with ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. For most of that time I was bedbound, in pain and at times deeply depressed, and I was helped to an extraordinary degree by reading and meditating on poetry that addressed my own thoughts and feelings about my illness. In an email conversation, he also writes about a connection between reading poetry and writing, something I find of particular interest: The initial reason I compiled Through Corridors of Light was that when I was first ill (in 1991) I was so weak that anything longer than a short(ish) poem was beyond my concentration. Now that I am quite a lot stronger, I still find writing very slow, and creative writing is unsatisfying for me unless I can find some relevant model to stimulate my mind – so both of these impulses were what inspired my anthology. What makes it so therapeutic is that in giving voice to one’s hopes, fears, worries, or desires, the poems not only trigger other thoughts and feelings but also show how poems on such themes can be successfully constructed. What makes it so therapeutic is that in giving voice to one’s hopes, fears, worries, or desires, the poems not only trigger other thoughts and feelings but also show how poems on such themes can be successfully constructed. I love this idea–the connection between reading a poem and beginning to write. I think this speaks to what is possible. We read and then we write, and in doing so a healing conversation extends and continues and spreads like a network of healing corridors. I’m waiting for my copy to arrive in the mail. Meanwhile, I can direct you to his beautiful website which contains a detailed table of contents, a visitor page, and ordering information. He’s donating all profits from his book to ME Research UK, a charity in the UK doing research into Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. __________________________________________ See: Through Corridors of Light I Must Go, I Will Go, another piece on John Andrew Denny’s...

HODI: Soldiers of Peace

Posted by Diane Morrow on October 25, 2011 in Blog, Healing Corridor

They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. –from Isaiah, the New International Version of the Bible I’d been intending to feature projects in my healing corridor which primarily promote writing, education and healing, but an email last month prompted me to rethink and expand my definition of healing. After I published my piece on Sakeena Yacoobi at the Afghan Institute of Learning, I got a nice email from Marc Maxson at Global Giving. (His was the site where I’d read a piece on Greg Mortenson’s problematic work in Afghanistan—Maxson was the one to say that Sakeena Yacoobi is the real deal.) In any case, after I wrote about her, he suggested I also take a look at a woman in Kenya, Fatuma Abdulkadir Adan, who runs HODI, the Horn of Africa Development Initiative, a peace center for children in Marsabit, a town in Northern Kenya. She is transforming the lives of young male soldiers in her village AND the lives of young girls kidnapped into marriage by offering them an alternative—football. (or what we here call soccer.) I think the best way to convey a sense of her work is through this excerpt from the Soldiers of Peace video, a documentary which I plan on showing to my students next month. [Update: Alas, the video excerpt from Soldiers of Peace has been removed from YouTube] But I can say that watching the video, I am moved to tears—especially seeing how she navigated when conflict arose among the young men playing soccer. I feel like I have found yet another teacher, and a source of inspiration. If it’s true that a new story can change everything–and I believe it can–then Ms. Adan is changing everything for her village by leading these young people. At the same time, she is leading all of us by example. The old story may be, in many instances, a violent one, but this new story offers a tangible, creative way toward peace. You can learn more about her organization and also donate at Global Giving. You can read about Sakeena Yacoobi’s work with young women in Afghanistan at my healing corridor here. You can read about Marc Maxson’s work with storytelling here and...

826 Valencia

Posted by Diane Morrow on September 27, 2011 in Blog, Healing Corridor

I believe in the power of writing. I believe magical things can happen when spaces are provided for people to write, and to be nurtured in that writing. I believe something especially powerful can happen when these spaces are provided for young people. And say that you could have a pirate store at the entrance to such a place, a store that sells eye patches and peg legs and vials of “Scurvy Begone”? A place where young people could have fun while they were finding their writing voice. Might that place not be nearly perfect? The place exists. 826 Valencia. A non-profit writing center for young people ages 6-18 in the Bay Area. All their programs, from after-school tutoring to helping young people publish books, are free of charge. Here’s a brief history, taken from their website: Named after our street location in the Mission District of San Francisco, 826 Valencia was founded in 2002 by educator Nínive Calegari and author Dave Eggers, who were looking for a way to support overburdened teachers and connect talented working adults with the students who could use their help the most. Because our space was zoned for retail, we needed to open a store. After briefly considering a hot dog stand, we looked at the ship-like surfaces of the stripped-down space, a former gym, and decided to open a pirate store instead. Behind the store we built a writing lab, designed to be a place kids would want to spend time, with a cozy reading tent, big work tables, and lots of books. Word spread quickly, and soon every chair was filled with students working on their writing with our trained tutors. We currently serve over 6,000 students a year thanks to our corps of over 1,700 volunteers. Here’s a short video, featuring a day in the life of the Writing Center. I’m especially impressed with the comments of the mother–and with the sense of community offered at the center. And here’s a longer video—a TED Talk where Dave Eggers, author and 826 Valencia co-founder, speaks, among other things, about the value of one-on-one attention for students–about shining a beam of light on a student’s writing. Also the value of giving students the gift of seeing their work published. How the pirate supply store became a kind of happy accident that brought donors and volunteers into the center. How the concept has spread to other cities. And his wish for a thousand more inspiring ideas and stories for transforming public schools and education. This is where I first heard about the center. See also: An interview with the Wall Street Journal The Pirate Store Young Author’s Book Project Healing Corridor You can donate to 826 Valencia here. [The photo at the top of this post is taken from the 826 Valencia...

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