Tag: healing

annual appeal

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rise TD

art by TD

‘I rise to be a better me,’ CP,
wiVT participant

Like Maya Angelou, wiVT writers  at Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility rise from their pain, their fear, their history. Last month, 25 community guests witnessed their voices raised with determination:

They’re taken my true meaning,
the light that lives in me
eclipsed by ugly rhetoric …

I sit, I burn, I crumble.
Still, like dust, I rise.
I rise to be a better me …

Our writers welcome the weekly space for engagement, reflection, comfort, healing. Their writing transforms personal suffering into shared experience. As they make meaning of their lives, they learn skills — accountability, respect, confidence — that help re-entry and re-integration into their communities upon release. By sharing their stories, they help you understand who they are, how prison impacts their lives — and how you impact them.

WON’T YOU PLEASE RISE TO SUPPORT THEM

WITH YOUR GENEROUS GIFT TODAY?
Any amount you can give is greatly appreciated toward our goal
of $12,000 and is fully tax-deductible.
Please make your check payable to SBCJC – wiVT
19 Gregory Drive, South Burlington, VT 05403
YOUR GIFT WILL HELP PROVIDE:
  • weekly skill- and community-building
  • community education via our writers’ blog
  • publication of participant work and public readings
  • team training for program integrity and uniqueness
  • encouragement to each writer to rise into their best self
With heartfelt thanks to ALL who support our mission to ‘bring incarcerated women’s words from inside – out.’
swb copy
Sarah W. Bartlett, MA, Founding Co-Director

Meghan Reynolds, MFA, Co-Director

Melissa Pasanen, Kristin Brownlow, Kassie Tibbott, Kathryn Baudreau, Tobe Zalinger, Dorsey Naylor, program assistants.

P.S. This year we started two ‘writing outside’ groups for justice-involved women in South Burlington and Randolph. W VT College of Fine Arts intern has devoted the fall to gathering writings from the past few years for LIFELINES, which we plan to publish in 2018 . Thank you, Bianca!! Stay tuned for publication details as they unfold.

Thanks to generous individual support from you, our donors; grants from Bari and Peter Dreissigacker, The Richard E. and Deborah L.Tarrant Foundation, Ben & Jerry’s Foundation, Inc. and Serena Foundation; and our home organization, South Burlington Community Justice Center (SB CJC), we are able to continue providing this unique program to Vermont’s incarcerated women.

rebirth

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birth-copyLast week’s theme was ‘birth.’ Two of the epigraphs that topped our weekly agenda included these words:

…human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.
~ Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera;  

and

Vocation does not come from a voice “out there” calling me to become something I am not. It comes from a voice “in here” calling me to be the person I was born to be…
~ Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

Indeed most women chose to write about what is being birthed, or wanting to be birthed, in their lives.  Lines like ‘I want to bear freedom into my life!’ and ‘what wants to be born into my life? Success. Being successful and happy’ flowed around the circle.

 

 MEG, who will be released shortly, likens her newfound sobriety to its own birth:

Me trying to force myself to be sober and enjoy it is the same as giving birth to a child when you’re not ready to push yet … You cannot force a baby out of the birth canal that is not yet ready to be born. Let the contractions do their job and ease the baby down. Yes … now, breathe. It will all be worth it in the end. All the heartache, the pain, the loss, the endless condescending caseworkers and phony people disguised as friends of a friend, all the time spent wasted on people who won’t matter the minute I hit the gate … just breathe. Release the stress, the tension. Focus on the better you that’s about to start living real soon in the real world, in your second birth – your new sober self. Just breathe …

Even the writing to a line from the opening poem, ‘what gift will I bring him?’ harkened back to the experience of motherhood. Read this from AG’s words as she ponders what to give her son at their upcoming holiday visit: Continue reading →

challenge . . . AND gift

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the galsLast Saturday, a group of about 60, largely justice and social service professionals and advocates, gathered at Middlebury College to receive the gift of women’s voices. First, the sweet harmonious ones of WomenSing. And second, the courageous and heartfelt personal ones from ‘inside.’ The challenge was was that three of the five previously-incarcerated women who had hoped to attend, did not.

While these odds are not typical of our show rate inside (where our main competitor for group attendance is sleep), it was initially disheartening. But that sentiment didn’t last more than the two minutes it took to decide to move forward without them. The voices of the two women meeting at this reading for the first time rose and fell with their own cadences of regret, sadness, determination and love.

The audience was riveted. After approximately 30 minutes of reading, we opened the floor to questions. What followed was a genuine dialogue of curiosity and gratitude. To give a flavor of the event, which we neither taped nor photographed, I share here a few comments left by listeners in response to the question, ‘what is stirring in you after hearing these stories?’:

What a gift it has been to hear the stories of women in prison. We take so many things for granted. The obstacles they face need the healing that writing brings.

The courage of these women to grow, to forgive, to create a new way of being. How much value everyone brings to this world even when we lose our way for a while.

Women in prison are women who have been hurt deeply without – just one person – to help them heal and recover. Women outside of prison had that one person who saw and heard them. Continue reading →

letters to self

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Write me a letter by jinterwas

Write me a letter by jinterwas

I am jazzed when an incarcerated woman gets really honest with herself in the circle.

..when she writes openly about the seamier side of life as an addict or hustler before imprisonment and names the temptations that still haunt her thoughts.

In my own experience, it’s difficult to disempower negative behavior and mindset in oneself until you begin naming the ‘demons’ clearly, along with your underlying motivations (what you’ve been getting out of it all).

Add to that process, the power of a circle of listening women witnessing to your forthright revelations with compassion and non-judgement, and you have a space for healing to begin or continue.

This week KG got real honest, writing a letter to that part of herself that sometimes feels drawn to return to chaotic, irresponsible living.

Next, she called upon the wise woman part of herself that she has been cultivating over the months with excellent help from numerous program providers in the prison facility. And she responded to the first letter with a second, full of what she is learning and understanding.  Read on…

*    *    *

(Letter to Self)

Hey, how are you? I bet you can’t wait until you get out, so you can roll up a phat blunt with the homies. I see you got a couple of addresses and numbers from a few people here. I know that’s for when you max, you can come back and find a good place to hustle. Don’t worry, I got ya back with that. Make sure you get rid of all those lame-ass people numbers and get with the ones who know where to get the bupes. 

And that cover letter you’re working on, forget about it. Nobody even uses those things any more. You don’t need a work readiness certificate.  What’s it genna get you, top pay? And all those days you go out on work crew, why don’t you stay at home and put your feet up and relax?

Just looking out for you. Love you.  – KG   Continue reading →

mindfully drumming

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My latest project at the Chittenden Correctional Facility is designing a drumming & mindfulness pilot program for the incarcerated women.

Drum line by taddzilla/Flickr

Drum line by taddzilla/Flickr

Ask me if I knew A THING about the difference between a snare or tenor drum when we began in January, or even how to hold a pair of hickory drumsticks?  The answer then was a resounding, NO!”

Yet under the skilled mentorship of Berklee College of Music-trained drummer Sue Schmidt, of Burlington, we are halfway through an 8-week program, learning how to play our individual parts while simultaneously becoming a unified drumline. (Sounds like an important metaphor for life, huh?!)

The 16 women participants were identified by correctional officers for this innovative Vermont Works for Women program.

The program, called “Flying Sticks: Drumming and Stress Reduction,” aims to provide a healthy avenue for women (who struggle with aggressive behavior) to burn off stress and anxiety through drumming, as well as to engage in healthy communal activity with other inmates. Continue reading →