SOS Soul Station

(PAUSED due to COVID and POST-COVID life)

On April 15, 2020, my students from George Washington University/Corcoran School of Art and Design initiated a month long SOS Soul Station online. This was an adaptation of a project we had been designing since January. We had prepared to install a public tent in Lafayette Square in front of the White House for one month, and staff it from 7am to 7pm with soul soothing treatments we had been designing for two months. Our SOS Soul Soothing Tent was ready to go when COVID hit. We adapted as a community and went online. Though we didn’t get to offer our in person treatments on restorative justice, personal flag making, breath workshops and more we did offer a small online menu of treatments that fall under categories including survive, feel, breathe, vent, rest, listen, connect, reflect and learn . Upon entering the SOS site you have choices from Songs For You, Musical Medicine, Pillow Screaming Therapy, Bad Car Karaoke, Journaling with Jocelyn, SOS Vitamins for Frontliners, and more. It is just a start that had to be paused. In addition to being an online participatory social healing and arts project, SOS was an evolutionary learning community that initiated critical dialogue and concrete design towards a new student-led paradigm of intergenerational learning and creative leadership.

In the end we stayed connected through the perils of COVID and started the One Humanity Youth Solutionary Fellowship. While COVID required us to change our plans, we adapted and became a resilient and vital community of learners and creative leaders.

This is an email I wrote to the students as we prepared to launch our online version on April 15th. They were going through a very hard time with life during Corona.

Dear SOS Team,

I am sending you love and courage from Michigan. I have you all in my heart as we navigate this time.

There is a message of support I want to give to you today.

There is a moment in any creative process when we move from ideation and experimentation into form. This process of manifesting often involves moving about on a spectrum between disorientation, illumination and clarification. This is the place where we get to develop the true muscles of trust, faith, and presence in the face of the unknowing and uncertainty. It is natural to doubt, fear, even to question oneself and one's efforts at a root level. Often people feel shame and shut down here. They stop and back away. You may notice this in yourself. I often have and do. See if you can watch it, welcome it and then let it move when it does. See if you can continue on one step at a time and not immobilize. This is what we need to do in the face of such massive earth changes and in this small project we are demonstrating an adaptive and creative community.

Some of you may be experiencing waves of inner complexity and some of you may be steady on. It is natural to feel one is not good enough or perhaps what we are putting out there won't be so great, it is not representative of you or your offering, or it will not be well received. Again, such feelings are to be expected.

I want to assure that we are on task and target . You are all doing great and I stand with respect before you. Allow yourself to feel all the feels ( lyrics from NOW NOW...which we will get to in a few weeks),...and welcome the complexities and doubts. Know you are not alone and that perfectionism has no place here...at all. To be truthful it is a form of violence. Essence is great to find. It opens and empowers. Perfectionism tightens and contracts.

What we have together, in this little learning circle, is our willingness to share our hearts and gifts, our little bit of love and goodness, and be vulnerable with the world. We have no idea how it will be received or if it will matter. We do not know if it will be liked or disliked. In many ways this kind of concern is irrelevant.

We are a work in progress. Do not forget that. Even more, embrace it as deeply human. We are learning to be human in a new way. We have done the old way of constant assaults to a living breathing wholeness. We have come to the end of a way of being where few benefit on the backs of others and the planet. In our tender sweet way with SOS we are contributing to a larger force catalyzing and bringing into form a paradigm of care.

If you need me, or anyone from the lead team, let us know. I am here. Just text me. I will respond. It will be some weeks before we even out and start to feel any steadiness. Enjoy the process. We will be surfing waves. Get your wetsuit on and find a surfboard. April 15th we go public and that still means we will see how it goes and make adjustments. Eventually we will have more steady ground to stand on. Stay with it. All are needed.

I encourage you to find your own pace and flow with the unfolding mystery. Practice self-awareness. Notice what comes up for you, what happens in your body, where there are breakdowns, where there is surprising support. I think you will find it is many things all at once and we can't know the impact of this- not really. Some impacts are visible with the arts and some really are not and can't be. The language of the soul is mysterious and that is probably why we all love the arts in this class. What we can do is stay very connected to our hearts, be courageous, and be real. Let us all stay on task as we are making a steady and true pathway toward a truly harmonious way of living together and with the planet.

Thank you for your work, your presence and your creativity. You must know, you are each incredibly powerful and beautiful. I am very touched by how you are showing up.

In Love and Service,

Molly