Stories

Tell me, she said:

What is the story you are telling?
What wild song is singing itself through you?

It is the song you are living now.
It is the story of the place where you are.
It contains the shapes of these old mountains,
The green of the rhododendron leaves.

It matters what you did this morning and last Saturday night and last year.

Not because you are important.
But because you are in it.
And it is still moving.
We are all in this story together.

Listen:
In the silence between there is music;
In the spaces between there is story.

Pay attention.
We are listening each other into being.

Sally Atkins

"Humans have always turned to stories in order to understand the meaning of our lives.

We live in a time that calls for reexamination of the stories we tell about our relationship with the Earth and with one another, a time of paradigm shift.

A nature-based approach to expressive arts includes stories from ecotherapy, from the historical and cultural context of the arts, from contemporary ecological sciences, from ecological philosophies and from the wisdom of indigenous cultures."

Atkins and Snyder, 2018

Heather's Story

I completed my Level 1, Level 2, Trauma and Advanced Trauma Processing training in Expressive Arts Facilitation (education stream) at The Prairie Institute of Expressive Arts Therapy in Calgary, Alberta. I am a professional member of IEATA, currently working toward REACE designation.

I am a certified Equine Assisted Learning Associate with EAL Canada.

I have a diploma in Early Childhood Education and a certificate in Children's Mental Health from Mount Royal College. I am in my final year in the Bachelor of Human Services degree program at Athabasca University.

Our stories are always moving, growing and intertwining, constantly changed by our experiences and impacting everything around us. We are all connected, we are all in this story together, and together we determine how it's written.

As a young child I found great joy in imagination, reading, dramatic play, creating visual art, and free movement and I went on to dance competitively for thirteen years. I didn't fit into the very limited version of what a professional dancer's body could be at the time and I realized that competition wasn't very motivating for me, but dance gave me a place to move, to be free and lose touch of everything else but the very moment I was living. I love experimenting with all forms of art, but dance is something I consistently come back to over the years. I've learned that when I ask self-consciousness to step aside, stop listening to all the voices in my head telling me how to move "properly" or that I'm not good enough, and just let my body move to the music and tell my own story, I always end up back in that beautiful place of being fully present and completely in my own world at the same time.

Although my love of the arts started early in life I didn't feel a strong connection to non-human aspects of nature until much later. When I spent time with my children in Forest School and Equine Assisted Learning programs I felt the benefits of regularly spending long periods of time with nature first hand, and I saw the huge positive impact being in these environments had on my children. Huge leaps in growth, learning, confidence and resilience that had not seemed possible in other learning or therapeutic environments.

I started Tumbleweed Expressive Arts in late 2018 with a goal of bringing personalized, creative learning experiences to everyone, in a supportive, non-competitive atmosphere.

Expressive arts brings together my passions for learning, creativity and social change. This work is where my heart feels most at home and alive.

"You don't have to fit into this mold of what society has cut out for you."

Misty Copeland

My Credo

* I believe that you are the expert in your own life. I trust in your ability to know what you need and I will stay with you and be a safe place to land. I will not give you all the answers or make decisions for you, only you know what's right for you. I will support you as you explore your resources and work to empower yourself.

* I will not assume to know more than you. We will go on this journey together and learn from each other.

* I will provide opportunities to create and play. I will listen with curiosity, encourage you to lead your learning with your own interests and ideas and I will trust that you will learn what it is that you need to learn from the experience.

* I believe that you will do well when you can and I will support you when you need support. I will not attach moral judgement to your strengths, challenges or ways of coping.

* I will set boundaries to keep you, the group and myself safe.

* I will respect and appreciate you as an individual and I will treat you with unconditional positive regard.

* I will support you in exploring and taking risks. I will trust you to know your own body and the risks you want to explore. I will not hold you back or push you before you are ready. I will problem solve with you and make sure you have the information you need in order to make the best decisions for you. If you need to experiment outside of my comfort zone I will ask myself why I'm uncomfortable and question if I really need to be. I will work with you to find alternate ways of meeting your needs that we both feel good about or together we will find someone else who can better support you in the ways you need in order to thrive as your authentic self.

* I will constantly check in with myself, acknowledge and address my own biases and assumptions. I will work through my own triggers so that I do not allow these to interfere with our work together.

* I will be authentic and open to vulnerability. I will not treat my role as an expressive arts facilitator as separate from my life but as a genuine way of being in the world and living that demonstrates my values as a person.

* I will celebrate you and all that you bring to the world in your own unique way.

* I will value what I learn from you. I will understand that if you take the time and risk to educate me or tell me how I could do better this is a gift and I will accept it as one, learn and do better.

* I will show up with love.

A Tumbleweed Story

Tumbleweeds are extremely resilient plants, full of life, curiosity and determination. When a tumbleweed is no longer thriving in a specific location the top of the plant breaks away from the root system, leaving behind what it no longer needs. Weightless and untethered it becomes free to explore the world, bouncing and tumbling in the breeze.

As a tumbleweed plays and flies through open fields, deserts, city streets and gardens it spreads seeds, leaving a part of itself in every place it touches and inviting the curious seeds of other plants and flowers along for a ride.

With each step of its wild dance a tumbleweed is changed, constantly giving, collecting and sprinkling possibilities for new growth everywhere it goes.

When a tumbleweed is ready to rest it gathers with other tumbleweeds. Their branches intertwine and connect, they support each other through storms and together they become so strong that they have been known to block doorways and stop traffic.

Tumbleweeds welcome all seeds, branches and tiny critters. They hold space for each to exist just exactly as it is, in that very moment. All connected and each with its own unique and vital role in nature's balance and survival.

A field of wildflowers blooms in the empty spaces where a tumbleweed has danced. Nurtured by the earth, sun and rain they grow strong and abundant, painting the landscape with brilliant colour and the sweet scent of summer. They nourish the deer, bees and squirrels who come for a snack, provide shade and safety and bring beauty, joy, inspiration and strength to all who witness them. A tumbleweed is happy in this spot, in this field, surrounded by this beautiful wild garden so full of life.

As the days get shorter and summer turns to autumn a tumbleweed sways gently in the breeze, watching the leaves on the trees surrounding the field change from green to red, orange and yellow. Suddenly as the autumn leaves take flight with their spectacular rustling song the tumbleweed can see past the tree line, it can see the sun setting over the mountains and for the first time becomes aware that the carefree song it had heard all summer came from a stream not far away.

The tumbleweed realizes that there is more to the world than this one comfortable place and it longs to explore, to experience the world and grow bigger and stronger than it ever could in this field. As the wind grows stronger and colder and many of the wildflowers curl up and hibernate for the winter the tumbleweed sways and twists and with each gust of wind lets go a little bit more of the roots and earth that are all it has ever known. It's a risk to leave this beautiful, safe spot, the tumbleweed knows that once it leaves it will be changed forever but the tumbleweed is filled with curiosity, it knows it needs to be free and it's windy dance becomes more and more wild until one day it just lets go and dances off on an adventure creating beauty everywhere it goes.

"In the end we'll all become stories."

Margaret Atwood