Healing Corridor

RESOURCES AND INSPIRATION FOR WRITING AND HEALING
(with the title, Healing Corridor, inspired by Sara Stein's definition of corridor)

Hope in Bloom
A non-profit in West Newton, Massachusetts whose mission is to plant a garden, free of charge, for anyone in Massachusetts undergoing treatment for breast cancer.  The group was inspired by a long friendship between the founder, Roberta Hershon, and her friend of fifty years, Beverly Eisenberg, an avid gardener who died of breast cancer in 2005.  What's particularly wonderful about the site now is that it includes stories and photos of the twenty-four gardens planted thus far.

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The Robert's Street Chaplet Project
A project of six small "art chapels" originally located in North Dakota and created by the artist Marjorie Schlossman in collaboration with six architects.  She describes her hopes for the project thus: "I was hoping that this project would be a bunch of little jewels on the prairie."  An eighteen-minute film about the project, Collaboration and Constraints, produced by Mary Trunk, is available online at the site.  Watching the film is a way to experience the project--to watch the creative process unfold--and to experience a series of potentially healing spaces. 

Favorite quote from the chaplet film--a quote by the artist, Marjorie Schlossman: "I have a tremendous faith that art makes a difference."

[Thank you to Catherine Miyamoto of Fargo for leading me to this project.]

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Writing Through Cancer
Sharon Bray of Wellspring Writers in San Diego has started a new online site of weekly writing prompts for people living with cancer.  My favorite prompt this month (April 2008) is called Seeds of Hope and includes an excerpt from a poem by Wendell Berry, "Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer."