Meditative Making: BYOB (Bring Your Own Branch)

It's time to get creative by turning a branch of your own into a meditative art piece and 'healing wand.' Bring your own branch for this creative, healing workshop. Through a calming, heart-centered meditation and positive intentions, we will connect with our intuitive guidance and healing wisdom. Then we will wrap and decorate our branch with colorful fabric and yarn, energetically and symbolically transforming it into a “magic healing wand.” You may bring items of personal meaning, beads, charms, ribbons, or mementos to embed or adorn your branch. About the Artists Meryl A. Joblin, aka Anael Atara, has been on a healing path for the past 35 years. With a background in speech pathology and later shamanism and yoga, she has been a spiritual seeker and wounded healer. In recent years, she has developed a form of bringing new life to fallen branches by wrapping them in fiber and sometimes wire and beads. She has also developed a form of color energy healing using her photos via Zoom as a way of honoring her sister (an avid photographer) who died by suicide in 2018. Thus, creating her transformational branch garden. Often, the branches are created to honor someone she loves and then used as wands for healing and blessings Meryl deconstructs clothing and jewelry to create unique art pieces as a means of exploring her psyche. She relies on art as a form of meditation and self-expression. Her goal is to be a conductor of light, love, and blessings. People who wear her one-of-a-kind necklaces say they feel the healing energy because she infuses her creations with the power of the Hebrew letters, the elements, and infused love. With deep maternal roots in Jamaica, West Indies, Philadelphia-based artist Sharon Bloomfield Hicks synthesizes her bicultural “Jamerican” heritage while channeling her felt experience into dynamic compositions radiating with vibrant colors. Drawing on her background in vision therapy, yoga, and occupational therapy, she combines healing practices with visual art to create uplifting works reflecting her quest for harmony. Sharon is known for her holistic vision and integrative approach, blurring the boundaries between art and healing. She has used a life-as-art philosophy in healing and understands artmaking as a therapeutic practice. Teaching people to see is at the core of her healing work and artwork. Early in her career, Sharon worked closely with Violette de Mazia, the late director of education at the Barnes Foundation. This experience first sparked her interest in ways of seeing, perception, and consciousness. Thereafter, realizing the interconnectedness of the healing arts and art, Sharon taught Meditate and Create classes at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. While working for the Main Line Health System, she developed and taught Yoga for people with Parkinson disease and Yoga for Women undergoing treatment for breast cancer. She is the principal investigator of an IRB-approved research study exploring the experience of healing and the effect of yoga on that experience.