photo by Marc Cheatham

When Betsy from ART180 asked my good friend Marc Cheatham (of the famous RVA blog The Cheats Movement) and I to facilitate a program at Atlas, their new art center for teens, I was super stoked. Oh, how I love ART180, so much. I love their intention and process, their values, how they do things and hold a certain kind of space in the world.

To be honest, I was also a little worried about the whole thing. I had no idea if we had enough ideas/material to teach a 6 week class on Guerrilla Kindness…or rather what the approach should be so that it would be meaningful to teens. I knew teens hold all the power and goodness to access their call to kindness but I didn’t really know what the path would look like or how I could help exactly.

…but the best part of art, kindness and facilitation  (not so much teaching really) is the teens really led the way. After a few weeks of connecting, talking, a few missions (remind me to tell you how they kindness bombed a city block) and a brainstorming session, the teens came up with THE MOST BRILLIANT KINDNESS PROJECT. 

I was out of my mind listening to them and watching the project evolve. I loved how bold and creative they were, how they each stepped into kindness in their own way.

I give you The Wheel of Kindness my friends:

Nic Cossitt, a good friend to ART 180 built the giant wheel of kindness with the help of the kids’ design and idea, then we all got to paint it together.

So here’s how it works:

1. A player spins the wheel and lands on a particular color.

2. They are given the same corresponding color balloon.

3. The person then pops the balloon (this part was SO much more exciting than I thought it was going to be).

4. Inside the balloon was their very own kindness mission rolled up on a scroll to be completed that day.

5. We included the hash tag #art180kindness on the little mission scroll so they could share their pictures of the kindness on twitter and instagram.

It was so, so thrilling!!! We set up the wheel in front of ART180 on RVA’s First Fridays Art Walk and in conjunction with the

Love: Through the Eyes of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Exhibition 

at Atlas.

photo by Marc Cheatham

The kids invited folks walking by to play, I was amazed how many different kinds of people joined us…and I wish we had more pictures of their faces. It may be almost impossible to walk by a giant rainbow wheel and not want to spin it. You find yourself yelling things like “Come on!!! Big kindness, big kindness, no whammies!” and cheering for someone, anyone to land on the double dog dare GOLD triangle of kindness.

It’s kind of wonderful when we let kindness lead even if we have no idea where it will go or how we will get there…when we invite joy, wonder and simply listen to each other…and when it all starts in friendship and connection. I think this is the magic of ART180- making space for all of that.

Early in the class, Marc asked the teens if there had ever been a time someone was kind to them, their faces went blank. I then asked them if anyone at ART180 had been kind to them, they all spoke at at once and on top of each other. My favorite answer was from a young man that really had not said one word all day… “They respect me here.”

photo by Marc Cheatham

If you are in RVA, you can still see the Wheel of Kindness at The Big Show on May 15th at 6pm at Planet Zero (0 E. 4th Street) along with art from kids across the city.

Hope to see you there or hopefully on some street corner in the future spinnin’ the wheel!

A guest post from our dear friend Nicki Peasley:

A couple months ago, I posted a story about my friend Jen and her hero’s journey through one kidney transplant… and the looming imminence of another.

I am sad to report that Jen’s health issues have become more complex and urgent.  The doctors have discovered a growth on her pancreas that needs to be removed before a kidney transplant can be considered.  And with her kidney failing at a more rapid rate than anticipated, Jen and her family are struggling to remain hopeful in the face of fear and the unknown.

That’s where we come in.

Today is May Day, a day when the veils between the worlds are thin and anything is possible.   A day when all the forces of the Universe are working together to bring Light to our world.  A day that invites us to connect heart to heart and experience deep compassion, sacred unity, divine oneness.

And so tonight, I invite you to a light a candle at 7:30 pm.  To hold the Cave family in your heart.  To pray (in whatever way you pray) for Jen’s healing and her family’s peace.  And in the sanctuary of your heart, to know that you are not alone, but united in a Love effort with the power to create miracles.

See you tonight, in the Light.

For more information about Jen’s journey, go to her facebook page… Sunshine for Jennifer Morris Cave.

From Patience:

Share this with fellow mothers, families, friends and please feel free to send pictures of your candles lit on the page too. It would be so powerful to light up Jen’s wall and the world with hope and love.

I often wonder how many small moments of our lives are still there waiting for us, hanging out in the back of the vaults of our hearts…places for us to escape back to with a more gentle and kind view of our lives…maybe this is the best part of leaving things undone, unfinished, and not exactly having it organized the way we think we should.

As I looked through the pictures of Lyra’s birthday last September, all I could see was what it looks like to be loved and adored.

The love started by Jen offering her back yard for the party and I was reminded that no mother should ever do birthday parties alone… and how love doesn’t always look like a Pinterest page and is often more of a modge podge of simple kind offerings.

Things like…
One princess tent already infused with joy from a birthday of another dear girl earlier that year was lent for fort goodness.

One old slip n’ slide that gave many a never-ending slide was shared to double the awesomeness of the new mega slide.

A last minute decorating job to a store bought cake made mermaid cake dreams come true.

…and each person shared what they love about Lyra on magic rocks that she will keep in her own heart vault to pull out when times are rough, or she loses her way, or just to know what it feels like to be loved and adored…again and again.

And it isn’t so much about perfect parties and picture moments but how each little part, each little offering adds up to something bigger …and that when we love each other and share whatever we have, the circle of love and adoration grows wider and wider, including us all.

What change asks of you…

change reveals what you care about the most

change checks your perceptions and judgments

change makes space for you to fall apart, then asks you to get it together

change shows you the path to grieve

change asks you to take a chance or risk

change calls us without our permission

change invites you in… and out

change asks you to stretch in ways you never planned or imagined

change asks us to honor our needs

change invites power or let’s you be the victim, it tells you to decide which one

change surprises you

change leaves no where to hide

change knows our secrets and even the parts we haven’t discovered yet, like our resolve and tenacity

change asks you to widen your heart

change connects our shared humanity

…and whether we survive, celebrate or fight it, it always wins…and where we find ourselves and souls in the midst of it is up to us.

“Mom, you just said something nice about the new house, I am so proud of you!” my new teenager said.

“Oh MY GOD, I did?! I didn’t mean it, I take it back.” I replied.

I am finding it’s one thing to make hopeful declarations and another thing to have to actually live in the Old Trashy House. There has been more than one Hollywood tantrum (as my sister calls them) this week…and maybe a few Anne of Green Gables “depths of despair” crying moments as well. I know it’s one of those times that I will return to years from now and wonder how I ever could have been such a brat, or maybe I’ll be evolved enough to remember myself in kindness and love that dear girl because everything made sense after all.

I wake up every morning and desperately miss the view of the sun rising and watching the pink light creep up the walls to fill the old magic house so easily, with no effort at all. I keep looking for the light here, both literally and figuratively. I see how much the old place and people kept me going, how the light was held for me… and this just isn’t that. Even so, while I kick and scream, I am discovering there is something about the dark.

It’s the kind of dark where you finally say you don’t think you can do something and you acknowledge the need for a light that carries you in a new way, or you must sort of struggle and sit in the dark before the light comes to rescue you or you find your own. Or maybe no rescue is needed at all, maybe the dark is the way. The need or the one thing that makes you unlovable may just be the thing that takes you where you are meant to be or go. It may be in this honesty with ourselves that we find the way…and each other.

…and I am finding that our kindness doesn’t have to come from the best part of ourselves, it can come from our pain, our healing, the darkest places of who we are…because those are the the birth places of our humanity and the exact places we are all connected.

In some strange way even while it’s still shitty and hard, this lets me sigh, a deep sigh…as I make friends with the dark.