"When compassion, creativity, and spirituality connect rehumanization emerges."
“Our story began with curiosity around a simple observation: Very different disciplines – art, contemplative practice, peacebuilding, social and neurosciences share a common interest in compassion, creativity, and spirituality.
We started with the proper academic approach – we read books and articles written about these themes from the five different disciplines. Our curiosity grew. With the help of the Fetzer Institute we sought to actively bring interesting representatives of these disciplines into a conversational retreat. We did not pursue scholarly presentations but rather the narrative of their lives, practices and views. How do improbable conversation partners from very diverse professional lenses understand the contours and significance of compassion, creativity, and spirituality in reference to challenging topics of healing and reconciliation?
We listened to poets and musicians, contemplatives and neuroscientists, therapists and peacebuilders. We cried. We laughed. We had insights that pushed out deeper questions. At the end of the retreat we proposed to capture a few of the stories and experiences by way of a digital storytelling process. A year later, we share these stories with you, inviting your response and participation. Our most significant local and global challenges require a capacity to nurture and draw from the wellsprings of compassion, creativity, and spirituality that incite the moral imagination.” — John Paul Lederach and Scott Appleby
Below are digital stories and an annotated bibliography that together form an emergent conversation about healing and reconciliation. The full curation of stories and resources that comprise The Art and Soul of Compassion are accessible on the initiative’s website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
John Paul's prologue to the collection of digital stories emergent from a conversational retreat exploring the connection between compassion, creativity, and spirituality.
Music therapist and singer-songwriter Vanessa Contopulos shares about the healing music offers her in the navigation of the grief.
A digital story and song by Vanessa Contopulos about the contradictions in society about who is honored and who is disregarded.
A digital story featuring conversations between survivors of human trafficking facilitated by Vanessa Contopulos and Kirsten Rian.
A digital story featuring poetry and reflections of survivors of human trafficking.
A poem shared by Oumar Farouk Sesay on the complexities of forgiveness in the Sierra Leonean conflict.
A digital story by Petr Janata about the neuroscience of music and synchrony, and potential this research holds for building peace.
Reflections of Carole Kane on the experience and journey of an arts initiative following a bombing in Omagh, Northern Ireland, in 1998.
John Paul Lederach recounts the healing emergent through the sharing of life stories among women in Nepal widowed from the civil war.
Zen practitioner and teacher Tom Peterson reflects on compassion in a Buddhist perspective.
Artist Kirsten Rian recounts and reflects on the experience of co-writing poetry with a war-impacted woman in Sierra Leone.
Song and story from Tommy Sands' experience working with incarcerated young people in Reno, Nevada.
An annotated bibliography compiling research on the themes of compassion, creativity, and spirituality, across the bodies of literature defined as the arts, neuroscience, healing professions, peacebuilding, and the contemplative traditions.
Guidance around the practice of rehumanization supported through four kinds of imagination.
A collection of videos created in spring 2020 that invite pause and reflection through wisdom and the arts.
Two sessions in a series produced for the Ritual: Wellbeing app in which the practice of haiku is explored to enliven the senses and cultivate awareness and playfulness.