Healing Arts is one of many workshops available for Domestic Violence Awareness Month that is held every Tuesday in October at 2 p.m. in the Student Center.
The purpose of the Healing Arts workshop is to create meditation as a focused art, teaching to meditate in a way one has never experienced.
This event is facilitated by the Young Women’s Christian Association, which is a nonprofit organization that features a different artistic outlet each week at the workshop.
The purpose is to provide a safe space that encourages and empowers individuals through the renewed sense of possibilities based on their individual artistic expression.
Therapist Alina Turpin works for YWCA, specializing in sexual assault crisis services. Her department specifically works with sexual trauma.
Turpin went around with a bag full of crystals, handing them out to every student, and had the students have both feet flat on the ground together, placing the crystal in their hand. Their eyes were locked on their hand without actually opening it, rather imagining that they are seeing the crystals.
She continued to have the students make a fist, put their tongue on the roof of their mouth and concentrate.
The crystals are one-time use only, and cannot be shared or traded as it may taint them. Each crystal is then cleansed after the students used it.
Nia Palacios, anthropology major, attended the workshop for the first time and stated she would come again.
She said this is a “space for myself, to taking care of [my] needs.”
The meditation exercise helps the kind of focus and emotional regulation that occurs in order to manage and cope with the effects of trauma.
Crystals have extremely high vibrations that are condensed in the form of a rock, while the vibration merges into the person, creating a healing effect, according to some information the workshop provided.
Allegedly, this healing effect can liberate and transform one’s lower energy patterns.
Within the workshop, Celtic Mandalynths are additionally incorporated.
Mandalynths are a mindfulness art for stress, anxiety and attention management. It’s a mandala because the pattern is endless, and it’s a labyrinth because one follows the woven pathway.
Celtic Art Therapy was created by Celtic artist Erin Hunt Rado and conducted by Jeff Tarrant, who researched and suggests that this is a useful tool in regulating brain waves and the effects of trauma.
Turpin only thought about how to adapt the Mandalynths for this healing arts workshop. She explains when tracing these Mandalynths, this would allow a person to regulate their brain waves.
Also in attendance, Angel Gray New, Campus Victim Advocates said, “Coloring, in a way, distracts and keeps you occupied.”
Tracing focuses the mind by isolating hand to eye coordination, when the mind focuses, it grounds and settles down.
Mandalynths are considered a unique experience that is good for visualization and gifted minds.
