The Curious Scroll: Palestine/Israel

How do we begin to hear each other?

And stop the dehumanization?

This is “The Curious End to the War Against Ourselves”

We can ease our nervous systems, find common values and get curious with those whom we disagree with as we converse and play with art supplies on this Curious Scroll.

We scribble, we mush, we splat, we glue stuff while addressing these questions:

• What do you care about most for yourself and all people?  

• Any personal stories about Palestine/Israel?  Tell us more about your family and ancestors… 

• What feelings come up for you around the topic?  

• What is it about the views of others that are most hard for you to listen to and empathize with?  

• If you or I were to let go of our positions just a little bit, what would be at stake?  

  No Art Skills Necessary!

I am recording these interactions on video for educational and documentary purposes. However participants can be completely anonymous. And participants can opt out of the video option.

Contact me if you would like to schedule a session.

From a recent conversation about Israel and Palestine:  I care about seeing the inherent good and dignity in myself in all beings. This participant cares about everybody having comfort and joy.  To have comfort, joy and dignity we must all be safe.  As the conversation continued feelings of despair, disgust, fear arrived.  We had areas of agreement and disagreement.   

“I’ve been sitting with the profound experience that painting and speaking with you today was for me all afternoon -- so many thoughts and reflections.

I really haven't had much of a space to be able to express my own feelings of sadness and grief, and of course at times anger…

You hold such a safe space, and I also appreciated the mutual sharing and hearing more of what was happening for you.”

Tenzin Chogkyi

So far we’ve gone deep with thirteen art making conversations. There will be twenty 1:1 conversations total. And then I will bring up to three pairs of people together for more empathy driven art-making conversations across differences.

Let’s transform judgment to curiosity, enhance our ability to work with conflict, and grow a greater capacity to take action. 

It all started in 2016 when hundreds of people found their calm painting on this 170-foot-long spool of linen at the Republican and Democratic political conventions. People continue to engage on the Curious Scroll and it grows even thicker as we address conflicts in our communities and our world. See the award winning Curious Scroll short documentary below.

Now, Palestinians, Israelis, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Atheists, Zionists, Anti Zionists, Non-Zionists and all others are welcome to converse with me while we play with art supplies. We get to express thoughts and feelings about the current situation in Israel and Palestine with conversation and color, shape, symbol, pattern, texture form and sound. The aim is to expand our capacity to listen to each other across differences. These art making conversations happen in my private studio in Santa Cruz, California.

Why make art in the midst of conflict?

Making art can calm us down. The feeling of painting, drawing, sculpting helps us be in our bodies and we can relax into a mindset of curiosity.  We pay attention to what our bodies know, instead of what our critical voices are saying.

We can discern instead of judge, evaluate instead of fight, experiment instead of needing to be right.

I am grateful to all the people who teach me more about how to be in my loving presence while having conversations with those I disagree with.  I'm still a beginner.