TEDx Wilmington Women Preparation


Refine thy rapture. —Aleister Crowley


The preparation for this talk feels guided and orchestrated beyond my control. Each day in my community, I meet wisdom-keepers sharing succinct and relevant gems from their life learning. My process is partly to compile this collective research on themes related to time, ritual, cycles and creation. I started to ask those near me to reflect one-word responses to these four themes, resulting in an anthropological survey to stimulate the universal connections in the foundation of my talk.

“The woman on the stage is weaving wonder, not witchcraft. But her skills are potent as any sorcery.” In Chris Anderson’s TED Talks guidebook, I found immediate connection to this element of magic and power in the journey of spreading a message worth sharing. An initial doubt around sharing this language in potential to lose credibility was shed. It is in fact important to address this authentic, common though visceral experience. What if we acknowledge our connectedness, these small wonders that reassure us each we are on our path?

The opportunity to communicate widely, with such support and encouragement is daunting, but also feels natural in my life trajectory. 5 years ago, my story appeared in a collective journal bound by Levi’s jeans and TED India, exhibited at TED Global 2011 in Edinburgh. It is a time of sharing.

Curiosity, originality, universality, and joy are underlying this preparation. In the collecting, distilling and editing of information, it is also a synthesis of wisdom into symbolic and image form. I hope to create a mandala on stage while speaking, which would be revealed at the end of the talk.

Celebrating Onam, the Kerala harvest festival, I recognize the need to find an inner center and calm while riding the wave of abundance in my life.

With gratitude,

Krupa Jhaveri, BFA, MPS, TIEATC
International Art Therapist & Art Director
Trauma-Informed Expressive Arts Therapy Consultant
TEDxWilmington Women Speaker on Art as Ritual & Resilience (October 27, 2016)

Sankalpa: Art Journeys!

My dreams are becoming more real everyday, and you are part of them. I have had a compelling vision to share Art Therapy in India, with the extended family of my heritage (though we are all connected as part of a larger whole). This blog has been the space for me to explore and articulate this vision, and will continue as a more personal account of this journey.

After a very challenging and humbling seven months of travel in India and Nepal surveying locations last year, I returned to the US to process and collect resources before returning to a village community center this November. Any donations for sustainable art supplies are greatly appreciated and can be made via PayPal here: http://www.sankalpajourneys.com/donate.html

As this vision builds, please be sure to join, follow updates, and find more information through these links:

Website: http://www.sankalpajourneys.com/

Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sankalpa-Art-Journeys/146425478702745

Facebook cause: http://www.causes.com/causes/518393

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/krupa-jhaveri/24/405/a49

The logo is a map for collaboration and integration and I invite any of you to contact me with your ideas for expanding or deepening this vision. I am currently looking for assistance in sorting hundreds of travel photos, and those with expertise in establishing a non-profit status.

Gratitude!

Creation

Birth, beginning, inhale, womb, seed, air, Brahma (supreme creative energy of matter) and Sarasvati (goddess of knowledge).


It seems fitting that this an unfinished piece with floating pieces, while I grow my own plumage as a transnational migratory bird. Included are feathers of female peacocks roaming where I meditated, and portions of airmail envelopes sent by my mother in the US to my grandmother in India. As I was growing up, my mother would give me a section of the back of these letters to fill with drawings before sending them to my grandmother, who cherished these bits of our distant realities. The letters outline the challenges of my mother's immigration and one even details my mother’s experience of the “miracle” of my birth as her first child. They trace my first shapes and marks that over time transformed into letters and language. It is a blessed treasure to explore these through the eyes of an adult art therapist, returning to the roots of my own expression.


I also had the honor of observing Kartik Poornima (in October of 2009) at Pushkar Lake and visiting one of the very few Brahma temples that exist in the world.