More than Just a Card

If you follow this blog, you know that I am volunteering at a local senior citizen's center. Once a week for an hour, I lead a group of seniors in assembling a card kit that I create at home. Many times I will build in an element of choice so that they don't feel that their cards look exactly alike. Just before Easter, I created a card that featured a verse on the front that said "Easter Greetings" but knowing that not everyone there celebrates Easter, I created alternate greetings that could easily be substituted instead. Those greetings were "Hope You're Feeling Better" and "Where Flowers Bloom, There is Hope".

My story today is about Yolanda, the beautiful lady you see in this picture. She is holding the card she made in my crafts class. Yolanda chose the "There is Hope" greeting for her card and set about to putting the pieces together. As she was crafting, she began to think about who she would send this card to and her thoughts turned to a dear friend of hers who had just undergone a very serious operation and for whom she was concerned. It was only then that she really noticed the verse she had chosen for her card and how appropriate it was for this particular situation. When she spoke about her friend and how perfectly the card would suit her, she became emotional and had to fight back the tears. If she seems a little misty-eyed in the photo, she was. To paraphrase her words, "I didn't even think about what I was choosing when I picked the verse, but I chose the perfect words for her. There is hope."

I highlight Yolanda because this experience is not all that uncommon. For the most part, when one is crafting as part of a group effort, attention is usually paid first to the instructor and then to the task at hand, but if you allow yourself NOT to think, NOT to get hung up on the details and just let your mind relax, a whole new realm of insight is possible. This is what Yolanda felt when she realized what she was actually doing. She wasn't just crafting a card, she was sending a message of hope, and the realization of that brought her to tears.

I regularly inhabit the world of alternate insight and my vehicle is my art. That someone else has been able to visit that world due to my influence is an awesome and humbling realization.


Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva