Travelling without moving!

I have now tried to update this blog four times and have either lost internet connection or power each time, I have lost so much writing that I am now creating a word doc which I  am going to hopefully copy over! So sorry to all who have been trying to follow my progress, TIA (this is Africa)

South Africa has been a wonderful stage in the journey, firstly such a joy to be back in the mother country and to be able to see old friends, places and experience the magic that is this wonderful place. We have also had so many new experiences and been privilaged to share stories and learnings from so many new people.

I spent some interesting and inspirational time with both Jill Robson from Altziemers SA and Karin Botes from Dementia SA, both of whom are pioneering in their work in the field and were able to show me around some of their wonderful facilities and share their success stories and current challenges. I have been really inspired by the desire for both organisations to make Dementia Care truly person centred and feel like their are really battling to achieve their good work in the midst of a very unsupportive government.

We also spent some time at the wonderful KeisKamma Trust in Hamburg, where Dr Carol Baker has shared her work and aspirations with me. Turns out that I might have a lot to do with the trust in the future and I am really inspired by the community of Hamburg. I spent a lovely three days working from the Ceremics studio there, making a book piece, it was such a privilage to be working with the local people in a creative environment and being witness to the transformative effects of art in the healing of communities. Here I also met many artists and health workers who value the notion of arts and health as the most powerful tool for the recovery of all kinds of mental and physical health.

After Hamburg I have spent some time in the Transki, great to be back on this wonderful coast line, immerssed in the local community and surrounded by the Xhosa magic. Have been catching up on some reading and really taking stock of the work that I have done so far.

We are both really well, moving on to J'Burg on Sunday, where I will be spending some time with AIDS Consotium and Lefika Arts Centre. We then return to Hamburg where I have to talk more with Carol about future plans for the KeisKamma trust and potential Purple Patch opportunities, then back to Cape Town for  my final week of research and to begin to structure my report.

Love and light to all, and fingers crossed that this updates!

Community=Connection=Creativity, Systems=Seperation=Stagnant

"The ability to have creative thoughts and innovative ideas is one of the most admired human traits, it actually helps to define us as humans. While we may not fully understand how the creative process works we know that creativity does not originate from an external muse but from within. It can be trained and encouraged.
Creative thoughts blossom when our minds are in a state of relaxation or our body engaged in physical activity
The creative process generates the new by seeing the know in an unusual way. It is founded on a sense of wonder and fed by the ability to pursue an idea simply to satisfy our curiosity.

The hormone dopamine stimulates neural networks in the frontal brain. These networks have access to the long term memory located at the back of the brain. These two brain regions are usually not strongly connected but in creative process they are brought together in a state of exaltation." (BodyWorks Exhibition: Science Museum, Vancouver)

The last few days have been extremely busy and really exciting for us. To summarise:
Spent the last week in and around Vancouver. I had the wonderful opportunity to spend the day with Shelly Klammer at the George Derby Centre in Burnaby. Shelly runs a programme called Artworks, which is an open workshop studio for residence of this wonderful care home. Shelly's studios are well equipped with a range of art materials and looms and the studio is open to all residents to drop by and take part in art. Here I met some real entrepreneurs, who in their later lives (80-100) are discovering that they are artists and that they can make a living and gain wonderful experiences by creating work. I met Joyce here, who is a resident from the UK and who randomly grew up in and around LIttleborough, a village that is about 5 miles from where I live. We spent some time together looking at her wonderful work and talking England!

I have had the opportunity to meet up with several of the guys from the conference and talk to them further about their work. Took part in a very inspiration and interesting workshops being run by Richard Coaten and have also arranged with Dalia that Purple Patch Arts will host the 2012 international conference for Creative Expression, Creativity and Dementia. Woop!!!

Have since had a few hectic days travelling from Vancouver to Cape Town. 40 hours with no sleep, yikes....makes one somewhat dizzy. Have now slept and am loving the fact that I am in my favourite street in Cape Town writing a blog about a wonderful adventure. All Sweet.

Have plans to relax for the weekend prior to starting more research next week. Spending some time with Altziemers SA next week which will be insightful and different I am sure.

Sam is great, loving Cape Town too. Big Love, Peace and Energy to all.

"One thing I know for certain.. I have never met a person without a mind"

The CECD Conference Crew

Creative Expression, Communication and Dementia 2010, Penticton, BC

What an honour it has been to spend three wonderful days in the company of so many lie minded individuals and to learn, share and inspire one another in our practice.

The CECD conference ran over three days at a beautiful hotel in Penticton BC. With speakers from across Canada, UK and Australia it was great to get the feel for what practice currently exists, what the global barriers to more accesptance of the arts as a healing and transformative practice are and to gain practical tips on how to launch and develop our Dementia programme.

Key highlights for me were presentations from Dr Julia Clark, a neurologist who spoke eliquently about the control of movement at brain level and who communicated wonderfully the immence benefits of music therapy as a healing tool for movement disorders. Making it clear that many people living with Dementia also have profound movement disorders, generally manifesting themselves in the inability to move, Dr Clark introduced me to the "Piper Rhythm" and how through a strong and regular beat music can actually replace the bodies natural movement rhythm.
( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6869036 )

Dr Clark went on the share that whilst in a movement disorder the body is producing decreased levels of Dopamine and Serotonin that listening to certain types of music, particularly Mozart, the body increases its release of these hormones!!! Music is medicine!!! Amazing

I also thoroughly enjoyed meeting and hearing Dr Richard Coaten. Richard is also a WCMT Fellow for 2010 and ironically lives 7 miles away from me in the UK, in Halifax. Hilarious that we came this far to meet and Sam and I have been really blessed to spend time with Richard, his wife Mary and their gorgeous daughter Amy.

Richard presented work on embodiment through movement and dance. It was wonderful to get the opportunity to not only hear, but also to feel the wonderful effects of the work that Richard is doing. It was during Richards presentation and then also through the words and ideas of others that I began to feel strongly that everything in Dementia care, and in our creative work within it has to be to do with connection. That without the connection we will never find the soul of the person trapped in the unmoving, un remembering body, and that without it we cannot reach or share or indeed heal and comfort.

It was wonderful to begin to recogonise that my journey into creative expression within Dementia Care actually holds vast synergy with my own creative journey, that within the practice of making and communicating and within my discovery of reaching my own inner peace I am already beginning to understand how Purple Patch will grow strategically.

Penticton is a wonderful location, we are staying in a lovely hostel, Sam is having a great time hiring bikes and hanging out. We had a wonderful time yesterday with the Coaten family in Kalona, and are both excited to return to Vancouver tomorrow for more frollocks and perhaps more sushi!

Love and Light all.

CECD and Penticton

Arrived in Penticton yesterday at 4pm. Its SO SO SO beautiful here, couldn't get over the drive from Vancouver as we entered this gorgeous vally and saw the water and vineyards, a truly inspirational setting for a conference!

We have checked into a HI in the centre of Penticton, have a great little room and wifi, what more could we want hey? Headed down to the conference venue to check it out and then went for burger and chips in a sports bar, which  had about 10 TV screens all pointing in different directions. Sam and I don't have a TV, nor do we really eat burgers that much so I am going to refer to it as a culture shock...have never eaten so many fries or watched so much hockey, baseball and live poker simultaniously.


The conference started today. It was all I had hoped for, a coing together of like minded people who are all genuinly passionate about the language of creativity and the power that creative engagement. It was wonderful to begin to organise my ideas that I have been developing over the last few months and meet with others who have similar (and vastly different) ideas on the role we play as practictioners in the lives of those living with dementia.

www.cecd-society.org

One of the privilages of today has been to meet with Richard, Mary and Amy. Richard is also a Winston Churchill Fellow and ironically lives in Halifax, 7 miles away from me. It has been great to meet him and his family and to share some of our research already.

I am going to save blogging about the conference until after the entire event has finished tomorrow as I would liket to organise my ideas and thoughts a but better but wanted to update on being in Penticton and meeting the delegates at this event.

Am slightly shattered tonight so am off to bed.

Love and light

Here we are!

And so the journey begins. We have arrived in Vancouver and are safe and sound in a random little backpackers in Metrotown. All has gone pretty well thus far today, seemed to be on track at Heathrow and then probably got a bit cocky and thought that we had the time to hang out having coffee for a bit, next thing we are hearing our names over the speaker as our gate is about to close.

Still....we made it, and Sam has kept up his tradition of always having to hear his name called before boarding a plane, so all is well. Just getting used to the fact that it is 7pm here and that my body still thinks that it is 3am, but sure that I will be fine after a long sleep.

In true fashion of 'no rest for the wicked' we are up at 7am tomorrow to go and get a bus to Penticton for the CECD conference. I am really pleased that I jump straight into the learning tomorrow and can't wait to shift into that mind set.

Think I am going to head out to an already recommended sushi bar now. (feels somewhat luxurious to be off to eat sushi at what should be 3am!!! Living the high life!)

Love and light to all.

Getting Ready to leave!

It's just 19 days now until I leave for my research trip to Canada and South Africa. The last few months have been busy with contacting organisations that I will be visiting and working with whilst I am away. I now have an almost complete itinery, which fortunatly leaves plentty of space for new contacts and adventures to arise.

Now all I need to do is have a few jabs (eek) and pack my bag before I head off!
Looking forward to updating soon and starting to get a few of you following what I am up to!

WCMT Grant Offer

I was thrilled to receive my grant pack on Friday which informs me that the WCMT (www.wcmt.org.uk) are offering me £6000 for my travels in Oct/Nov. This is brilliant news as it allows me to plan the trip with the budget in mind and to get going with my research. Today I had a reporter from the Todmorden News come round to find out about the award and to talk to me about Purple Patch Arts. It was a great opportunity for me to let her know about the work that I am doing and how the company are working together to find new ways of supporting people with Dementia to communicate using creativity as a tool. All very excited. I sent her this picture to go with the article, it is from my last trip to Africa in 2007 and is of me with a couple of girls in a Namibian community, beautiful girls and totally inspiring me to return to Africa and meet loads of new people.