| What Are the Odds? by Suzanne Vadnais Monson I was given a gift this year that still gives me goosebumps. I was asked to teach art to kids. Ann Rinkenberger, executive director of Harvest Moon Community Farm -- an art farm in Scandia, Minn., -- found a flyer for my adult creative expression workshops and asked if I would be interested in teaching children. Ann runs an after-school art program in Washington County called Art Venture, as well as a summer art camp series on her enchanted farm about three miles from my home. What are the odds of this, I thought, as I signed up to teach in her program? In the back of my mind was information I'd been given from two intuitive readers who had done akashic record readings for me. Natalie Oswald and Kelly Lynn had done the soul record readings for me a year apart from each other, each coming up with stunningly similar findings. My reading with Natalie had been at the Wellness Center Expo a little over a year ago. I'd never even considered doing one of these readings before and was prompted by a friend who said, "It's your birthday! Today is the day you should find out about your soul's story." Natalie told me I was here on the planet to work with children. She told me I had experienced severe child abuse in many lifetimes and had gone back to the creator to heal before incarnating this time. She told me I had agreed to help heal the planet by working with children, helping them see their connection to the sacred energy of the earth and find ways to express it. She said I would have helped every step of the way and success would follow me. The job of healing I was more than a little freaked out by the information. The lifetimes of trauma, the job of healing the earth, the challenge of helping children tune in to the sacred energy of the earth without frightening parents all seemed too big to get my brain around. How on earth was I going to do this? I had invested heavily into materials for an adult product-based business and had bills to pay. I puzzled over what this was going to look like and went on my way. A year later, I met up with Kelly Lynn of LynnStar Studio at the Wellness Center Expo on the State Fairgrounds. Kelly and I have had a number of opportunities to work together and were catching up with each other when we met up in June. I gifted Kelly with a deck of my enrichuals cards, and she gifted me with a reading. As soon as she began, the old fears that had been triggered in my reading with Natalie surfaced. "Wow," she said in her calm angelic voice, "I've never seen anything like this. You incarnated to clear group karma. You took on a big job to help us out. You agreed to come in and make a huge difference in the way we see and treat child abuse." As she continued, she told me I couldn't have lived my life any more perfectly for the work I'd agreed to do. "Your greatest work will be with children. I see international fame and success." Really, I thought. Captain Kangaroo meets Deepak Chopra? And she closed with this: "Did you know that you carry so much light with you that you change the light wherever you go?" No, I thought, I was pretty sure I was carrying a lot of baggage around with me -- not radiating light. Seeing the light My connection with Ann was the beginning of my seeing the light. From the moment I walked into the classroom of Scandia Elementary last spring, I knew I was on the right path. My attention was heightened, my skin alive with goose bumps, my heart leaping around inside of my body as I shared my particular brand of inspirational collage with this group of children ranging in age from 5 to 11. I noticed everything from how they wanted to make three-dimensional works to how they drew words in the glue. I noticed the children who wanted to work quietly at a table and the ones who wanted to show me everything they did. I noticed how the hour flew by and I wanted it to last forever. I thought I heard my spirit singing as I headed for home. A month later, I began an art residency with the Wayzata public schools that came about as a complete fluke. I was at Plymouth Creek Elementary to meet with two teachers about another matter when the art teacher looked at me and said, "Last night we lost the artist for our residency this spring. She had to cancel on short notice due to a family emergency. Would you be interested in doing it?" Unbelievable. Yes. I was interested! For two weeks, I taught creation collage to 640 students, interrupted in the middle of my stay by my own family emergency, my sister-in-law's suicide. I dashed off to Fargo to spend time with my brother and two young nieces. Eden and Raven are two little girls who make my heart sing. We spent a part of each day doing our kind of art. Intuitive Adventures, we call it. A favorite activity on this difficult trip was playing in the clay along the dikes built to hold back the swollen Red River. For a few hours each day, these precious children could leave the world of thick grief behind and play. I remember thinking when I heard them laughing, there is a way to heal even this. I returned to my residency struggling through layers of grief and depression. I came home to kids and art and a husband who was aching to find a way to help me feel better. Go outside and climb trees On my first day back at Plymouth Creek an amazing little girl named Brianna asked if she could show me her collage. "So many adults are busy worrying about money and jobs and things in the world," she said matter-of-factly. "What they really need to do is go outside and climb trees." Her collage was a breath-taking tree created from many tree pictures she had carefully cut out and pieced together. That evening, I took her advice. I pulled my roller blades out of my car and skated around a nearby lake, stopping to climb a tree that seemed to be calling my name. She was right. I felt much better. Next, I entered into a series of art lessons for the Harvest Moon Summer Art Camp. I made nature collage, painted rocks, made beads from polymer clay and fell in love with a young sheep named Joe who responded like a puppy when you said his name. Each day of camp I enjoyed creating with four groups of kids who taught me as much as I taught them. I became aware of how -- in the moment -- these children helped me move through my own dark moments of grief, one session at a time. Recently I was asked to help launch an art program in the St. Croix Valley. You guessed it -- for kids. Looking back on how fast all of these opportunities to work with children lined up, I'm amazed I'd managed to avoid this piece of my life's work until now. Simultaneously, my adult programming has dried up. There doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in creative expression for adults right now. My community education classes get a trickle of responses, while my kid's classes fill to capacity -- some even have waiting lists. I marvel over how I thought I wouldn't know how to do this. How certain I was there wasn't a market for this. How in the way of this mission I was. It's almost as though the moment I was willing to say yes, the invitations flooded my studio. There is something so delicious about creating successful art experiences for children, something so pure and fresh and dynamic. There is a noticeable absence of blocks to their creating, an obvious ease with new material, and a clear willingness to be newborn and beginning. More than anything else I have done or experienced, this has helped me reach out and touch my greatest work. I greet each session with my curious students eager to help them find ways to capture the voice of their spirit. I am so grateful to be holding this gift firmly in my hands. And maybe it's true that I did come in to help heal the earth and end child abuse and help children connect with the sacred energy of the earth. Either way, I'm beginning to trust I will get all the help I need. Suzanne Vadnais Monson is an inspirational author and artist creating tools and techniques for inviting creative expression into our daily lives. Her deck of 64 simple ceremony and playful practice cards is available for $24. Call (715) 294-4522 to find out more about her workshops for adults and children. To learn more about Harvest Moon, contact Ann Rinkenberger at (651) 433-4358. Copyright © 2001 Suzanne Vadnais Monson |
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