Sage-ing with Creative Spirit
 

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Okanagan Institute ArtsCare

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Okanagan Institute

About Sage-ing

Discover the changing paradigm from aging to Sage-ing.
  • Connect to your creativity
  • Connect to others
  • Expand your optimism
  • Free your imagination 
  • Feel your power
  • Improve your health

    Dr. Gene D. Cohen, pioneer of studies into the vital relationship between creative expression and healthy aging, termed the field of creative aging a vast blue ocean full of uncharted territory and boundless opportunities waiting to be explored by each of us.

    The new program Sage-ing With Creative Spirit, is being presented at the Rotary Centre for the Arts, Kelowna BC on Tuesdays during 2010.

    Government of Canada
    The program is sponsored by The Government of Canada's New Horizons for Seniors Program.

    Mounting clinical evidence supports emerging understanding that creative exploration of one's life experiences enhances wisdom, health and wellbeing. To learn more about studies in arts and health, visit www.creativeaging.org

    The intent of Sage-ing With Creative Spirit is to recruit and stimulate  community ambassadors to spread awareness of the vital contributions of the arts to lifelong learning, creative expression, health and well-being. Intergenerational weekly classes in a variety of creative expressions will train participants to move into the community to recruit and engage others to explore their creativity.

    Please consider becoming a participant or a facilitator:

    First time attendance for a session of all programs is FREE.
  • Minimal charge for additional participation in the same or a different session
  • Participants will provide their own basic supplies where needed
  • Participants must agree to volunteer within the community half the number of hours of training they receive from the program and to submit a photo and short explanation of this volunteer sharing to the interactive blog at www.sage-ing.com

    To view classes currently scheduled go to Classes In Kelowna
    To register for a series of classes go to Contact.

    Becoming a facilitator:

    If you are an artist who embraces the philosophy of Sage-ing With Creative Spirit and would like to facilitate a series of classes, please contact keclose@yahoo.com.

    Facilitators should submit a short bio, headshot, and proposal for a series of classes in league with the philosophy of Sage-ing With Creative Process. Chosen facilitators will be paid. Classes can be planned for a 4 to 8 week period but can extend longer if demand is good. The program will run from January until November 2010.


    History:

    1997 released: AGING INTO SAGE-ING: A PROFOUND NEW VISION OF GROWING OLDER by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

    2000 released: THE CREATIVE AGE: AWAKENING HUMAN POTENTIAL IN THE SECOND HALF OF LIFE by Gene D. Cohen, M.D., PH.D "There is no denying the problems that accompany aging. But what has been universally denied is the potential. The ultimate expression of potential is creativity."

    2002-2005 NCCA Public Awareness Campaign: "The Art of Aging: Creativity Matters" notes: " active participation in the arts and learning promotes physical health, enhances a sense of well being among older Americans, improves quality of life for those who are ill, and reduces the risk factors that lead to the need for long-term care. Even though there is an interest and participation in the arts by many older Americans, there is a general lack of awareness in the public, healthcare, and social services communities about the positive physical and psychological impacts of arts participation. However, there is a valuable untapped resource of older artists who could be teachers or mentors in expanded arts programs for seniors. Older Americans may be encouraged to participate in dance, music, and visual arts activities and may choose to expand their horizons through art appreciation programs. Participation in arts activities may lead to intergenerational exchange of values and knowledge. For example, seniors may work together and with younger populations to preserve the value of older adults' memories and life experiences by recording their experiences and life histories in various mediums."

    2004 The Sage-ing® Guild is created: "Sage-ing is the process of approaching aging as a positive journey filled with wisdom, learning and possibility. It affirms the importance of the older years and teaches how to harvest life's wisdom and transform it into a legacy for future generations. Sage-ing addresses spiritual development, interpersonal relationships, communication skills, service work and social aspects of aging."

    2005 In March, The first Canadian Arts in Health Forum is held in Vancouver, BC www.artshealthnetworkcanada.com

    2007 released: SAGE-ING WHILE AGE-ING by Actress, Author, Activist, Shirley MacLaine "Our human scripts are in need of rewrites, and we human actors, including me need, to examine our characters more deeply ..."

    2008 The Okanagan Institute www.okanaganinstitute.com initiated ArtsCare in the Okanagan

    2009 AVATAR showing in movie theatres world wide: "I'd like to talk to you about fresh starts in the world- about making a difference."

    2010 Sage-ing With Creative Spirit is launched at The Rotary Centre for the Arts, Kelowna BC


    Karen CloseRelease the Avatar Within
    Discover Your Third Eye
    Soar With Your Imagination

    "In order to establish a firm foundation for righteous, I come into being age after age." - Bhagavad Gita 3138 BC

    Shirley MacLaine is the Avatar who inspired me to create Sage-ing With Creative Spirit. Let me share how she materialised for me and the foundations she set in place.

    "The Call to Create"
    by Karen Close
    (founder heART FIT and Sage-ing With Creative Spirit)

    Sage-ing is an inheritance MacLaine's life has actualised. Her mother was Canadian by birth. "Mother was an artist, an actress, and loved to read poetry. Her mother was the Dean of Women at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada. And Mother's father was a brain surgeon (one of the best in Canada I'm told)." I like Shirley MacLaine's roots and I like the perspective she voices. "I guess we could say that belief is a result of our imagination. I've always liked Einstein's quote: 'Imagination is more important than knowledge. 'As I look back over my life, as my mind wanders freely over how I've lived and loved and protested and questioned, I realize that aging well isn't about the search for happiness, but more about quietly feeling content with what I've experienced." Shirley MacLaine "came into being" for me the first week of this new century. As I wandered through a second hand book store in Maui, her book OUT ON A LIMB fell off the shelf, landing at my feet.

    I bought her book, rushed back to our hotel, and found refuge in her voice. I discovered a way of being I'd never before considered. Her perspective haunted my imagination. The next day as I walked along the beach contemplating, I felt a call from a pile of coral along the shoreline. Shirley's words gave me the courage to listen. I knew exactly which piece was seeking me. I picked it up and saw my husband, daughter and son merged within this chunk of melded life forms. Stuffing the coral into my beach bag, I felt my heART pound and my mind blur. I felt 'out on a limb'. I felt the call to create.

    That walk on the beach was five days before my fifty-third birthday. Since turning fifty my mind had been in a constant whirl of agitation. The gift of mid-life retirement at forty-eight had given me time for myself and the luxury of time for contemplation. Yet, I felt a deeper unrest such as I'd never experienced. In the juggling act that had consumed the past four decades of my life, I'd never really experienced time. As a wife, mother of two children and full time teacher, I had learned to manage time, but I had not considered how to savour and enjoy it. I knew how to fill my time, but not how to let it fulfill me. I had denied my ' self'. I needed to be introduced to kairos. The ancient Greeks had two words for time, chronos and kairos. While the former refers to chronological or sequential time, the latter signifies a time in between, a moment, an undetermined period of time in which something special happens.

    With my new beach find in hand, I rushed back to our hotel and boldly presented this chunk of limestone to my husband and young adult children. They stared a bit incredulous as I gushed about how I could see all of us clearly entwined in this piece of coral. They looked blindly. My husband said, "I hope you're not thinking of taking it home. That's illegal."

    "Then I'll paint it." The words blurted out. I recognised the call to create. I had been an English and Art teacher and had taught a generation of youth to find themselves through creative expression. Blindly though, I'd let responsibilities prevent me from allowing myself this gift, but I did have supplies. When I'd packed for this new millennium, I'd decided to bring a small watercolour kit with me. I hadn't yet used it.

    Piece of coral and kit in hand, I headed for the pool. I set myself up at a table, and began to let my eyes unravel all that seemed buried within this remnant of earlier life forms. My imagination was my guide. I was filled with optimism. Water had nurtured and formed the coral and so I reasoned it should inform my actions. I didn't know what I was seeking or why but I felt powerful. Wetting the page, I dropped bits of paint. I blew on them. I joined them together in an invisible pattern only I could discern. I allowed myself to be immersed in a process that was directed by my eyes, my hands, and an inner voice. Kairos enveloped and cared for me while time evaporated. There was confusion, struggle and fear, but a need to persist and stay with the moment. The part of the coral, whose form had looked to me like my children, dissolved within my vision and on the surface of my painting. "Trust the process." I heard. I breathed deeply. "They are grown. Their lives are separate now". I relaxed into my creative spirit and soared into new understanding. Throughout the next nine years I have sought to let my experience of being inform me. I have watched my life grow, like I watched my painting grow, into personal meaning and needed understanding. SAGE-ING WITH CREATIVE SPIRIT is "about fresh starts in the world - about making a difference." The program presents a variety of workshops to explore and discover one's own unique form of creative expression. As volunteers the participants in these programs will reach into the community to share the joy and healing power of creative expression.

    With gratitude I acknowledge the many guides who have been brought to me. I thank Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi for the vision of Sage-ing®. In 1997 the first of the baby boomer generation turned 50 and needed to see aging as a positive journey filled with wisdom, learning and possibility. I thank Dr. Gene D. Cohen for giving me clarity and purpose. Shortly after my return home from that trip to Maui I read his book THE CREATIVE AGE: Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life. His words validated my experience of painting that chunk of coral. His work has set the direction for the formation of the National Centre for Creative Aging www.creativeaging.org. Dr. Cohen deceased November 7, 2009 but his life's work set a "foundation for righteousness" in how health and well being will find new directions, "a fresh start" for the 21st century.

    SAGE-ING WITH CREATIVE SPIRIT aligns with Dr. Cohen's research, the National Centre for Creative Aging and the mission to build awareness that active participation in the arts and learning promotes physical health and enhances a sense of well being as we mature. Within every community there are valuable untapped resources of older artists who could be teachers or mentors in expanded arts programs. SAGE-ING WITH CREATIVE SPIRIT is about awakening and sharing human potential. Adult participation in arts activities may lead to intergenerational exchange of new values and knowledge. I hope to encourage my community, Kelowna BC, to join with other cities in our country who are working to give a Canadian perspective to Creative Aging. I thank The Government of Canada's New Horizons For Seniors Program for helping me launch SAGE-ING WITH CREATIVE SPIRIT.

    "Work in the arts is not only a way of creating performances and products; it is a way of creating our lives by expanding our consciousness, shaping our dispositions, satisfying our quest for meaning, establishing contact with others, and sharing a culture."  - Elliot Eisner


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