01/15/2025
Aloha Kakou! Love to us All!
“It feels warm because everyone feels like family,” said an Altadena fire survivor standing near the ash pile that had once been her kitchen. Cradling an infant in her arms among the charred remains, what stood out for her in the stillness of devastation was gratitude and hope: the nobility of strangers and neighbors who rushed into harm’s way to help. It illuminated her.
Friendly angels in the City of Angels helping families to cope with the catastrophe gave her an overwhelming sense of reverence for life, a connection to the sublime – awe.
Hearing her words astonished me because it echoed what an ArtWavEs (AWE) student said at a recent Peace Arts painting event. We hear it often – “It feels like family!”
Does painting peace inspire awe that inspires the connection? Or does the connection inspire awe? It goes both ways. All ways. What matters is that when we don’t let life harden our hearts heart, we can rejoice and feel awe in the ordinary things.
DISASTER-AWE AND DELIGHT-AWE
Disaster-awe and delight-awe – at two ends of the continuum of feeling – wake us up and teach us resilience, no matter how badly our hearts are broken.
As we begin a new calendar year, our ArtWavEs community is reaching out with hope to families and children displaced by the awful Los Angeles wildfires. This inferno affects us all, shaking up, chilling, and then re-warming our hearts with new winds of compassion, confidence, care, and insights for skillful change.
Children will be affected by the traumas of the California firestorm for their entire lifetimes, just as the children of Ukraine are physically and emotionally wounded forever by living in a war zone and the children of Hawaii suffer because of food insecurity and homelessness. Everyone can heal, and it takes time.
Knowing our California neighbors are rightfully grieving and angry, I want to share this story about children painting Peace Flags for their peers in Ukraine.
Because this story is about persistence, and the energy that comes from awe – the profound state of awe as well as the AWE that stands for the ArtWavEs peace painting program where we are lighting pathways for children to activate and use the healing and regenerative powers of awe.
Full disclosure about disaster-awe: I too have lost everything, in a different way, but enough to know that pain like loss and pleasure sets up the conditions for awe. Five members of my family died early. I hurt until there was no more hurt left, and in the gaping hole that only awe could fill, I learned that I could live and thrive with so little.
When we feel there’s nothing left but the breath and this moment, we surrender to the gift of life itself. I thought I needed so much, but life, simple life, and connection, these are the greatest gifts I remember.
Awe is the sweet spot in that supreme movement, a hub on a wheel in the heart that carries us through grief and into the light that comes from the darkness. Night and day are two sides of the same wholeness.
Awe tends to only reach us at the extremes, but we can cultivate wonder and plant seeds of peace and awe during ordinary times too.
AWE RENEWS US – “EVERYONE FEELS LIKE FAMILY”
At a Peace Arts event in Kailua Kona, with his smile almost wider than his face, the Hawaiian 9-year-old lifted his gaze and showed me his painting.
“I feel really proud. It’s good isn’t it?”
“It IS good,” I assured him. AWE holds space for peace artists to spread their wings and share the quantum magic of intention, imagination, and peace painting. By drawing his desire, he envisioned the loving world he wants, and in that moment, he felt awe. The lightning bolt of picturing what he loves electrified his creativity.
Being able to express himself, using his paintbrush as a magic wand, he offered his novel view of peaceful living by portraying a safe, clean, peaceful, and fun scene at the beach with friends.
Afterward, I asked how he felt. His eyebrows lifted as he said, “It’s great! Everyone feels like family.”
Awe is so good for us, especially in recovering from painful and traumatic events. What we’ve learned in 14 years of delivering food and art services to at-risk and traumatized children in three states and now Ukraine, is that there is hope among the ashes, and it often begins with awe.
In our shared suffering, we connect deeply. A deeply healing frequency of peace, an emotional heaven, a bliss field, the spacious, unexpected instant of satori comes out of the blue. But we can support a context for awe to arise. By feeling so connected to the All-That-Is, to the beauty beneath the pain, to our own creative spirit, everyone feels like family. We are amazed. Everyone is amazing! Eureka!
Two kinds of amazement – one from the West Coast devastation and the other from an ArtWavEs (AWE) Peace Painter’s pleasure – become as one in the ah-ha moment – the lightning strike that awakens a vastness and magnificence inside the experience.
FOR THE REST OF THE STORY including TIPS FOR CULTIVATING AWE IN TIMES OF CRISIS, please go to -- https://www.maryamann.com/blog/from-ashes-to-awe-to-ukraine/
Enjoy helping others to be happy. Sometimes the smallest gesture can make the biggest impact. It’s the act of showing you care and bringing a bit of wonder into their life that can start to shift their perspective, and yours!
Why? Because it feels warm and hopeful. “It feels like family!”
Much love from our Creative Council and ArtWavEs Ohana, Marya Mann, Susan Minor, and Lara Printz
PS: HELP FOR LOS ANGELES FRIENDS
The recent wildfires in Los Angeles have been devastating, with thousands of families losing their homes and belongings. It's heart-wrenching to see such destruction, but there are ways to help and inspire hope in those affected.
Organizations like the California Fire Foundation (https://www.msn.com/en-us/public-safety-and-emergencies/natural-disasters/here-s-how-you-can-help-victims-of-the-los-angeles-fires/ar-BB1raSX6), the American Red Cross (https://www.msn.com/en-us/public-safety-and-emergencies/natural-disasters/here-s-how-you-can-help-victims-of-the-los-angeles-fires/ar-BB1raSX6), and Direct Relief (https://abc7.com/post/socal-wildfires-how-can-help/15779040/) are providing critical support to those impacted.
They offer everything from financial assistance to essential supplies and shelter. Even small acts of kindness, like donating to these organizations or volunteering your time, can make a significant difference.
In times of such immense loss showing compassion and support can help families find a glimmer of hope and awe in the resilience of their community.
Pacific ArtWavEs, Inc., a 501c3 non-profit organization since 2015 www.PacificArtWavEs.org
If you are called to support ArtWavEs, please visit us at: ArtWavEs Nourish Children of Peace -- https://www.gofundme.com/f/bn2wcd-children-for-peace
Susan Minor Lara Printz Becca Harris Deb Pines Yoga Dance Henry W. Wolgemuth Julie O Rose Randyl Rupar Alessandra Rupar-Weber Marya Mann Kona Coast Yoga & Wellness
