By Deborah Schroder
Thanks to a very generous donation from a local therapist, we now have a lovely sand tray collection to use in the Art Therapy building. We have several rooms at Tierra Nueva that are well equipped for sand tray or sand play work, and now we have that opportunity available in the…
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By Ruth Dennis
Years ago, I saw a line that art can save your life. At the time, I just thought it was another artist being arrogant. The art world seemed disappointing and trivial when looking at the problems that I saw everyday in the neighborhood I was living in at the time, homelessness, addiction,…
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By Deborah Schroder
A tiny flash of yellow, right outside my window, caught my eye today. A precious little yellow bird was clinging to the branch of a pine tree. The usual New Mexican spring wind was blowing and the branch was really moving around. The tiny bird seemed to be just fine, riding the…
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The Weed by the Water
by President Ann Filemyr
Sitting on the breakwater next to Navy Pier in Chicago, I look down at my feet. I’ve taken a moment from the busy higher education conference to sit beside the lake. I notice in front of me the seed…
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My name is Alyssa Ellegaard and I am a first-year student at Southwestern College. My journey at SWC began before classes started during this past fall’s Wilderness Fast in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona. I had just moved from Northwestern Minnesota a week before I was to embark on the Wilderness Fast. I knew very little…
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When you move to Santa Fe you might wonder what some of the things are that you can do to relax. Well just 15 minutes from campus you will find El Rancho de Las Golondrinas, a living history museum.
The museum is open to the public from the Spring Festival in June through…
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Deadlines. What a word. Here at Southwestern, we do have deadlines, but we also have rolling admission. How does that work?
If you are considering applying to Southwestern College, I would urge you to consider how graduate school fits into the trajectory of your own story. Does fall entry make sense for you? Perhaps winter…
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I come from the east coast, specifically from Virginia. Though I graduated from an art school with a BFA, a lot of the concepts that we discussed in class were done so in an almost exclusively cerebral way. Addressing art this way is valuable—line, shape, color are all important when making a piece. But…
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There are lots and lots of things to do outside of the classroom at Southwestern College. Music, while not part of the curriculum, is still a passion of many of us here at the college and some of us got together to share a night of art and music making together. From meditation and yoga,…
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TLDR:
White privilege is entrenched in our society, and not where it might be expected. Many people who consider themselves "not racist" act in ways that are still oppressive. Racism and oppression are as much "ways of being" as "words" that are said. I was surprised that I have a history of being an…
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"We cannot heal the earth until we heal ourselves. We cannot heal ourselves until we heal the earth."
Kari-Oca Declaration of the 1992 Parliament of Indigenous Peoples
In 1992 I attended the World Parliament of Indigenous Peoples as an environmental journalist. I was one of a handful of non-Native people allowed to witness the proceeding.…
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Now What?
Dr. Ann Filemyr, Ph.D
November 14, 2016
In the aftermath of Tuesday’s election, I summon my courage. Already in the past five days there are multiple accounts of Muslim women being harassed at the University of New Mexico, in the university library, on the street. This is the direct result of a…
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The writing group at SWC is a place where students, faculty, and staff can come together and share in a communal free-writing experience each Thursday at noon. Patterned after Natalie Goldberg's exercises, we start with a prompt of some sort and write for a few minutes, then, if we want, we share what we wrote.…
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So what's cool to do and see around here?
If you are like me, you are new to New Mexico and the Santa Fe area. Part of what drew me to come to SWC was the location. The moment I stepped into New Mexico for the first time I knew my soul was coming home!…
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Part 2, if you missed it…
Part 3: How Using Ownership Language Changes My Worldview
By changing the statement from "we" to "I" in this entire blog series I have shifted my perception of life. I no longer blame “society” (you, we, or any form of “other”) for what I am perceiving as a…
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Living in New Mexico has always been a dream of mine, and when I had the chance to move here to come to SWC, I jumped at the opportunity! It wasn't long before I was itching to explore my new world, and when I did, I was truly awestruck by the beauty within minutes from…
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Part 1, if you missed it...
Part 2: Practical Examples of Ownership Language
I look around and see so many things that say "Stop doing THIS!" or "Don't do/think/act THIS way!" or even "Fight THIS!"
With so much negative bombardment, is it any wonder I feel so overwhelmed and defeated much of the time, especially…
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Part 1: What is Ownership Language
In many of my classes our teachers have been training us to use “I statements” during discussions. For example, it applies when you fall into the habit of using we, or you, when you actually mean “I” in a statement, as I just did in this sentence. See what I…
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Bringing the Divine Feminine to Campus by Ann Filemyr, Ph.D.
I believe the Ultimate could be a vast energetic being, nameless, formless, skinless, disembodied raw creative force power zipping through the universe in the never-ending processes of making and unmaking, being, becoming and dissolving back into non-being. The Great Mystery, who I refer to…
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When One Transitions, We All Transition
by Ann Filemyr
Our granddaughter announced his decision to become an F to M Trans Boy. Okay, I am ready, I thought. Well, not completely ready, I discovered.
I should be ready. I came out in 1977 as a bisexual. I was precocious, adventurous and fully engaged in the…
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In the Aftermath of Yesterday’s Massacre
We heard the news about the June 12 massacre on Sunday evening. A man declaring himself an Islamic fundamentalist entered a gay bar in Orlando, Florida and began shooting. He killed 50 people and harmed 54 more. It is the most destructive mass shooting in U.S. history.
My partner…
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Writing has quite simply saved my life. When I was 16, I was on the verge of ending my life when I received a letter informing me that my first short story and illustration had been accepted for publication. When I was 39, and had just suffered through the death of my life partner, writing…
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Hello! My name is Beth Lykins, and I am a current student at SWC. I am starting my final quarter of my first year in the Art Therapy and Counseling program, and I wanted to share a student’s perspective of life at SWC. I am attending part-time, so I generally take two courses per term.…
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We are asked to look within ourselves in our first few classes here at SWC. This process varies from person to person. For me, it has been an incredible opportunity to work on some issues I had thought were already worked through. It only goes to prove the cyclical nature of self-exploration and personal growth.…
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Southwestern College Santa Fe, NM