Psychology + Zen = Philosophy and methods to relieve suffering and reveal happiness.
Psychology: We project onto others what we reject in ourselves. Some call it a Shadow. Healing comes from making the unconscious conscious, taking responsibility for our projections, integrating what is split off as our own thing.
Zen: There is no separate self. When we can be at one with every aspect, then we belong everywhere and we reject no one.
We heal the world by becoming intimate with our whole selves.
A brilliant and articulate volunteer guides us through interpretations of “A Subtlety, or The Marvelous Sugar Baby" and the public reaction. I hope you can forgive the limits of the iphone4. As a friend and collaborator says often, the best camera is the one you have on hand. I just had to share what I learned from this installation, all melted and destroyed now, at the former Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn.
Updated on Friday, June 8, 2012 at 4:40PM by
Elena Taurke
One morning on the way to Ballet class, I hear the news that Black Americans are moving away from northern urban areas toward the South and into the suburbs. This interests me for what it will mean for diversity, so I remember it.
As we chitchat before class, Justina, a young Black woman just returned from a family visit to Tennessee, comments: "The South never changes." I argue briefly and then ponder her comment for the remainder of class. (You can blame all my mistakes on that!) When class is over I ask her what she meant. A graduate student in Social Psychology, she is frustrated by entrenched patterns: expectations shape behavior, behavior reinforces expectations, and the cycle perpetuates itself. Indeed, I agree. 
Except here she is, an exception.
Updated on Friday, June 8, 2012 at 4:47PM by
Elena Taurke
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks might be the saddest book I've ever read. If you don't know this story, here's the bottom line: A Black woman's cancer cells were taken and cultured without her permission and, because of their superhuman ability to thrive, spawned all variety of discovery and cure. She died, her disease almost neglected; her family remains dirt poor and deeply uneducated. In the absence of information from the scientists who benefited from Henrietta's cells, the family creates stories of heroism or victimization, depending on what's going on that day. What is usually going on is a fight for survival against overwhelming odds.