Bringing Angels On Camp

By Caterina Mezzatesta

 

'There were first timers bringing energy and adventure and generosity, the veterans, back for their umpteenth camp, bringing along leadership, wisdom, commitment and passion, and different still were those who had been around once or twice before back with vitality, confidence, friendship and love.

 

 

Over the summer I chose to be a pastoral facilitator on an Edmund Rice Camp. To set the scene. a bunch of volunteer leaders come together to put on a camp for children and families less fortunate. My job? To be there for those leaders; to give them support, to lead the debriefs at the end of each day, to prepare them for the week ahead and to provide space for reflection at the end of that week.

 

Scared out of my brain I thought, how can I best do this job!? I remembered the Strength Cards that were used at an in-service I went to once, and decided to call up the people at Innovative Resources and see if I could get myself some. Instead, after a chat with the friendly and helpful person on the other end of the phone, I opted for the Angels with Attitude, and the Sometimes Magic cards.

 

A host of angels on camp

The first night before we met the families, I had the Angel s cards laid out on the floor, and I asked the leaders to choose one angel they would like to bring on camp. One by one, each person presented their angel and shared why they were bringing it. It was a beautiful introduction to the week and very valuable to learn where people were coming from too. People were choosing the angelic qualities they had to offer according to where they were at in life and in relation to camps. There were first timers bringing 'energy' and 'adventure' and 'generosity', the veterans, back for their umpteenth camp, bringing along 'leadership', 'wisdom', 'commitment' and 'passion', and different still were those who had been around once or twice before back with 'vitality', 'confidence', 'friendship' and 'love'.

 

On the second last night, I got them to think back to the angel they brought with them, and reflect on how that angel was present throughout the week. With the following day being the last one, I asked them to find their angel again, or maybe this time, after meeting the families and living the week, they might be thinking of bringing another angel to help them through the last day.

 

Patchwork quilt of angels

For the final debrief of the week, I had the various angels on a board within a patchwork and began the session with the song Patchwork Quilt by 'Sweet Honey In The Rock'. We talked about the week and the people who were part of it and how we all came together to make our own patchwork, with all our different qualities collectively creating a unique group of people. And laid out on the floor were the Sometimes Magic cards. I asked my leaders to think of examples within the week where they witnessed magic happening.

 

Sometime after the camp I asked one of the leaders what they thought of the use of the cards:

 

'I thought they were really useful, especially for identifying feelings that you didn't know how to describe or put down in words. Or they made you think of a feeling that you didn't know you felt during the day, but once you saw the word, you had a think about your day and you could somehow relate to it or think, "Hey, perhaps I should try and experience that tomorrow".'

 

And he thought the pictures were cool too! And they are. The cards are beautiful, and their aesthetics make them lovelier to work with as well. I loved having the cards with me as a resource because it helped make the experience a little bit different, and more enjoyable.

 

Chilling out with Bears and Angels (and Strength Cards! )

By Ali Gwyer

 

At the end of 1996 I had a choice. Either I retired from Swinburne (the Child Care Department) or, with escalating ill health, I was in danger of being carried out feet first!

 

For years I'd been trying out story telling and meditation with my adult students, with some success. I decided I'd set up a small business, specialising in storytelling, meditation and calligraphy.

 

It was a concern of mine that, although adults were beginning to understand and practice relaxation and meditation, children who were equally stressed, had not been catered for.

 

Slowly the business built up, with opportunities to give talks and workshops in child care centres and kindergartens. Libraries and bookshops were places to have sessions, to tell stories, giving simple meditations and provide art activities.

 

The Lady Gowrie Child Centre in Melbourne mentioned the Innovative Resources cards and I rang to enquire. I became fascinated with the amazing possibilities of such cards as Angels with Attitude, Strength Cards and Bear Cards.

 

My ongoing adult meditation groups have been enjoying the Strength Cards in a similar way. Often people would come tired out after a busy day and the cards provided a chance to 'ease in' to the evening and helped focus their attention.

 

In May and June, I'm running workshops at the Lady Gowrie with some exciting prospects. Early childhood centre staff are now becoming interested in incorporating relaxation and meditation into their curriculum. The Innovative Resources cards are going to be used to help focus people on their needs and those of the children in their care.

 

I've also purchased some picture books from 'Metaphors', the Innovative Resources bookshop. I will use these picture books with both staff and children. I always take puppets, books and ideas to my workshops, to encourage enthusiasm and creativity.

 

Ali Gwyer

 

The Artist Behind the Angels

Peter Gibson spent his early years surrounded by cows and farm machinery at a place called Moorooduc. Rural isolation and asthma taught Peter to seek out the angels of self-reliance early, resulting in sketch pads full of monsters, people and outlandish machinery. Several of these early cartoons were published in newspapers such as The Weekly Times and The Age. At 16 he illustrated a young person's survival guide, setting the tone for a publishing career which focuses on social and environmental awareness.

 

Many of Peter's cartoons begin life as intricate pen and ink doodles in margins. They then leap off the page as quirky characters that mysteriously seem to be able to touch a place in the heart and mind, in a similar way to Michael Leunig's much loved cartoon art.

 

Peter majored in print making at the Victorian College of the Arts. He says that while producing this series of cards, he has been visited by the whole flotilla of Angels with Attitude. Today, the Angels with Attitude cards are one of Innovative Resources' most popular tools. Peter's angel characters are inspiring, playful and engaging. And keep an eye out for Peter's dog 'Minni' who, with angel's wings, graces every card!

 

"Always remember, you are not alone. The angels are watching over you. Enjoy."

Peter Gibson

 

'Independent Comment on Audio-visual and Print Materials - Angels with Attitude and Shadows,' Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, September 2004.

 

St Luke's Innovative Resources have created two more tools to assist in our work of supporting change in people's lives. Angels with Attitude and Shadows are a must for your box of resources. Like all of St Luke's products, these cards aim to build on people's strengths. They work as 'conversational prompts' and offer the opportunity for people to connect with their thoughts and feelings. They come with no rule book about how to use them, other than some questions to help open up a conversation.

 

Angels with Attitude offers the opportunity for a delightful, heart-warming reflection on the changes we would like to bring into our own lives and the lives of people we work with. I use them almost daily in my work with children, young people and families and have introduced them to friends and colleagues. The 48 Angels with Attitude cards offer values and qualities to inspire social change and personal transformation. They come in a postcard size format that feels nice to hold and touch. The full-colour angel images are quirky, funny, truly inspired and often moving. My favourite card, 'Generosity', has an older man reading a book to kids on his verandah, smiling simultaneously at a passing teenager on a skateboard. Like all the others, the image goes back to the fundamentals of human connection.

 

The characters in the cards generally cross generational boundaries - kids with funky hair, Grannies on roller blades, and old men badly in need of a bread-cut, playing punk music. They all break down stereotypes and challenge the often rigid limitations we place on each other and ourselves. Though geared towards contemporary youth culture, the cards have a reach far beyond that. They don't preach. They pry open the possibility of a way of living that challenges values of consumerism, economic rationalism and the individual pursuit of happiness. The cards put us in touch with environmental sustainability, family and connectedness both to others and to ourselves.

 

[Review continues on Shadows: Seeing the Darkness, Looking for Light, first edition] The 'shadow' is one of Carl Jung's concepts to refer to those parts of ourselves we want to hide because the feelings are too negative, painful or unacceptable. Healing comes from expressing and reintegrating these aspects of ourselves. Shadows grew out of the vision of a small group of practitioners who use the concept of the shadow in their thinking and professional work. This process of developing resources directly from practitioners is a new form of publishing being developed by the Innovative Resources team at St Lukes. They call it 'interactive publishing' and hope to develop other Shadows metaphors in response to feedback on the current set of cards.

 

Shadows is a set of twelve full-colour watercolour paintings designed to help people acknowledge their hurt and grief. The paintings (for example, a small boat in a stormy sea, a solitary light in a house set in a dark windswept landscape) can be used to help people put words to feelings they find hard to express. They are also a useful starting point for people who have come into counselling but don't really know why.

 

The team at St Luke's needs to be congratulated on producing another set of excellent resources. One young woman who was struggling to find words laughed when I brought out the Angel cards. Angels with Attitude . That's me!' We had no problems connecting after that.

 

Lisa Clement, Blue Mountains Child & Adolescent Development Unit, Hazelbrook, NSW.

 

 

Angels with Attitude are also available

as greeting cards.