Brave voyagers! Brave brave explorers of inner landscapes. Braver so because unlike an external voyage, nothing is visible to the outside world as evidence of this inner journey, no place to peg your flag on, marking your achievement. It has all the adventure, risk – plumbing the inner depths, climbing mountains, in and out of whirlpools, being and becoming but no visibility.

And brave, considering the times we live in. Where capsules of readily digestible information are available for instant consumption and parroted sans reflection or evaluation. We are in the time of Whatsapp witch hunts, where it’s Us vs. Them, Me vs. You, where the problem is obviously the Other, not ourself.

In such a time, to dedicate a year to take an inner journey that requires time, effort and energy with no tangible milestones, is courageous indeed. To privilege inner process and presence over productivity and performance – who does that?

It’s even braver because, in this inner work, it’s the eye looking at itself, or the I looking at Itself. In the FECAT program – you meet yourself at the end of every path – in training days, personal therapy and client interactions. There are no exams to pass here, but a lot of self-examination.

What’s also special about this journey is that you chose the arts as paths to self-transformation. Why the arts? The arts are a special way of knowing. The therapeutic art process becomes both the sacred container that you can pour your psychic energy into and the creative spark that ignites self-transformation. The arts go directly into the core of our conflicts – holding and revealing what’s inside.

As explorers of the Expressive and Creative arts therapies, we stand on the shoulders of the great pioneers who created paths on unexplored territories, knowing and trusting in the healing power of the arts. We lost a great pioneer on this journey a few days ago, Marion Woodman whose work has deeply impacted this field worldwide.

In the last year, you have poured of yourselves into this search and come up with hard-won gems of self-knowledge. Hold it precious, hold it tight. As you head out into the world now, there may be times when you are questioned about this choice, but do not for a moment doubt the value of what you have been through.

Be careful when you share. The outside world does not do complexity very well, preferring slick marketing slogans to soulful self-knowledge.

I would like to close with a personal anecdote. I have always been very moved by the last words that Gautama, the Buddha is believed to have spoken to Ananta, his disciple. “Ananta, we must be lamps unto ourselves.” For the longest time, I believed what Buddha meant was that we must be our own light. Recently, it dawned upon me that the lamp is much more than light.

We must be lamps unto ourselves – make the container from our own ground, fire it so that it holds firm, pour the oil of our being into it, roll the gentle cotton to make a sturdy wick that can draw deep and transport the oil up, strike the match, light the lamp, hold the illumination…

Continue to pour yourselves into, and draw deep from this container, the sacred temenos. It will sustain you and nourish you from within. Let’s be lamps unto ourselves, everyday, anew.

Good luck and safe travels!