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Each issue we will introduce a new e-card.
Send it or another selection to a loved one with a personal message.
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ANNUAL TOUCH
DRAWING GATHERING
The Gathering is my favorite week of the year! It is a time for deep immersion in the creative force in the company of kindred souls. 2006 date has been set.
The Tenth Annual Touch Drawing Gathering will be July 23-28.
Click on each image to see a sequence from this year’s Gathering.
We have deep time gazing inward through Touch Drawing.
When we return from our inward journeys, it is joyful to share with one another.
In the labyrinth we have a magical time of contemplative walking, dancing, meeting, playing and Touch Drawing.
Our sacred studio is now full of images. As we embellish them with color, we make a wonderful creative mess!
We offer a drawing session to one another in the form of ‘Inner Portraits’ and are amazed at the intuitive wisdom we have accessed.
On our final evening together, one ritual of celebration is to be photographed in our glowing beauty.
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TOUCH DRAWING REFLECTIONS
~Gathering 2005~
Touch Drawing…
The ribbons of creative fire weave in and out,
spiralling through our fingers
~ you and I.
Touch Drawing…
Stirring, waking, and re-igniting
the embers of distant dreams and desires within
~ you and I.
Touch Drawing…
Unique and yet united,
touching one another through the collective
signatures of our souls’ expression
~ you and I.
~ Creative Inspiration
by Marion Prochnau ~
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VOLUME 4
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I am in the midst of a full-on fall. It does seem like the energy of transformation on the planet continues to accelerate, doesn’t it? Its time to be decisive and ready to offer ourselves to whatever calls. I hope you are finding your own way to support positive, life affirming action, in whatever form it might take. I hope you enjoy the reports and images in this issue.
With love and blessings, Deborah Koff-Chapin
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CFTD News
Arts & Healing Interview
I had a wonderful interview with Danny Hobson of The Arts & Healing Network this summer. You can read my thoughts about the healing power of creative expression at www.artheals.org/news_2005/jul05.html This outstanding website serves as a rich resource for and about artists who work in a broad range of healing forms. It is an honor to be among their interviewees.
Peace Through Art
Sufi artist and peace activist Alana Lea invited me to join her in launching Peace Through Art. Our first project was the creation of banners for the Peace Alliance Foundation Conference held in Washington DC September 10-12. They were a real hit! Peace Through Art images are now available as posters, note cards, journals and other items at peacethroughart.us. Additional images and products will be added soon. 10% of each purchase is donated to peace organizations listed on the site.
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Touch Drawing Stories
Touch Drawing for Persons with a Life-Challenging Disease
Ruth Vanden Bosch, M.A., R.N., L.P.C.
I have worked with Exceptional Cancer Patients (ECaP), a group founded by Bernie Siegel, MD, for several years. It is a specialized form of individual and group therapy based on “carefrontation,” a loving, safe, therapeutic confrontation that facilitates personal change and healing. Dr. Siegel taught me that what people say is often a cover-up, because we are all trained in language and use it, consciously or not, to conceal things that disturb us. When we communicate in visual images, we tell the truth, because we can’t manipulate the language as well. I use Touch Drawing with my counseling clients and  at The Art of Healing retreats that I co-facilitate with Dr. Bernie Siegel. We use several art mediums such as music, drawing, writing and dream interpretation.
Each participant is given Touch Drawing materials. They sit at a table with one other person. We start by watching the video “Through the Veil” and then read the instructions out loud together. All questions are answered and then I ask the participants to   close their eyes, cease from talking and let their fingers magically create beautiful pictures. They draw for 40 minutes. I play soft music in the background.
The participants love “Touch Drawing” as you can see by the joy on their faces as they draw and when we interpret their pictures at the end of the drawing period. We spend an additional hour talking about what he/she believes is revealed in the drawings.
 Some of the drawings were very specific to the disease the participant was experiencing. This picture was drawn by a breast cancer survivor. She chose red and her picture clearly resembles a mammogram and chest with ribs.
This picture revealed a brain with purple dots. This person had had a severe migraine headache prior to drawing the picture.
This picture shows a face drawn in orange and black. This participant is struggling with a particularly aggressive cancer of the esophagus. He titled the drawing ‘The Dichotomy of Cancer’.
The person who drew this picture is a breast cancer survivor and her husband has cancer of the kidney. The butterfly represents her healing (transformation) and the heart and couple holding hands represent the love and support that the couple shares in their life together and in their journey back to health.
The last picture shows what appear to be lungs. The person who drew it has lung cancer. It shows the darkness of the cancer and the red areas show her treatment. The picture of black and red circles, also drawn by this person, reveals her inner turmoil of what direction to go with her life as far as career and a place to live.
Touch Drawing has been a blessing to me as a psychotherapist and I recommend it to other therapists working with persons who have a life-threatening disease. The drawings speak what the unconscious mind needs to say and the conscious mind is afraid to say or to painful to say out loud.
If you are interested in attending the next Art of Healing Retreat, please contact me at (269) 857-5963.
 Touch Drawing in a Puerto Rican University
Shirley Silva sent us a wonderful power presentation on her workshop for therapists at Carlos Albizu University. “Thank you for all the love and joy we receive from you! Touch Drawing is a marvelous gift for the spirit.”
Click here to view the presentation.
Shirley Silva
San Juan Puerto Rico
shirleym@caribe.net
 Interpretive Touch Drawing
One of my favorite things to do is listen to a lecture, poetry or music and draw what comes to me in response. I recently had the joyful experience of drawing at a Rumi Celebration in Vancouver BC. I have just put the images up on the website. You are welcome to check them out here.
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SoulCards Use
 Celebrating
the 10th Anniversary
of SoulCards
The SoulCards were released in the fall of 1995. I had spent the year selecting images, writing the guidebook, preparing the cards for printing, developing a marketing plan, and generally jumping into the world of publishing. I acted on faith, energized by a strong inner impulse and the support of a few friends. Ten years later, I am amazed to see how the SoulCards continue to bring inspiration and insight into so many lives. I am happy to share a few of the testimonials we have received. They offer a sense of the many ways the SoulCards are being used. Let us know what YOU are doing with them!
Read Testimonials
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Frequently Asked Questions
How do I become a Touch Drawing Facilitator?
Touch Drawing is so simple. Roll some paint onto a smooth surface, place a piece of paper on top, move your hands on the page and lift it off to see the completed drawing... How much can it take to teach it? If this was all there was, it would be just another crafty technique. But Touch Drawing is also an interior process; a state of openness to the Self that can take one through emotional transformation and deeper; into communion with the archetypal realm and the divine source. Your consciousness as a presenter influences the depth to which people may go. The abilities to help people feel safe, to hold a sacred space and to support authentic communication are essential. On the other end of the spectrum, technical details are really important. For example, how much paper do you need so everyone can do as many drawings as they wish? If a technical detail is off, a potentially vibrant creative experience may become a frustrating or superficial one.
You must first establish and deepen your own relationship with the process so you can introduce it to others from an authentic place. You might find it helpful to invite one or two friends to join you in drawing regularly.
Each individual comes to Touch Drawing with unique skills and gifts. I encourage you to approach facilitating from the fullness of who YOU are. Touch Drawing can be integrated into a broad range of therapeutic, healing, educational, creative, or spiritual settings. It is important to customize the presentation of the process to the specific situation you are in. I recommend that you begin sharing Touch Drawing with friends and colleagues in small groups before doing anything public. Ask them for honest feedback on your presentation and their experience, and fine-tune your particular approach accordingly.
I highly recommend that you attend the Annual Touch Drawing Gathering on Whidbey Island, Washington. It provides a deep initiation into the spirit of Touch Drawing in the company of kindred souls. The Gathering generates a heart-centered community spirit for people who have a passion for Touch Drawing.
The other resource I offer is the Touch Drawing Facilitator Workbook. It includes everything I can think of from over 30 years of introducing Touch Drawing; details about acquiring, setting up and handling the materials, ideas on holding the space for people while they draw, as well as many variations on the process and ways to integrate the images. The Workbook also includes offerings by a number of other facilitators, to give a range of ideas and perspectives. Once you have purchased the Workbook, you are entered into a special category in our database, so I can be in closer contact with you.
I request that you give the website to people with whom you share Touch Drawing. Please purchase materials from us, and encourage others to do so as well. Sale of products keeps the Center for Touch Drawing office afloat, And let me know what you are doing! What settings are you presenting it in? How are you integrating Touch Drawing with other processes? Reports of personal experiences and ways of teaching provide vital source material for media presentations about the process.
I invite you to expand the garden of Touch Drawing by planting the seeds of this dynamic creative process in your own unique life. I cannot cultivate all the possible uses of Touch Drawing by myself!
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