Animal Teachings Kit from Indigenous Elders

Mainly, I’m walking from this program totally humbled and filled with profound respect for the resilience, creative capacity, and endless generosity of the people from nations that have experienced unfathomable ruptures and trauma. And I’m so grateful that I was allowed to experience such beauty and belonging as a non-Indigenous person.

I’ve come to fully appreciate that the quality of our relationships with all the life forms of this earth—other people, the trees, all the creatures, and sources of sustenance—is what matters most. And that we really can regenerate these severed relationships if we tend to them.

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Julie Flynn Badal
The Prayer Flag Project

Traditionally, prayer flags are used to promote peace, compassion, strength, and wisdom. The Tibetans believe the prayers and mantras inscribed in the flag will be blown by the wind to spread the good will and compassion into all pervading space.

The Prayer Flag Project is a space dedicated to creating your own prayer flag as a source of solace, hope, solidarity, strength, and transformation in these challenging times.

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Julie Flynn Badal
Expressive Arts as a Regenerative Tecnhology

Throughout time, Indigenous cultures have responded to trauma and loss and restored equilibrium through expressive arts. From this perspective, we don't have to be particularly gifted to make art. And art isn't always meant to end up in a gallery or museum or on a stage. Sometimes it’s a vehicle for community and connection. In this way, art making can be a sacred ritual that returns us to ourselves and our sense of belonging. The process increases our sense of what we're capable of and what's possible.

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Julie Flynn Badal
Getting Really Real

Johnson’s book chronicles the transformative power of friendships that are seasoned with time, effort, and awareness. The author understands not only how good friends can strengthen our sense of self, but also how they form the bedrock of healthy communities and social movements. When friendships are weak, communities suffer and social movements fizzle or collapse.

Yet, we don’t often give our friendships the attention and status they merit. We often strive wholeheartedly to be good parents or partners, but it seems we rarely ask ourselves what it means to be a good friend.

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Julie Flynn Badal
Becoming Resourced, Bearing Witness, and Working for Change

“We can no longer bypass what’s happening to the planet,” Halifax says. “We’ve been sheared off from the old way of life in a radical and sudden way. This process of separation and dissolution is an incredible opportunity to show up with compassion and turn toward the truth of suffering and its causes of greed, hatred, and delusion.”


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Julie Flynn Badal
Embodied Literacy for Kids

How can we involve our bodies and minds in the storytelling process? How does movement enhance understanding of self and other? How do stories give meaning to movement? What emerges in the quiet spaces and pauses between words?

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Julie Flynn Badal
Relying on our Mentors

Here we introduce you to an ancient Tibetan meditation from the tantric tradition called Mentor Bonding. This meditation employs visualization to help you identify your mentors, receive their support and compassion, as well as internalize their good qualities. It is very helpful and strengthening to call upon the wisdom and affection mentors as we navigate life’s challenges.

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VideosJulie Flynn Badal
Contemplative Arts as a Source of Resilience

Going over more old photos today. Still so moved by the portraits Art Jones took of my student Ulyssa in 2015 for a contemplative arts project called SANCTUARIES. The portraits that were self-directed by the students and shot by Art with his polaroid. Something about this over the shoulder image of Ulyssa looking into the mirror has stuck with me over time.

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Julie Flynn Badal