Introduction
Finding the Light Inside Us
"If I Let You Into My Story, Will You Promise Not to Judge?"
These were the words of a woman serving time in Riverhead Correctional Facility, as she began her first piece of writing with the aim of stirring compassion in a reading stranger. She was working with a technique that challenged each new writer to dare an imaginary reader to care, long before the writer was able to care about the self she had been.
As you ask yourself this question in your dual role of workshop facilitator and Imaginary Stranger/Reader, we invite you to sit back and watch this video and let your mind wander back into the time of Herstory’s beginnings from which it continues echo”
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Do you see how the story openers themselves are fast forwarding a new stranger into a place beyond judgment into wanting to be invited in? They are fast forwarding us into a place of wanting more, which is where our shared writing journey towards new places of healing, understanding, and restoration must begin.
Is that command, to promise not to judge realistic? Or is it coming from a deeper place, for which there might be other solutions, if we truly let the Stranger/ Reader into even our darkest moments?
It is in this context that we frame our curriculum based on the collective efforts of those who have worked with the Herstory Writers Network to use guided memoir for mentoring, reconciliation and giving back. We share it in the hope that each new person who engages with it to create a new writing circle behind or beyond bars, or to ponder the steps and the stages in a cell all alone, will find ways to reach beyond silence to speech.
To create memoir pieces that touch sacred places
To create sacred spaces, even in confinement
To reach and to change
To become a way of life
To connect the dots in a way that transforms both the teller and receiver
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In the words of the Honorable Judge Fernando Camacho, a lifelong leader in youth justice reform:
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​We are born with a light inside of us. The flame of grace, purity, innocence and goodness shines brightly in our innermost being – it is our spirit, our soul. The world is cruel and unforgiving, and causes great suffering. When children suffer, the light dims. To protect the flame, they build armor around it – a solid wall of bricks, mortar and steel. Sadly, that barrier dims the light even more, until it disappears. The eyes go dark, hollow, and dead. I have seen those dark eyes in too many of our children.
Much too often, society labels those dark eyes as signs of meanness and evil. These are mean kids who will become evil people. We build man-made structures out of brick, mortar, and steel, and place them behind those walls - out of sight, out of mind- in the name of keeping our communities safe.
Re-igniting the flame requires patience, compassion, empathy and love. Sharing our light with them, relying on our common humanity, we build trust and make a connection. Chip away at the armor, one small piece at a time. Tragically, sometimes the light never comes back, the spirit withers, and the soul dies. At such times, my own faith weakens. Thankfully, and more often, the wall slowly begins to crumble, and we see a flicker of light, a spark that leads to a bonfire. Suddenly, the flame shines brightly once again - the eyes come alive. It is those moments that energize me, refresh me, motivate me and cause me to rejoice in the power of the human spirit, and in the light inside of us.
We invite you to think about Judge Camacho's words as you move through these web pages exploring the various techniques. as you try them on for size with your own writing circle
whether it is an informal writing circle formed along with other prisoners in the yards,
or even if you are working alone in your cell.
whether you are working as someone directly impacted in reentry,
if you are a member of a prison family,
or if you are an ally in the struggle for dignity and hope.
We invite you to think very deeply about whether the wish not to judged-- a wish that we all share-- can ever be a reality?
And if it cannot-- because humans are judgmental in their very nature-- how can re-inventing the ways to articulate one's journey in a prison approved notebook, even when freedom isn't a hope, for those serving life sentences, become a way of finding light and meaning and giving back?
Every person who worked with this curriculum added to it and changed it, with questions and break-throughs and road blocks. We invite you to take whatever is useful from this curriculum, as you make it your own.