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Healing

16 women veterans to be featured in art show

Posted 3/18/23

Sixteen women veterans will participate in a creative arts healing retreat culminating with an art show displaying healing creations in the Scottsdale and Paradise Valley areas in March.

Warrior …

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Healing

16 women veterans to be featured in art show

Posted

Sixteen women veterans will participate in a creative arts healing retreat culminating with an art show displaying healing creations in the Scottsdale and Paradise Valley areas in March.

Warrior Songs, a finalist for the 2019 Phoenix Mayor’s Arts Awards, is a non-profit organization committed to facilitating the healing of veterans through music and the creative arts.

March 22-26, Warrior Songs is hosting a creative arts healing retreat for 16 women veteran military sexual trauma survivors in Scottsdale. The retreat culminates with an art show where the veterans will display their healing creations on Saturday, March 25 from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Franciscan Renewal Center, 5802 E. Lincoln Drive, Paradise Valley.

This event is free and open to the public. The event is suggested for guests ages 13 and older due to the frank nature of the topics that will be discussed, according to a press release.

The retreat is offered free of charge to 16 women veterans who survived military sexual trauma. Eight of the veterans will be local while the other eight are from across the country.

The retreat is facilitated by an experienced all-volunteer staff of five — three are veterans and two who are civilian therapists.

Over the course of the four-day retreat, the veterans explore aspects of their military service and subsequent trauma through a variety of art modalities including writing, painting, drawing, and songwriting, the press release stated.

Each session is followed by an educational/instructional mind/body competent to assist in reducing any PSTD symptoms that arise from exploring the trauma.

The art show is a key component to the healing power of the retreat as it allows the veteran to communicate the parts of the trauma that they most need to express publicly. Many participants share things they have never told to another person, and feel unburdened afterwards.

Audience members from previous art show often state that the experience is one of the most profound and moving experiences of their lives, the press release stated.

Warrior Songs hosted a similar retreat in 2019, and local staff has been fundraising to cover the cost of the retreat since January 2020.

“I am proud to be part of this retreat,” said retreat facilitator and survivor Luz Helena Thompson. “Warrior songs utilizes creative arts as a powerful approach to supporting women veterans through the healing process and recovery from Military Sexual Trauma. I invite you to support the Warrior Songs Creative Arts Retreat by learning more about our programs on the website.”

We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.