A Night of Celebration with Hilde Girls and Drumsistas

Carol Waid, TBT Graduate Elizabeth Hampton, and Nathalie Sorrell

By Carol Waid and Nathalie Sorrell

The Hilde Girls started the evening off behind stage when they invited Truth Be Told Graduate Elizabeth Hampton and co-founder Nathalie Sorrell to join Carol Waid, co-founder of TBT and Hilde Girls, in the center of a powerful loving circle of women. Nathalie and Elizabeth beamed with misty eyes as the singers voiced a song-prayer that took their stage fright and anxiety away.

Elizabeth said:

“One thing you never expect when you get out of prison is to have people with love pouring forth from their faces stand up and applaud you for ANYTHING.”

The Drumsistas performing

Shortly after that, Hilde Girls surrounded the audience and serenaded them with Breathing Love. Then on the stage, each in her unique red and black festive or graceful garment, they sang harmonious songs that opened our hearts such as: Like a Feather on the Breath of God, Music of Heaven, We Are One, and Beauty in the World. The evening ended with the Drumsistas rocking the house with 23 women playing African drums and dancing and singing. The aisles were filled with children and adults with the freedom of children, dancing their hearts out! What a night it was!

For weeks at Hilltop prison, we have been playing this celebratory music, behind bars, so that we would be in unity and community with the women we serve. Claim Your Voice was by far the favorite of the songs in our classrooms. In an exercise of gratitude the women voiced their thanks to what was evoked from these songs.

Tammy Y., from the Lockhart Unit, expressed her gratitude with flowing tears of her new found awareness – that she is a valuable women and feels worthy for the very first time in her life.

“I cannot tell you how much the song Claim Your Voice means to me. I shed tears from my heart. I have never been able to say what I feel or meant, because I felt what I say doesn’t matter or that it’s stupid. I never fit in or had knowledge of wisdom, so the only place I felt I fit was when I wasn’t Tammy, which is when I was high or with the addicts. I have found that what I say matters. Thank you for helping me to Claim My Voice.”

24-year old Cherrelle, from the Lockhart Unit, writes:

“Thank you for contributing and even considering incarcerated women. A lot of us are forgotten as time goes by and to know that people care about our mentality upon re-entrance back into society means so much. Truth Be Told is a refreshing program for us in a place and situation like the one we’re in. I’m grateful for your support.”

The Hilde Girls, Nathalie and Carol

Laurie S., from Hilltop Unit in Gatesville, wrote:

“There is so much joy in realizing how much people whom I’ve never met care about what happens to me. There is also tremendous honor and responsibility, for I wish to always be worthy of the outpouring of love coming from you all. I have learned much about the ‘kindness of strangers’ while in prison and this is the most inspiring example of all.”

Kristy V., from the Lockhart Unit, says:

“When I heard Claim Your Voice, I got chills. I will claim my voice and I can thank you guys for the inspiration.”

Kay R., from the Lockhart Unit:

“Tears have formed in my eyes as I hear of your music and efforts on our behalf! I believe, together, we can make a difference in the world. Thank you for your drum beats. Thank you for your heart. Thank you for celebrating our recovery. Thank you for believing.”

And from Karen C., who resides in a medical unit:

“We all prayed and sang with you Saturday night and called in a profound and powerful healing in every way.”

Photos by Paul Brick of Natural Action Photography

Karen gives credit to learning her community building skills through Truth be Told classes. Now she builds a community in the prison hospital, where she and her friends lay in their hospital beds and sing with us. Karen is recovering from a serious surgery and 10 days in ICU, YET still finding ways to connect to her Truth Be Told community and make a difference in other lives with her loving kind presence – She is about Letting Love Lead.

And as always – we who go in as facilitators to help these prisoners renovate their lives end up going home knowing our own selves better, and inspired to do our own renovations by their example.

Special Thanks To:

Nathalie and Carol want to send virtual hugs and praise to the Hilde Girls and the DrumSistas, Elizabeth, and Lee, our Board chair and Anna, our Board Secretary, who did a huge amount of work to set up tables and bring in artisans to help bring in more financial support for our work and all the facilitators who attended and helped during the break to raise more money and answer people’s questions about this work that keeps changing our lives, along with the lives of the women we serve behind and beyond bars.

If you want to become a TBT supporter or active volunteer – just contact us and we’ll send you a volunteer application to fill out, or a pledge card. Whatever you have to give might very well be exactly what we need.

A Practice in Letting Go

In our final class together yesterday, I shared this poem with my students at Lockhart prison. Having graduated from the Level 1 Talk to Me class last week, the women this week are moving on to Level 2 Discovery, which is taught by other facilitators at Truth Be Told. This transition requires taking a risk, to accept the invitation of joining a larger community of women in Truth Be Told classes who are also embarking on a journey of self-discovery. They are upping the stakes, learning who they are when the bull is stripped away, when they stop pointing fingers, when they own their stories — the horrifying, the regrettable, the beautiful, all of it.

They are discovering that they have a voice.

They are seeing themselves and others with new eyes. They are continuing to practice the tools of community building, communication, caring for self and creativity.

Like many semesters before, I hold hope in my heart for each woman; their faces — young and old, of every race — will not soon be forgotten. They are the faces of mothers, daughters, grandmothers, sisters, wives, girlfriends, your neighbors.

I must remind myself, time and time again: This is where I let go.

Their future is theirs to live, theirs to save.

The Journey

By Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice —

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

“Mend my life!”

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do—

determined to save

the only life you could save.

HildeGirls and Drumsistas concert on April 20, 2013, benefits Truth Be Told!

Come celebrate and experience a magical night of inspiring songs of universal spirit, irresistible audience participation, and dancing with the Hilde Girls and Drumsistas!

The Hilde Girls are a community of women inspired by the songs of Hildegard of Bingen, singing songs of spirit from all over the world. Susan Lincoln leads the Hilde Girls.

Drumsistas is an all-female African drumming group led by Sherry Gingras of Drumz.

The concert is Saturday, April 20, 2013, at Unity Church of the Hills, 9905 Anderson Mill Rd., Austin, TX 78750. Click here to view a map. The concert starts at 7 pm (doors open at 6:30). Admission is $15. This annual event often sells out, so please be sure to arrive early to get a good seat!

We look forward to seeing you on April 20^th!!!

Photo by Paul Brick at www.naturalaction.photoshelter.com.

In spite of everything, the dog! An inmate prepares for her release

by Truth Be Told co-founder Nathalie Sorrell (left) and Laurie Salley (story below)

The “In Spite of Everything, Yes!” class comes near the end of the Talk To Me Level 2 (6 week) Discovery series. It follows the experience of eight weeks in Talk to Me Speaking, Circle, or Movement Classes, where each woman speaks her truth about what brought her to prison.

The class was inspired by the book of the same name written and edited by Ralph and Caroline Steiner.  The book was a gift to me from Peg Runnels, creative artist and friend – and the story of how this gift keeps on giving to women in prison is an example of what keeps us committed to this work! Peg has been an Exploring Creativity facilitator at least four times in the past 10 years and has volunteered in other creative ways to support Truth be Told.

The book is full of photographs of real people having real experiences from all over the world, in settings from the Piazza San Marco in Venice to beer joints in small southern towns, from a hilly back yard where a boy hugs a tied-up dog, to a couple of tiny men in yellow slickers watching for bad weather on a rocky, secluded, foggy mountain.

We see people of many colors and ethnic groups dancing, story-telling, flirting in a crowd, sitting at tables, on a judge’s bench. We see spaces where an artist has scattered her tools and supplies on an old wooden table on a screened-in porch, where sunlight falls across empty church pews in a balcony, where a round table is set with paper napkins and flatware but waiting for the stack of dishes to be set at each place. We see children, old people, a baby sitting by his pregnant mother and poking his finger in her swelling belly button.

Here is a quote from the foreword to this book:

The kind of affirmation present in the pictures Ralph has chosen … is something infinitely more powerful than hope….  It speaks of conviction and courage and certainty and “Never say die”.

By the time we push back desks and scatter copies of these pictures on the floor for our class members to choose from, we facilitators have given them all we have to give them. Our classroom has been as safe and supportive as we could make it. We have offered them experiences of acceptance, compassion, shared grief, courage to change, and tools to not only express their past horrors and shame, but opportunities to find the meaning and value in struggles that few of us would have survived any better than they did.

Now, we are giving them a final opportunity to face the reality that when they come home, the cards will be stacked against them. There will still be more drug dealers and pimps eager to see them than happy healthy families to welcome them home – more people offering them illegal ways to get food and lodging than employers willing to take a chance on a convicted felon.

Can they take this gift of pictures of life as it is, everywhere in the world, and choose one that speaks to them? Will they write about their feelings or experiences that support the “yes!” that will keep them moving forward, still acknowledging that there are many other hard realities to move through?

Every time, we are blown away by their choices, and their candor, as well as how amazingly they express themselves. Truth be told, their words reinforce my “yes!” in spite of the inconveniences of being a volunteer for 13 years in an organization with growing pains.

Each facilitator has her own way to present this class. I always emphasize how many artists, writers, and creative people have influenced my life, and been my mentors whether they ever knew me or not. And for every person who has had their creative work published or printed or framed or seen, there have been many “in spite of everything – YES” moments.  So teaching this class is my chance to encourage these women, some of whom are remarkably talented, to value what they have to offer enough to start sharing it and set goals for themselves to keep putting it out there where others can benefit from it.

It’s one of my favorite classes to teach – and I feel revived and encouraged, just writing about it today. Thanks for the opportunity, Carol, in your invitation to share in supporting Laurie’s wonderful blog entry below.

The Dog

by Laurie Salley, Nov. 1, 2012

Note: A photo of a basset hound inspired this story from the “In Spite of Everything – Yes!” Discovery class.

I get off the bus in downtown Houston alone, no place to go and $100 in my pocket. Well, $83.40 to be exact. I had to eat and get me some smokes on the way down here. Never could find a halfway house, most of ‘em don’t take sex offenders, so that’s why I don’t have no place to go. Anyways, I get off that big old bus and walk out of the terminal and what do I see but a dog. An old bassett hound.  I ain’t seen one of them in years.  That dog, he looks like he’s just sittin’ there waiting on me, like he knew me, you know. Darndest thing!  Got no place to put one, nor money to feed one, but he follows right along behind me big as Billy-be-damned.   stop and get both of  us a couple of cheeseburgers off the McDonald’s Dollar Menu. Hell, if I was hungry, he was, too.

That first night out, well, it would have sure been lonely without that old dog. I’m used to people all around me, all the time – not always the people I want to be around, if you get my drift, but there they all were, whether I liked it or not. To suddenly be all by my lonesome was pretty awkward, so it was nice to have company. I guess I could have found a shelter somewhere, but much as I felt a little lost and alone, I was sick and tired of being cooped up. It was nice and warm outside, considering it was October, and I found me a nice park bench in an out-of-the-way park near Chinatown. I didn’t really sleep much anyway, just looked at the stars and wondered what in the Sam-hill I was gonna do next.

Sam – ’cause that’s what I came to call the dog, Sam – well, he stayed by my side that whole night.  Like he wanted to be with me! It was surprising.  I ain’t had nothin’ stick by me from choice in a long while. But it left me in a quandary, too. What was I to do with Sam while I was takin’ buses all over Houston lookin’ for a job, a place to live? I couldn’t take Sam with me, and that was the hard truth.

The next day, heavy-hearted, I walked Sam back to the bus station. I bought him another cheeseburger on the way. He stayed when I told him to, and didn’t follow when I left him there. It was sure hard to go – but I figure he was an angel sent by God to make my first night out a little easier.  I imagine someone else will need Sam’s services soon.

Things that Make me Happy: Part Three

Earlier this month we ran Part One and Part Two of this three part series Here is Part Three!

Truth Be Told’s Exploring Creativity Workshop introduces expressive arts as ways to relieve stress, channel emotions, and awaken creativity. “Things That Make Me Happy” was the topic for the last TBT session at Hilltop in Gatesville. The women made a list of their happy things. Then, they picked one and wrote a story about it.

Hearing From Someone I Haven’t Heard From in a While

By T.A.

I have a best friend not in lock-up. She lives in Pennsylvania. I met her first on the computer in 1999 then I moved to Missouri in 2003. One day I had a knock on my door and this little kid asked me if I was Tammy. He handed me a slip of paper and ran off. Well, I opened the paper and my friend had written and told me where she was. She lived about 6 houses down from me, so I got my shoes on and grabbed my keys and walked to her house. She lived in that house for about 4 more months and the lady she was living with ran off and left her footing the bills so she moved to Arizona with another friend, then they moved back to Pennsylvania. She and I keep in touch, but I don’t hear from her as often as I did when I first got locked up in 2006. She has been sick, but she had surgery and that we are hoping will make her better. I heard from her this month before she had her surgery, so hopefully soon I will be hearing from her as before.

Making Homemade Double-Fudge Chocolate Brownies

By Norma P.

This makes me happy because it reminds me of my daughter Jacqueline who loves to bake all kinds of sweets. Jacqueline loved to help me in the kitchen all the time wanting and loving to taste test whatever we cooked or baked. Brownies were her favorite because she loved chocolate and enjoyed putting the ingredients together. That was very important to her because it made her feel independent and that she was a big girl at 4 years old. She would clean the mixer spoons by licking all the chocolate batter off of them before putting them in the soapy water, with chocolate covered on her cheeks and outside her lips. She really enjoyed putting the icing on the top of the brownies after they were baked and sprinkling colorful sprinkles all over the brownies for decoration. After all that wonderful work, we would watch her favorite cartoon movie eating double fudge chocolate brownies with hot chocolate with melted marshmallows. Enjoying one of my favorite pastimes with my daughter, that used to make me happy, and I sure miss having a chocolaty latte day.

Shopping All Day with My Daughter

By Cheryl Crowe

There is nothing I love more than a day spent shopping with Chelsea. We always start at Abercrombie or Hollister, her favorite stores. I tell her to look for bargains, but that seldom happens! She loves trying on clothes and making a mess of the dressing room as I’m hanging clothes back up. Then it’s my turn, so we head to Victoria’s Secret where we both shop for everything from perfume to sweats. We then head to Starbucks for a break and grab a Frappuccino with extra caramel. Then it’s off to find shoes for everything. We then end the day getting our nails done. That is my bonding time with my daughter and I look forward to doing this real soon.

Lady Elisabeth Roses

By Letha Howell

When I look at the Lady Elisabeth roses, I see such beauty in each interactive petal. When the Lady first starts to bud, the bud is so closed so tight that you think it will not ever open. Then after watering the Lady and loosening the earth from around her roots, the Lady starts to unfold her tiny frail petals. I can smell the fragrance of her innermost soul, so sweet and light. Then the Lady starts to grow, beauty that was within is in full blossom. The Lady struggles through the storms of life. Yet in her frailty she becomes strong. Her beauty fades; still she is so beautiful within her soul. The Lady shines in memory and in heart. Her fragrance is still so sweet and light to the senses of smell in the memory of heart.

Spending Time Crafting

By Opal Graham

One day our church decided to have a craft sale to earn money for a “Youth to Go to Camp Day.” After church we went home and my two daughters Sandra, 6, and Diana, 5, told me how they wanted to help and participate, so I went into my room and came out with my arts and craft box full of fun things to do. The girls jumped up and down and yelled with glee cause they were so surprised I brought my box out cause it was a No-No. They said, “Really, Mom?” and I said, “Yes, really.” So me and my girls sat down for the rest of the day and did all kinds of fun crafts for the craft day at church. We also ate cookies and chips, and sweet tea, our favorite. Two days later we had our craft day and the girls were so excited and I was so proud. They made enough for three kids to go to church camp.

Riding My Horse 

By C.O.

On my 16th b-day I got my horse. She was the best b-day gift that I got that year. I’ve had her for a very long time and I still have her. I have ridden her in the rodeo and in parades. I was in barrel racing with her and jumping with her. She makes me very happy whenever I am with her because she is a very good horse to ride when you are in a bad mood. Her eyes are what make me also very happy because they are a baby blue which reminds me of the sky on a beautiful day. She likes to be at the beach where she can walk along the water to cool down and she also likes to go for a swim at the beach with me on her. She is so full of so much fun that makes me very happy whenever I am riding her. Here is a poem also:

Riding A Horse

Horseback riding

is so much fun to do

when you are in a bad mood.

So I think you should give it

a try sometime.

Ginger’s First Day

Ginger is one of 4 new facilitators-in-training at the GEO Lockhart Unit this Spring Semester.  She shares with us about her experience of her very first day Behind Bars.

Truth Be Told orientation day was last week.  Five of us went into GEO Lockhart Prison to meet the women, introduce the Talk To Me classes, and go through a process of starting this truth-telling journey together.  As a facilitator-in-training, I was kind of straddling the two realms – I live in the “free world” and my work is to learn how to facilitate classes on my own in the future, and I am fully a class participant, along with the women who live in the prison, and my work is to tell my story.   

Every minute of the day was relevant and important.  It began as soon as I saw Katie at the front door of her house, and continued as we drove over to Callahan’s General Store and picked up Donna.  Katie facilitates the writing class that I’ll be doing, and Donna facilitates the speaking class.  The three of us drove out to Lockhart and the conversation in the car was alive and connected to the purpose, and fun.  We met up with my co-facilitators-in-training, Margarita and Jill, at Reyna’s Mexican Bakery and Café where we shared and listened and laughed and bonded as a group.  Then we drove over to the prison in the same car, strengthening our easy connection with conversation and togetherness.

 I started to feel my nerves upon entering the prison.  My expectations were stronger than I realized, causing some tension around protocol and rules.

The process of entry (checking in, getting badges, metal detector, pat-down, walking through several armored doors) was good to be doing in this group of new friends.

We arrived in the gym and it was essentially empty, just a few chairs, tables and a sound system set up for our presentation, and there were two women in their blue uniforms, smiling and greeting us as if we were old friends.  They had done the program before and were on the set-up crew.  I noticed my nerves were tweaked out though I really didn’t know why at this point.  After a while, women started to arrive, carrying their plastic chairs.  They came!  Something in me started to relax a bit.  We were actually going to do this thing.  A woman who I sat next to told me she is using this time in prison as an opportunity to know herself.  I felt humble in her presence.

Katie led the orientation and Donna spoke and the three facilitators-in-training were introduced.  At some point I looked back at one of the women who had greeted us at the door, because there was something about her specifically that touched something specific in me.  I looked back and was flooded with a painful memory.  She had reminded me of something from my past that I had not felt into, until that day.  I cried quietly as the presentation continued.

And I started to notice that actually most, if not all, women there felt like mirrors into something in me.  Though they are incarcerated for various crimes, I experienced myself with them, how common our human lives really are.  I felt connected, humbled, fairly disoriented from my usual mindset, and alive.

In my own healing years, I’ve at times looked for some sort of prison like this.  For a while there, I couldn’t face the world, knowing what I was discovering from my own past, about my own trauma.  I committed myself to silent meditation retreats instead of state penitentiaries.  These days I am learning how to live, for real, in the free world.  And the thing is, this journey is a continual diving back into the places in me that are still locked away.  I’m thankful for the wisdom of the Truth Be Told community, for knowing that we cannot facilitate that which we cannot be with in our own lives.  Tomorrow is the first Talk To Me Circle in which I get to fully participate as an inmate, and I get to learn about facilitating through Katie’s guidance.  Again, it is simply humbling to be walking around out here; free to live my life, and to also know I am incarcerated.

 BIO:

Ginger McGilvray grew up in Central Texas and lives in Austin.  She is a Licensed Massage Therapist and yoga/movement instructor and she is a Hakomi Practitioner-in-training (Hakomi is a mindfulness-based, body-centered form of psychotherapy).  She is a lifelong dancer and writer and she has an affinity for working with people who are in healing process in their lives, such as related to trauma, cancer and addiction. She also works with end of life care.  There is a popular quote by Howard Thurman that pretty much summarizes Ginger’s intention:  “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

www.gingermcgilvray.com

Things that Make me Happy: Part Two

Two weeks ago we ran the first in this three-part series. Here is part two!

Truth Be Told’s Exploring Creativity Workshop introduces expressive arts as ways to relieve stress, channel emotions, and awaken creativity. “Things That Make Me Happy” was the topic for the last TBT session at Hilltop in Gatesville. The women made a list of their happy things. Then, they picked one and wrote a story about it.

Hot Spicy Chocolate

By Barbara Jones

Hot spicy chocolate is my favorite drink because my children and I used to drink it together to warm our insides up on a cold, wintery day. We would put marshmallows in it and have nice big marshmallow smiles that we could lick off our mouths. So we would laugh and have a grand old time drinking the hot spicy chocolate. Tabitha would get marshmallow up her nose and would have to blow it out with a big smile on her face. Nicci would burn her finger on a hot marshmallow and laugh about it afterwards. Travis would drink it as fast as he could and ask for more. I would stick my finger in a warm marshmallow and put some on their noses.

Helping Others Who are in Need, to Know I Can Feed Someone Who is Hungry or Give Them a Coat When it is Cold

By Marine Theriault

There are many who are in need of food and shelter. Growing up on a farm had a lot of benefits but as a child we don’t see that because we want to be like other kids that have things given to them. Some had more than others. I had to work in the fields and I was mad much of the time, not caring to understand what this was doing for me. I left home and found it hard to survive. All I knew was the farm. There were days I was hungry and wished I was back at home. The abuse didn’t look so bad after all or the work part that I was thinking to be unfair. I saw many faces that were hungry and many homeless and it hurt me to see how selfish I was. I had an experience and did not put it to use. God put us in our territories and has given us gifts and talents as children and today I see where I went wrong. Knowing what I know today, I could have fed thousands upon thousands of people with the knowledge I have on farming. My goal is to set out on that mission.

Granny’s Cooking

By Taffiny Williamson

Cooking dinner with grandma—she was like an angel in the kitchen. Today she taught me how to flour the chicken and put it in the fryer. Then wow, oh, my!—her mashed potatoes. I had to sit here and peel almost a whole bag. Man, my hands hurt. But after then she put the most flavored seasonings that make me want to hit someone. The gravy she did I tried like she said and well, it ended up in a blob mess. This is my favorite to cook—the Chocolate Dream Cake. I took out the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, eggs, oil, vanilla, mixed it all together and baked it. While the cake was cooking, you smelled chocolate cake and fried chicken. Oh, for the topping—I mixed some cocoa, ¾ box powder sugar, coconut milk, ¼ stick butter, melted it, then poured it over the cake. My granny said that was the best cake she had ever tasted. My Granny—I’ll always remember her cooking and never forget what she taught me.

Meeting My First Spider

By Belinda L.

One day I went to the pet store and was looking around ‘til I saw this rose-hair tarantula and asked the salesperson how much was it. She told me $20. So I bought her and a tank, rocks, food (crickets), a log, and light. Took her home, set everything up and put her in a new environment. So I named her Zena. I carried Zena around everywhere. She stayed on my shoulder all the time. When we would go to the park with friends, she would be in her small clear cage. When we reached the park, I would take Zena out and hold her in my hand, having everyone wanting to hold her. When we entered the park, people would stare at Zena and say, Oh, my God, it’s a spider,” and ask, “Does it bite?” I would have little kids coming up to me to ask if they could hold her and their parents would take pictures. I would meet all kinds of people who weren’t afraid and some that were terrified. After leaving the park, people would tell me, “Next time you come back, don’t forget the spider.” After a couple of days Zena molted into a bigger spider. Some make it through the molting and some don’t. This is the amazing part–Zena lived to about 3 years. She was part of my life and that was the saddest day for me when she died.

Winter’s Night

By Dusti S.

A cold winter’s night

frost crystals blanket the world in white.

A red, gold fire’s flames dancing inside

bending their warmth

to chase away the chill inside.

Listening as the flames play their merry tune,

Pop, snap, crackle, pop they play

as I while away

my time in fantasy worlds unknown,

no cares, no worries, no t.v. or telephone,

as I get lost in a good book’s

story, characters and plots, reading by

the fire’s cheerful light.

It’s the only way for me to spend

a cold winter’s night.