Nov 16, 2021
We are so often bombarded with negative messages about aging that it makes us not want to do it. We don’t want to get older.
But what if aging could be a process that’s creative, intuitive and deepening? What if getting older was a creative act?
On this week’s Twisting the Plot Podcast, we speak with three 12 in 12 group members about how their experience in the year-long program has given them opportunities for flow, nourishment, and connection.
Maddi Cheers, Nadya Trytan and Aleka Artemis Munroe share about their growth and learning throughout 2021. According to these three remarkable women, the 12 in 12 provided a space for new perspective, joyful rebellion and dreams realized.
They give good testimony and recommend that you too apply for 12 in 12 2022.
Is it your turn to twist the plot?
Maddi Cheers is first and foremost a Wisdom Activist! She is a Storyteller, ceremonialist, dancer, teacher, poet and artist. She is also the founder of The Women’s Oneness Project, dedicated to bringing women together to respectfully discuss and consider our differences. At 68 Maddi has dedicated her final chapter to passing on the knowledge and teachings she has gained from indigenous elders, spiritual leaders and her own life experience.
“We must create a world where each child is honored, not labeled, where each child is educated, not indoctrinated, where each child is safe and loved and part of a caring, kind community, so that they can grow and blossom and give their gifts to the world to make it a better place for all of us. That is the basis of a world at peace.”
~Maddi Cheers
Nadya Trytan has over 20 years experience practicing as a Drama Therapist in a variety of settings including inpatient hospital, partial hospitalization, day treatment, schools and private practice. She specializes in embodied, trauma-centered work, and has experience with children, adolescents, adults and elders. Nadya has a private practice in Minneapolis, MN and she is on the core faculty of Midwest Drama Therapy Institute. Nadya is Past President of the North American Drama Therapy Association and Past Chair of the National Coalition of Creative Arts Therapies Associations.
Aleka Artemis Munroe has always needed to express herself with words. At age 10, as her father forced his narcissistic interpretation of reality on his family, she began photographing with her Papou’s Brownie camera, recording reality and writing poems expressing her perspective. Aleka’s linguistics and foreign languages education etched words into her soul. After careers in banking, training, then teaching, and raising a theatrical and musical family where words were essential tools, her fifties hit hard with the chaos of a failed adoption and multiplying autoimmune illness. Her creative and comedic family and friends, and prayer, pulled her through. Aleka believes God gives us the strength to get through pain, sorrow and suffering, to live, love, laugh, and especially to reach out to others who are struggling to choose between despair and courage, connection and disconnection. Mindfulness training sparked a renewal of using photography and words to envision alternate interpretations of scenes in her limited physical world with her camera lens and lyrical mediations. This developed into Compasspoints: maxims for clearing the chaos in our cages. Aleka is finishing a photographic book entitled “I am Water”, an allegorical tale of being the water that constantly flows on toward the unknown of the ocean, despite the obstacles in its path.