• Meditation Puppy

      Molly brought her new puppy to group meditation with the 7th graders at The Boggs School. Gotta admit, he was a bit of a distraction from meditating but Louie sure knows how to spread the love!

  • The Labyrinth

      The ancient symbol of a labyrinth relates to the concept of wholeness. By combining the imagery of a circle with a spiral, traditional labyrinths offer a meandering path with purposeful meaning. Walking the labyrinth offers a journey to the center of the maze and back out again. It is not meant to confuse or frustrate the walker. Rather, the gift of the labyrinth is to soothe, to comfort, to offer insight and reflection. Perhaps, the most famous labyrinth is preserved within the nave of Chartres Cathedral in France. Built around 1200, it was intended to be walked as a pilgrimage in order to become closer to God. Labyrinths have been found all over the world — some dating back 4,000 years. All too often their origins lost in the…

  • College for Creative Studies News

      We were recently featured on the College for Creative Studies’ news and events page in an article titled, Short film explores game-changing CCS sociology course that helps students tap creative potential. We’re honored to be recognized and look forward to future semesters of “Consciousness, Creativity and Identity”.   “If you walked into Molly Beauregard’s classroom toward the end of each session, you’d find the room swathed in stillness and calm. You’d see every student sitting face forward, eyes closed, deep in silent meditation. The scene wouldn’t strike you as particularly unusual if this were a wellness room or a yoga class, but it’s not. It may well be, however, the first academic course of its kind at an American college. For more than 15 years, Beauregard has taught sociology — mostly,…

  • Innocence of Love

      I recently unearthed a video of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi speaking in 1972. It is a sweet video of the giggling guru explaining why he came out of the Himalayas to teach meditation. “Teaching is a natural profession”, he explains, “Anyone with real knowledge can not rest until that knowledge has been shared! I could no longer rest in the Himalayas.” A few weeks ago my Foundation, Tuning the Student Mind, had the honor of sponsoring 20 students and 8 teachers to learn Primordial Sound Meditation. During the final morning of the course, we explained to the children that it was important that their mantras’ be kept private. Mantras are precious and personal seeds meant to enliven consciousness. It is thought that keeping them private maintains their purity. Upon hearing this…

  • a poem

      There is an inherent sadness in humanity, this particular kind of turmoil that spurs our uncertainty, from uncertainty. It causes conventional men and women to cling recklessly to their egos and self proclaimed artists to drown in their identity, desperate to be clever, as if wit can do anything but breed with itself when it lacks the concept of compassion. My limbo generation slides in and out of consciousness, with their standards distorted and excuses within reach. Meanwhile a vast and endless universe opens its doors to anyone, anything willing to be a part of it. You may feel on top of the world but in reality you are floating, only a speck, in everything, and I wish you could see how beautiful you are. Rachel Pendergrass

  • The Empowerment Plan

    “Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.” ― Rumi, The Essential Rumi If there is one thing that I am a stickler on, it is class attendance. A few years ago, a former student, signed up to take a second class with me. When she missed the first two weeks, I was surprised. A good student, Veronika, knew about my “skipping class” pet peeve. Toward the end of the second week of the semester, I received a rather breathless apology email from a very obviously busy young woman. Veronika, it seems, had been otherwise occupied. She had been invited to speak at the UN regarding her burgeoning non-profit “The Empowerment Plan”. The Empowerment Plan is a Detroit based organization dedicated to serving…

  • The Label Lecture

    It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.” W.C. Fields Each semester in my “Consciousness, Creativity and Identity” class, we spend one week exploring “labeling theory”. Labeling theory is a sociological method for understanding deviant and criminal behavior. The idea essentially is that to understand the nature of deviance itself, we must first understand why some people are labeled deviant and others are not. Theorists working in this field are interested in how labels affect long term behavior. One consequence of labeling is that labels often stick, marking an individual as inadequate for life. One of the frustrations of giving the “label” lecture and the discussion that typically follows is that it leaves all of us feeling pretty low. The associated literature paints a picture of a…

  • Figuring It Out

    When I first read the following quote, it really stuck with me. Mahatma Gandhi said, “A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do, nothing else.” I think why this impacted me is because of how relatable it is to the way people’s lives are looked at sometimes: a series of actions or experiences and expectations. Interestingly, through Molly Beauregards Consciousness, Creativity and Identity class and making sense of my own feelings about it, I feel Gandhi might have been wrong. I have been told for a long time that people are who they are because of the situations they have gone through in their lives. I heard over and over variations of Gandhi’s words. And I believed this too. It made enough sense. I could rationalize…

  • Becomming the 2014 Auto Show Poster Winner

    As a metro Detroiter, I’ve been going to the auto show for some years now. I was thrilled to be given the opportunity to illustrate the auto show poster. The theme is celebrating 25 years so I decided to capture something that has been constant with this event all of the years it has been in existence: the logo. I captured the logo as a woman, using the modern colors of the logo to create a piece that wasn’t necessarily about one specific car, but the event as a whole.  I used the techniques I’ve learned from my fashion illustration courses that have shaped my own love for illustrating models and haute couture. With this in mind, I created this piece as a symbol to show the glamour and beauty…

  • The Salty Dog

    CCS student Henry Crissman rebuilds a salt firing ceramic kiln, originally destined to be thrown away, in the heart of Detroit. In this video by DanDiRito, Henry discusses bringing together the community and the arts through sustainable creativity and passion for clay.   Henry took Molly’s class, Consciousness, Creativity and Identity in 2011. Dan is currently enrolled in the class. Henry’s Artist website: http://henrycrissman.com/ Kiln Blog: http://www.detroitnoborigama.com/ Video by: DanDiRito http://dandiritophotography.com/ Music by: Jeff Commissaris http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSZcu9-HLwU&feature=related Henry and Molly recently switched places in an inspiring story about teacher and student – take a look! His Cup Overfloweth — Role Reversal | Notes from the Professor