Marianela Medrano-Marra

“…art approaches as a saving sorceress, expert at healing. She alone knows how to turn these nauseous thoughts about the horror or absurdity of existence into notions with which one can live.” –Frederick Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy

In Macbeth, act IV, scene 3, lines 210-11, Shakespeare’s Malcolm extends the ultimate invitation to us: Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak Whispers the o’erfraught heart and bids it break.

After a few sessions, a client I’ll call “Paul” looks at me with tears in his eyes and says, “I wish I had known this years before. I can help myself if I learn to watch my mind—it’s so simple that it’s almost silly, but what a difference it makes for me.”

Zen stories nourish the soul and spirit. Whenever I slip into a threshold, I turn to the wisdom distilled in stories to find the fortitude to take my first step into the unknown. As I return to ACA web-blogs, I’ll share a Zen story that presented itself, as stories usually do for me, at precisely the right time.

Hear blessings dropping their blossoms around you. -Rumi As a new director of counseling at the community college level, I am greeted by a pressing need to think creatively and proactively to counterbalance the myriad students’ needs on the rise while the resources to address those needs decline. The severity of psychological and academic problems among college students disrupts the balance they need to achieve academic success. Counselors in community colleges need to wield kaleidoscopes with ample lenses that embrace the multiplicity of issues.