Reflections on the 5-Day Residency at York Correctional Institution

Sometimes we get surprised and we realize that an experience has profoundly changed us when we least expected it. That is what happened to me following the residency at York. It wasn’t just one thing but a series of changes that I felt inside myself.  A shift.

First of all, things were no longer black and white/good or bad — rather, many shades of gray. Someone could have done something bad at one time in their life and yet have many good qualities.  And how many of us have done things and gotten away with them while someone else didn’t? That was my first take away – an opportunity to see people differently and to know that we all have a tremendous range of capabilities within us.

Second, I had truly loved the teaching experience.  The women were very open to learning and enthusiastic in their participation. They were willing to try new things in a much more open way then I had experienced when leading workshops at synagogues, community centers and schools.  And they were so appreciative. They listened and responded in a very attentive way especially by the third day.  It was clear we had connected with them.  They were creative.

Third… there seemed to be some characteristics that artists and inmates have in common.  Both like to think outside the box, so the level of creative responses is excellent.  Both like to get high.  The majority of the women had gotten high either via alcohol or with drugs. Now they were discovering the high that they could get from performing and were very enthusiastic about it. Artists and inmates are risk takers.  I think sharing these kinds of traits enables a deeper connection to be made than happens in teaching in a typical urban or suburban adult class.

For the first time in a long time I felt like I was teaching with the flow rather than against the current.  So often in teaching situations over a number of the previous years I had felt like it was a struggle to get the point across.  Here was a situation where the participants were like sponges, eager to learn and to take in every word.  Indeed a very satisfying teaching experience.

I wondered if this had been just a unique week or if it would be true if we returned to York again or went to another women’s facility.  The next season we found ourselves both back at York and in residence for a week-long program at Dolores J. Baylor Women’s Correctional Institution in New Castle, Delaware.  Again the connection to the women was strong and our teaching resonated with them.  I found myself wanting to do more of these type of residencies and less of the type of bookings we had done before.  

The work in women’s prisons continued to grow with less and less other bookings. In the winter of 2004 Murray and I decided that we would retire from the New York area and I would find a new leader for Avodah.  I did and remained on the Board for a few years.  I was haunted by the women’s stories that I had heard and the intensity of the teaching experience.  Five years after I had retired, the stories still resonated, particularly those of several women we met who had murdered their abusers out of fear for their lives or having been pushed to the point where they snapped. This would lead me to form a non-profit film company with the mission of creating and distributing media of women striving to overcome abuse, and I’ll share more of this in a later blog.  I would also return to teaching movement in a women’s jail in Santa Fe as well as working in movement with women at Esperanza Shelter for Battered Families. I also helped to facilitate an art project at York, done by a friend.  There will be later blogs about these various experiences. That first week at York planted the seeds for creative work I have continued, to today.  Thank you, Joe Lea, for the invitation to bring the Forgiveness Project to York.