CREATIVE SOUL JOURNEYS

Philadelphia Inquirer

Painters find their inner light
By Dawn Fallik

Dec. 14, 2006

Miriam Colbert closed her eyes and thought of the anger in her life. She turned that anger into a ball, threw it onto an imaginary fire and moved on, creating her own inner sanctuary, calm and fury free.

Then she picked up her brush and began to paint. The senior citizen's canvas was soon covered with a green menorah, its flames a reflection of her feelings.

"To the left, the candle is the manager of my building that I had a falling out with," said Colbert, describing one menacingly large candle. By the time she drew the last of the eight candles, the glow had cooled and so had she. "I'm really glad I worked out the anger before Hanukkah," she said.

Where Hanukkah, which starts tomorrow night, usually focuses on dreidel games and gifts, the "Jewish Meditation and Painting" workshop sponsored by the Lubavitch of Center City was more about finding the light within. The hope, the group leaders said, was to appreciate and balance both sides of the fire - the beauty and the burn.

On Sunday, 25 women from their 20's to "senior" came to the Old City Jewish Arts Center to prepare themselves for the holiday.

Leah Goldman, who heads the women's group at Congregation B'nai Abraham (her husband is the rabbi), organized the gathering.

Neria Cohen, who led the seminar, said her goal is both to inspire and to educate. A Brooklyn-based speaker, she travels around the globe for her talks, changing the focus a little each time to reflect the current Jewish calendar and events.

So on Sunday, Cohen spoke of the purity of oil and shedding light on the soul. She also explained the symbolism of the number "eight" in Hebrew - a number beyond nature (seven days in a week, seven colors in the rainbow) and literally a symbol of infinity.

Cohen led the women through a guided meditation. She began by asking them to imagine moving through a courtyard, with music playing, as they climbed 15 steps into a sanctuary. As the scent of burning candles wafted in the background, Cohen walked them through their imaginary temples, until they created a place of tranquility, the "Holy of Holies."

Then she placed paint, glitter, feathers and stones before the amateur artists, and let them go. There was one caveat.

"You can't say something is beautiful," Cohen said. "You have to be specific and say what you like or what you feel."

For Colbert and her menorah, the feeling was anger.

For Marnie Greenberg, it was rebirth. The real estate lawyer's painting of a red nebula exploding in a glittery purple sky received rave reviews from the crowd.

"It's the light in the darkness, a kind of controlled explosion," said Cohen, who explained that in Judaism, purple symbolizes endurance and red is anger or power.

Others found meaning only after finishing their work.

"I just didn't get that much into it," said Iris Zimmerman, also a lawyer. "I just felt free and grounded."

Her multicolored streaks reminded others of a sun breaking through the clouds, and a small turquoise butterfly was a symbol of transformation.

"I wanted the butterfly because it was something real but could float away," said Zimmerman.

After the seminar, Greenberg said she found the experience cathartic. She's hung her nebula painting across from her bed as a reminder.

"If I get stressed, I can look at it, and it reminds me to get rid of the anger," she said. "Now I really want to go around the corner and buy some more paints."

Cohen, who has a degree in drama, said she's given the seminar to more than 2,000 women across the country, and the images have become like a big quilt in her mind.

But she's never done the exercise herself.

"I can't do the meditation, unless I got someone to read it for me," she said. "But it's so interactive; I love seeing the paintings and sharing in the process, and I take satisfaction from that."