How often do we sit down and try to put what we’re yearning for in words? Name that thing we are drawn to and hope to build with those special in our lives. Not often.
But as you’ll soon learn with Anthony, when we’re brave enough to do so, out flows a rich, mind-blowing, reflection that reminds us what is important, what we need, and what we’re often searching for, even if we don’t know it: intimacy.
If intimacy needed to thrive off of anything like food, it would depend on laughter. It would use smiles to exercise its heart, and honesty would be its skin. It would walk on two legs but have no genitals. Sexual interaction would be made through the use of its words and the expressions of its mind.
It would have medium length hair, be neither tall nor short, and be neither gentle nor hard. It would be the average person, understanding with brown eyes. And whether it be aggressive or smooth, quiet or loud, it would be the moment and thing that brings us together.
Intimacy is all of these things and none of these things.
If it were a person, intimacy wouldn’t have the most flattering features. But it would be something I could hear and feel instead of only see, like listening to music with my headphones feeling the vibrations invoke the sensuality of acceptance, love, joy, and laughter.
It would be the color of turquoise and orange mixed together. It would also be no one shape, thing, but something that can become lost within itself–a transformative shape-shifter. Its light, a fluctuating rhythm you can dance to. A darkness where you could find solace.
If intimacy needed to thrive off of anything like food, it would depend on laughter. It would use smiles to exercise its heart, and honesty would be its skin.
If intimacy were walking toward me, it would glow every time I made it laugh, as if its belly were being filled with fireflies. Intimacy would be the down to earth feeling we all have within ourselves when we are alone, but don’t feel other people will embrace, which is why we manipulate and contort ourselves into something others can accept.
We all want to be loved and feel like we are accepted by someone somewhere somehow some way. Intimacy is that very thing: the acceptance of oneself in all your entirety, which is required to be able to fully accept others.
Intimacy is all of these things and none of these things.
In 2019, Keith F. Miller, Jr., observed something remarkable while running creative writing after school programs in Savannah, GA: Students from all backgrounds didn’t just step outside their comfort zones—they learned, led, and thrived with unmistakable joy. Despite this, Keith heard from students and families that school, even for the high-achievers, was a place they survived, not thrived. This led Keith, through his studies in Educational Psychology, to explore why young people felt empowered to learn, lead, and heal in some spaces but not in others.
Through a qualitative research study involving interviews with high schoolers, fellow teaching artists over a year, in addition to examining creative works from youth journals and performances, Keith found that when young people engage in arts-based healing practices with trusted others (peers and adults), they don’t just cope with their struggles—they transform them, becoming vibrant leaders in the process.
Drawing inspiration from the process of rainbow formation—reflection, refraction, and dispersion—and building off of groundbreaking research from scholars like David Kirkland, Gholdy Muhammad, Bettina Love, Bianca Baldridge, and Shawn Ginwright, Keith developed the Healing Literacy Framework, illustrating how arts-based, community programs are vital in supporting young people as they overcome educational trauma, and, in doing so, can result in transformative partnerships in school and beyond that prove healing is possible for everyone.
Enter, HEALIT
In 2019, Keith F. Miller, Jr., observed something remarkable while running creative writing after school programs in Savannah, GA: Students from all backgrounds didn’t just step outside their comfort zones—they learned, led, and thrived with unmistakable joy. Despite this, Keith heard from students and families that school, even for the high-achievers, was a place they survived, not thrived. This led Keith, through his studies in Educational Psychology, to explore why young people felt empowered to learn, lead, and heal in some spaces but not in others.
Through a qualitative research study involving interviews with high schoolers, fellow teaching artists over a year, in addition to examining creative works from youth journals and performances, Keith found that when young people engage in arts-based healing practices with trusted others (peers and adults), they don’t just cope with their struggles—they transform them, becoming vibrant leaders in the process.
Drawing inspiration from the process of rainbow formation—reflection, refraction, and dispersion—and building off of groundbreaking research from scholars like David Kirkland, Gholdy Muhammad, Bettina Love, Bianca Baldridge, and Shawn Ginwright, Keith developed the Healing Literacy Framework, illustrating how arts-based, community programs are vital in supporting young people as they overcome educational trauma, and, in doing so, can result in transformative partnerships in school and beyond that prove healing is possible for everyone.
Keith F. Miller, Jr.