Whether you?re conducting brain surgery or painting in the comfort of your own home, you?re only is the present.
“A lot of americans love golf because in order to hit a golf ball you have to be very centered, very present in the given moment,” said Robert Duggan, President of the Tai Sofia Institute in Columbia.
In Body and Soul, an ongoing lecture series at the Maryland Science Center, artist and neurosurgeon Dr. Nathan Moskowitz, Post Secret creator Frank Warren, and Duggan, shared the secrets of their search to live in the present moment.
“When I?m doing surgery I?m completely present. I can?t let my mind wander,” said Moskowitz, whose paintings are on exhibit at The American Visual Arts Museum (AVAM). Moskowitz?s Torah-themed paintings are based on visual images derived from multiple interpretations of Hebrew Scripture. Moskowitz is also Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University.
Co-hosted by the Science Center and Visionary Art Museum, Body & Soul features experts in medicine, physics, metaphysics, religion and art. The series was inspired by the Science Center’s exhibition of Gunther Von Hagen‘s BODY WORLDS 2, and the American Visionary Art Museum‘s (AVAM), All Faiths Beautiful display.
“We try to have the art set the stage for larger discussions,” said Katie Adams, director of development at AVAM. “In doing so we have created a unique collaboration from a wide spectrum of creative minds.”
The creativity and anonymity of Warren?s PostSecret project gives ordinary people a chance to create a unique, expressive “confession” and mail it to the site?s creator. This allows people to re-create past experiences in order to move on with their lives and focus on the present instead of the past or subconscious, said Warren.
Warren, who has received more than 150,000 anonymous postcards since November 2004, has been awarded a “forWARD” from Mental Health America for his positive effect on people?s lives.
“The project is a valuable emotional outlet for thousands who have sought comfort in sharing their personal stories,” said Mental Health America President and CEO, David ShernIn. “Sharing a secret provides them with a sense of relief that they no longer have to keep their personal thoughts andinformation bottled up inside.”
IF YOU GO
The Body & Soul lecture series is inspired by the Maryland Science Center’s blockbuster exhibition Gunther Von Hagen’s BODY WORLDS 2: The Original Exhibition of Real Human Bodies, and the American Visionary Art Museum’s exhibition, All Faiths Beautiful: From Atheism to Zoroastrianism, Respect for Diversity of Belief.
Last night’s lecture was part of an ongoing series that ends June 18 with a lecture by Andrew Newberg (The Center for Spirituality and the Mind at the University of Pennsylvania), Julia Butterfly Hill (Circle of Life Foundation), and a special performance by singer/songwriter Courtney Dowe.
Body & Soul lecture series
WHEN: June 18
WHERE: Maryland Science Center
601 Light Street
Baltimore, MD
COST: $10 Adult; $5 Student/Senior
MORE INFO
For the past three years Frank Warren has invited people of all backgrounds and nationalities to send him creatively decorated postcards bearing secrets they have never before revealed. He has shared these PostSecrets on his award-winning blog, www.PostSecret.com, in an internationally traveling art exhibit, and in three books: the bestselling PostSecret, My Secret, The Secret Lives of Men and Women, and A Lifetime of Secrets. Frank Warren?s website won two Webby Awards in 2006 and this year was named Weblog of the Year at the Seventh Annual Weblog Awards. Warren lives in Germantown, Maryland, with his wife and daughter.
