Lily Yeh, a globally celebrated artist and community arts pioneer, shares her transformative journey of using art to foster healing, hope, and resilience in marginalized communities around the world.

Drawing from her experiences in places like Philadelphia, Rwanda, and China, she emphasizes the power of collaboration and the importance of community engagement in creating meaningful public art. Yeh believes that true beauty and healing emerge not from imposing solutions, but from listening to and uplifting the voices of those directly affected by trauma. Her work illustrates how art can be a catalyst for change, enabling individuals to reclaim their narratives and build trust within their communities. Through heartfelt stories and profound insights, Yeh inspires listeners to embrace creativity as a means of collective healing and empowerment.

The Story

Lily Yeh’s inspiring journey as a community-based artist reveals the profound impact of art on healing and social change. Through her reflections, it becomes evident that her life’s work is dedicated to bringing hope and transformation to communities across the globe. Yeh’s unique approach to art emphasizes collaboration and community engagement, where the process of creating is as significant as the final artistic outcome. This philosophy is rooted in her belief that art can be a powerful catalyst for compassion, justice, and personal growth, particularly in places that have been overlooked or marginalized.

The conversation covers various aspects of Yeh's work, including her experiences in different countries—such as Rwanda, China, and her home city of Philadelphia—and how each community's stories shape the art she creates. Yeh highlights the importance of listening to local voices and incorporating their narratives into artistic projects, which fosters a sense of ownership and empowerment among participants. Her approach illustrates a deep understanding of the interconnectedness of human experiences, as she draws from her own ancestral heritage to connect with others on a fundamental level.

Additionally, Yeh discusses the challenges and rewards of her work, particularly the emotional aspects of engaging with communities that have experienced trauma. She shares powerful stories about her projects, including the creation of a memorial in Rwanda, where community members were invited to participate in the artistic process as a means of healing and remembrance. Ultimately, Yeh’s narrative serves as a reminder of the transformative power of art and its ability to unite people, foster resilience, and inspire hope in the face of adversity.

Takeaways:

• Lily Yeh emphasizes the importance of community participation in art-making to foster trust and healing.
• Art should not be viewed as merely decorative; it plays a vital role in transforming lives and narratives.
• Lily's journey shows that the act of creating can be deeply empowering for marginalized communities.
• The Dandelion School illustrates how art can build identity and confidence in young people.
• Lily believes that wisdom comes from intuition and openness, rather than just accumulated knowledge.
• Creating beauty in broken places can spark collective healing and allow for renewed hope.

Notable Mentions:

People

Lily Yeh: A globally celebrated artist and community leader, founder of the Village of Arts and Humanities in Philadelphia. Her work focuses on using art for community transformation. Learn more about Lily Yeh

Verena Wheelock: A community member in Asheville, North Carolina, involved in rebuilding after severe flooding, inspired by the metaphor of creating beauty from broken mosaics.

Rainer Maria Rilke: Renowned poet whose writings, particularly "Letters to a Young Poet," inspire Lily Yeh's philosophy on creativity and life. Learn more about Rainer Maria Rilke

Places

Village of Arts and Humanities, Philadelphia: A community arts center founded by Lily Yeh, fostering social change and urban revitalization through art.

Learn more about the Village of Arts and Humanities

Yellow River, China: A river central to ancient Chinese culture, mentioned as a spiritual connection for Lily Yeh. Learn more about the Yellow River

Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya: One of Africa's largest informal settlements, where Lily Yeh worked on community art projects. Learn more about Kibera

Rugerrero, Rwanda: A village with a genocide memorial that Lily Yeh helped design and create, promoting collective healing. Learn more about Rugerrero

Dandelion School, Beijing, China: A school for children of migrant workers, transformed into a space of learning and art by Lily Yeh's long-term involvement. Learn more about the Dandelion School

Asheville, North Carolina: The site of a new project by Lily Yeh, addressing community rebuilding after climate-change-related flooding. Learn more about Asheville

Events

Rwandan Genocide Memorial Creation (2004): Lily Yeh's transformative project in Rwanda, creating a space for mourning and healing. Learn more about the Rwandan genocide and memorials

Dandelion School Anniversary (2025): Marking 20 years of art and education collaboration at the Dandelion School.

Severe Flooding in Asheville, North Carolina: A recent environmental disaster that inspired Lily Yeh’s involvement in helping the community recover through art.

From the center for the Study of Art and Community, this is Change the story, Change the world. Hey there. In this episode, I am honored to be in conversation with a true community arts trailblazer, Lily Yeh.

Now, I'm known for hyperbole, but I think I'm safe here because any tribute I offer here about this episode's guest will be an understatement. So here goes.

Lily Yeh, a good trouble peacemaker with a courageous imagination and a wide open heart whose magnetic presence manifests in the world as both friendly and ferocious.

More specifically, Lily is a globally celebrated artist and visionary who's spent decades using art to bring hope, healing and transformation to communities across the world.

From co founding the Village of Arts and Humanities in Germant in Philadelphia where I met her, to creating the global change dynamo barefoot artist, Lily's work transcends borders and barriers. Her all hands, all hearts approach inspires her community collaborators to rebuild their spaces, reimagine their futures and reignite their spirits.

Whether she's working in Rwanda, Kenya, Ecuador, Ghana, Palestine or her own backyard, Lily's mission remains steadfast to foster compassion, justice, learning, healing and community through the power of art.

In this episode, we'll explore how Lily brings her remarkable vision to life, hear about the community she's partnered with, and discover some of the deep lessons she's learned along the way. So settle in and prepare to be inspired by the extraordinary journey of Lily Yeh, a changemaker whose artistry truly knows no bounds.

Part 1 We Are All New Learners.

Lily Ye, welcome to the show. It is such a privilege and a joy to connect to you. I think we were last together in some small cafe in St.

Louis maybe eight years ago, long time ago.

I remember this, your beautiful booming voice leading the audience to sing. Do you remember that?

I remember it very well.

It was very moving. Yeah.

Well, thank you. So Lily, where are you calling from today?

I am in Philadelphia. Yeah, my home. Yeah, for decades.

And you said you wanted to share something in response to one of the questions I sent.

I feel that was such a wonderful question. "What ancestral indigenous land does it encompass?" I thought about it and so this is my answer.

All right.

I'm calling from Philadelphia. But the deeper connection I feel comes from the land of my ancestors. Near the Yellow river which flows through the heart of ancient China.

That river originate in the snow capped peaks of the Tibetan Plateau, a land nurtured by eons of rain and snow. Even though we live far from those places now, there is a reminder within all of us. A quiet Ancient.

Knowing that we are part of this vast interconnected world rooted in. In time and space. We are all connected.

Yeah, we certainly are. Thank you, Lily. So when people who meet you for the first time and know nothing about your story ask you, oh, Lily, what do you do?

What's your work in the world? How do you describe that?

Hard to describe.

Yes, I know.

I just sit. Complicated. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think community based artists. Public art. Yeah, I guess that's a simple answer.

It is a simple answer. But there are a lot of public artists who think of their work as well.

There's this place, but I'm going to make something and then we're going to put it there and then I'll go on to my next thing. That's not at all what you are up to.

No.

So maybe you could just give a little bit more of a framework for your work as a public artist.

Yeah.

I think somewhere along the line of my art career I changed from or transformed from a studio artist, creating my studio for public space and bring it out and whatever and into a community based artist.

And my process is I usually go to a place and the place usually is broken, traumatized, because there are more space for creativity, more freedom and less expectation. And one can listen to the voices and the stories of people in that community and then imagine and create.

And then I would wait for whatever the inspiration came to me based on what I have done in the past, of course. And then I would try to incorporate what emerged from the community, their emotion, images and whatever, into this piece of work.

And so I would say that individual creation, first me as an artist and then community, we tell our own stories and we create images that come from. From within.

But then the important thing is that when we find a place, be it is a mural or it's a mosaic, sculpture or it's a garden or whatever, the process of execution needs to be performed by the community, people, people interested. And so it is not professionals, maybe no art background and skilled hands.

But with our willingness to participate, we all learn, we are all new learners. And then eventually we improve. So our work may be not perfect, but always rooted in the community.

It needs to meet certain standard of beauty and of visual power and then. But executed by us. So then I think when it's accomplished, it really belong to all people.

And so sometimes I feel we talk about democracy, you know, and I feel this process is mostly democracy in action or without teaching about it.

You know, I would go to a place, I want to do something for the people and then when people join me and then I work with the people and when they learn the skill, they continue on. And at the end it belong to the people.

And so I said, what a wonderful way to actually practice democracy, equality, inclusiveness and cherishing each other. You know, practice kindness naturally. So that's how it become so. It's hard to explain. It's a mouthful. But there it is.

Part Two: The Village.

So, Lily, you describe your work as complicated, but I actually think it's one of the most obvious and simple things on earth, which is if you or anybody else invites me to join you in making something that reflects our story or the story that's around us, or our history, or what one is feeling at a particular time, it's a perfectly natural thing. I mean, every child on Earth just rises up to that absolutely naturally.

And the intangible here is something that I think we're really struggling with now in societies across the world, which is that in order for what you just described to occur, there has to be a level of trust. And that's not a chemical equation.

Trust is relationships that have come to a place where people are willing to explore, sometimes a mystery, sometimes to take a risk, sometimes to work with people they don't know very well.

And could you talk about how you think the simple act of making, of creating or sharing your story can move into that level of trust, which for you, I believe started with the Village of Arts and Humanities?

I think actually it's simple.

If we start this journey on the right foot, instead of, I go to this place, I'm an artist, I'm going to make a piece of artwork that really shows my capacity, my ability, and this is my mural and all that, because at the beginning I had a very good life. I was teaching at the University of the Arts and became eventually a tenure full professor and raising my family.

I mean, from the outside, it's a very good life. But I felt something essential was missing and I went out to look for that.

And so when I have an opportunity in inner city, which I didn't want to go in because I never worked in such a seemingly hostile environment, you know, but when I went, the other thing that I didn't know, I think we always want to have a lot of knowledge. You know, I'm expert of this field, that field, and there are a lot of titles and so forth.

Sometimes we are hindered by our knowledge because knowledge doesn't lead to wisdom. You know, knowledge you want more and more and more and more from the outside. But Wisdom is you need to let go a lot of things.

You need to be less concerned, you need to be more intuitive. The less you know, maybe the more open you are to the unknown, to the mystery unfolding.

And so I often think that how was it possible really for a woman, you know, didn't have social skill, working with broken places in inner city, different group of people, and I was an outsider, Asian woman, and didn't have wealth, didn't have knowledge, nothing, nothing. Just went. And there was an opportunity with fear and trembling, but I decided to step in.

And then because I didn't know so much, it gives other people opportunity to step in, to offer what they have. That was just most marvelous. I just realized you asked me what to share with young people. I said, just trust your heart.

You don't need to know everything. Just step in and you will be guided.

And so I realized that, you know, like seemingly the broken land, the place devoid of resources, is a place filled with talents and creativity, if we know how to give them a chance to express.

So to answer your question, I don't think we go as I want to do things and claim this, but I went things I do, they're not protected, you know, they're wild in the open and village now in the 35th year, something still going on, even though very, very different from what I have created, but it's still going on. So I think it was just you go to those places as an offering. I offer the little bit I know and see what happened then.

I think it would change our mindset. I think our society is too much for profit. What is mine, me, me, me bit, you know, so it's hard, but it's also easy.

Yeah. One of the things that I feel like is in the middle of the confounding world we live in is that we all have to have assumptions about things.

Like we assume when it's raining, we look outside the window and we open the door, it will still be raining when we're out there. So we put on a raincoat.

Right? Right, right.

But when we come into a new place, a place in post genocide Rwanda, a place in a village in China that has been abandoned by the authorities, a place like Germantown in Philadelphia. As a newcomer, as a stranger, you're right. There are some people that try to fake it. Some people think of humility as soft. It's not.

It is a powerful expertise. And if you wear it well, other people will understand and know that you are not there in judgment.

Yet in fact, you need them probably more than they need you. Isn't that how it happened at the beginning at the village in Germantown?

You just put it on the right, right at the spot. I need them. I think what guided me was that I like project. I like art, creative action. And so I have this vision and.

And I got the little money, you know, so, wow, this is for real now. So I was focused. How can I realize this project building something. And I never did that. And so I need them more than they need me. That.

That put me in the right position. So they were my teachers. They come and help me, and I'm so happy and so grateful.

And then when they start to tell stories, I said, wow, there's a poet, you know, when they start to drum and then my blood start to run. I said, my goodness, it's all out of nothing. And comes all this wonder. And it's all in the assumedly, the rainy days, the broken land of inner city.

Then I realized that's when really a wonderland, a land of treasure to be discovered.

Part 3 Healing the deepest WOUNDS

One of the assumptions that some people have is that, oh, I know the story of this place. I can see it. I see that this is a broken place. That's the story of this place, right?

And of course, the sacred and the mundane that you bring to what you see, you do not see that story. That is not the dominant story that you bring.

Where did that come from in you to be able to see a landscape and not be overwhelmed by the broken things? I mean, I think about the shards of pottery that end up in your mosaics. That was just a bunch of broken stuff. But it's beautiful.

Now, I know some people, people who really care and are really trying to make a difference, can only see the problems. How do you answer that?

Well, I think I didn't go to change people's lives. I didn't go to fix the problem. Because I remember a story that one time there were.

I was challenged the meditation park, got the first national endowment. And I want to make a beautiful undulating wall. I create music through architecture.

And then people came and say that, why do you pour money into the ground to make this wall and foundation? Why don't you use it to fix problems like child abuse and drug and all things? I mean, that's a serious question.

Absolutely.

And I said, you know, our grants, you never get that much. And the problem is so huge, when you engage into a whirlpool of negative energy and problem, you get sucked in.

And I said, for me, for Us, the only possibility is create a new vision, new possibility and a new space that we can enter and offer our gifts and create something beautiful for the future. Creating beauty, that's my collective effort to create beauty together that transforms. But the important thing is about how do you define beauty?

And I always say that I don't know how to define it.

I just know that it's not artificial beauty to decorate ourselves, to be owned for its value or to be something to be, you know, invest in it is the beauty that lift our spirits, the beauty that our soul yearns, like looking at the sunset. And then that would lift our spirit. I think it's essential for our well being. Nature is full of that.

And so not to fix a problem, but create a new vision. Then there will be new methodology and new definition of structure, relationship. Yeah, I think that's how it worked.

Creating beauty in the face of the one dimensional stories that sometimes prevail. People can be tyrannized by the story that other people tell about them.

And all anybody really wants is to have a chance to articulate and own their own story and manifest it in the world. And art making does that.

And so if you think about poverty and you think about joblessness and you think about sickness and health, these things are not disconnected from the story that you're telling to yourself about who you are, what you are, who your community is, what your family is, and what's in the future. And so if you think of the art making as trivial, it's very much the opposite.

It's the foundation for people taking ownership of their own story and manifesting a different life in a community. And I think about the incredible memorial that was created in Uganda, which, I mean, you put your hand in, but it became a thing of its own.

It took on its own power. Can you describe that?

Community, 100,000 people in Korogocho. Yeah.

And then working there, I mean, it's just the most horrendous things, I think poverty and deprivation, I mean, hell, I have seen in Korogocho, but working there transformed me. But I was on my way there and I stopped in Barcelona because there is a conference for me to present a village.

And it just happened that I heard a speaker, Red Cross person from Rwanda, 10 years after the genocide, spoke from the depth of his Inner being and so powerful and moving about genocide and how the people are still suffering deeply. And so I was moved. My heart just clicked, or just something like that. I just say, well, since I would be already on the continent. And then.

So I decided to visit him. We didn't know each other, we just met at the conference.

But we trusted, you know, for him to drive three hours from one side of the country to Kigali and gas is expensive. But he came, I went, and then we clicked. And this year we celebrate 20 years of working together in Rwanda.

And then the first thing he brought me to see was the genocide memorial. And it was not grand like anything. I went there, I couldn't believe my eyes. It looks like an animal stall.

There's no marking, just a few bunch of dried flowers. No name, no nothing. I said, man, if my loved ones were buried here, my heart would never heal.

And survivors told me later that every time they passed by, they felt that as if they were killed twice.

All the people who inhabit this village are traumatized. We always fight the battle to survive the everyday pain.

That was a community member from the village of Rugerrero, where the memorial project took place.

So then when I came, I didn't have any idea that I was going to do a memorial. I mean, that sounds so the hindsight was totally frightening that you're touching people's bones. But I was just moved.

And I saw that I start on my 4 by 6 little sketchbook I carry with me. I just start to do a little sketch and then what a memorial would look like.

And when I look back, that sketch intuitively actually looks like the figure of a Neolithic goddess. And the walkway to the memorial monument is like a walk back into the womb of the mother. That was the bone chamber.

And then one thing led to the other. They needed help. The officials say, go and raise money. We need help. They didn't ask. You have trained, Are you an architect? Do you have engineers?

You know. So I came back and just one thing. I was lucky to get the help from a China road and bridge construction company.

And then the director willing to help because it was not for personal gain, but for this. I didn't have money then, but they took on willing to help. But they say, you still have to raise the money. I managed. I mean, life provided. Yeah.

And the wonderful thing was that at the beginning I said, you all can help me make a beautiful mosaic and cover this. And their face just all dropped. I said, what's wrong?

He said, we couldn't possibly help you we are unskilled, and this is touching the bones, our loved ones. And then so one thing led to the other.

But then I said, this essential part of the fabric of my project is the participation of the inhabitants there. Their hands must touch the surface. And so we went to the factory and got up all the broken tiles, and I just taught them the mosaic.

And mosaic is fascinating because it's labor intense, it's simple skill, but you have to stick to it for the image to come out. And community really take it on. And then they come up with the words, and they come up what to say and then what images.

And so the funniest thing is eventually for the people, with the people, by the people, how did it happen? So finally, they become so good, and they say that, you know, the monument is so important.

The people from all corners of the nation, they're going to come and see it. And when they see that surface is not even. It's really not so good. Why don't you take a rest and let us do it? You know, eventually they took over.

So eventually it was by the people. Perfect. And we have a ceremony. So that's why it is so powerful.

Thousands of people would come and they would line up, they would descend to the bone chamber, and they would open. Some would open their casket to look at the bleached bones. And of course, many people just hauled and cried and collapsed.

But then healing began to happen. In those moment when you really let out your cry. Yeah.

Yeah.

When I'm at the memorial, I feel I am with my loved ones. That is the reason I can do what I do to keep it clean from the depth of my heart.

In some ways, as you said, the genocide will keep happening until that closure comes back together in that community, that those people needed to come and weep and shed their tears on those bones. They had to do that. And I think of you as a kind of spark that happens. The fuel for the fire is sitting there waiting.

The intention of the community to. To tend the fire and to take it over after you're gone is there. And that that spark that you bring is so critical because you do the.

Same kind of work. You understand the process. I think the important thing is really attention and listening. That's what will bring the story.

It's not easy because I saw that the monument was for collective healing. You know, they feel their loved ones can come home to a place of honor and dignity.

But I still feel the people I work with suffer inwardly, individually. So that's where I Started bookmaking to tell their personal story by drawing. And at the beginning, they couldn't even touch it.

Those are a group of young women who asked me to get them teachers so they learn sewing and build community. And so I said, well, tell your story. And their face just turned stone. And some began to cry. I said, no, don't think about the dark things.

Think about when you were young, your parents and so forth. And then they say, they're no more, they're no more all killed. And so we start kind of praying. They're devout Catholic. And then we hold each other.

We say prayers and we sing, and eventually we dance. You know what event brought the first joy is when they start to draw. I don't think they have ever held. They mark her in their hand.

They draw stick figures. When they look at the primitiveness of each other's drawing, that's when they break out laughing. Isn't that so wonderful?

Yeah.

The process heals.

Part 4: Dandelion

So there's a point, I know, in your life that you went back to your home country, your birth country, to contribute in another way to a community that was very much like that community in Kenya that is kind of forgotten and left to its own devices. Could you talk about the Dandelion School?

Yeah. Actually, it's a huge hidden wound in the nation.

China, you know, the glamorous rise, you know, of beautiful city like Shanghai, Chongqing, Nanjing and Beijing. Glorious. But they were on the back of the migrant workers from remote countryside where they no longer could make a living. So they just migrate.

Usually it's the parents. Some of them brought the children with them to the new city. And then some of the children were left behind. 200 million people on the move. It's.

Imagine how many families being torn apart.

The social fabrics, the adjustment for new environment, being looked down in the cities of these children, or the sense of being abandoned, longing for their parents. I wanted to do something for my ancestral country.

And then I met the principal who was just about to turn an abandoned factory on the outskirts Beijing into a school for migrant children, for middle school, because they would otherwise no opportunity to go to school at all. When I went to sea, it was just a nothing, nothing building, broken and poor and all concrete, deserted, rustic and everything.

And I said, well, that's what they have and see what we can do. So we start to prepare walls. And the funny thing is that most of the time when I take on a project, I have no idea how to start it.

Then I just say, well, do tell me what you want to see. So I have a workshop, 500 students, 12 classes. They all start to design. And they got so excited, they said only usually artists can do that.

And here teacher Ye ask us to help. Imagine. Well, they immediately feel elevated, building confidence. They are honored, being paid attention and so forth. Yeah.

So then one thing leads to another. I've been with school 19 years next year. Big gift for 20th anniversary for this wonderful school. Yeah, yeah.

So that's so wonderful.

Yeah. I think the art really build their legacy, their identity and their goals and their philosophy, educational direction and so forth.

And mostly their confidence in creating. Figure things out.

Yeah, yeah.

And I mean, if you think about it, this is an extraordinary body of people who have been cast adrift and probably at every turn looking for a place to more themselves. As you say, you're attracted to act, action, action, not just talking.

And so you're in your home country, it's your culture, but so many places you've been able to transcend the differences because doing something, making something, creating something, telling a story, everybody has a story. And you, in essence, you revealed their story as something that is valuable and worth sharing and manifesting it in a beautiful way.

And I've seen the incredible images, the photos of the school in that beautiful book, Awakening Creativity, which is the new Village Press publication that documents your two decades working with this community. The walls inside and out are covered in beautiful images, murals, mosaics and children's individual artwork.

I mean, they've transformed every inch of that old building and actually two buildings, because I know the school has had two versions, the original version, and then it ended up being recreated again. And you went back and you helped them reinvent their new school.

And I have to say, one of the things that we suffer from in addition to the tyranny of assumptions is the tyranny of short term relationships. And of course, communities are not short term. If it's a community, it's multi generational, year after year.

And so how do you honor that and behave in a way where the layers of legacy are seen as one of the most valuable aspects of what the community is and defines the community.

It's like you can plant a tree, you have to get the right soil and the air. Nature looks chaotic and random, but it needs to be very precise for a plant to grow at a certain place and the ecosystem to work right. And so forth.

So for me, the longevity when the situation is right, there's the community need and then I have need to constantly to build. And then when you can Build in the same place.

Then you have the opportunity to find depth, to nurture growth and to build relationship, to deepen in every aspect. So I treasure that. But all the successful project is 5 years or to 20 years or even go beyond.

And those are so valuable for me, it's because I feel what we do is a building a tree of life. We come back, we continue. And then I really see, for example, in Dandelion, you know, it's not just about students.

You educate them, they go to school and they get good job. And it's more than that because they are from the most broken. The principal is so dedicated.

So that's where I know I have a solid ground to keep on building and building, building. And then she creates such opportunities for the students.

Imagine the students, parents, they are urban farmers and live in such dire, difficult situation. And then now one of the students graduated, I think master from Harvard Education Psychology. This is just one of many of the students.

They are working citizen. Many came back. And this particular graduate, she went to Dandelion.

Now she has psychology, helping education, going to the countryside, training teachers and so forth. This is recycling. You know, there's a tree of life, it spreads, it comes back and blossom more and bearing fruits and so forth.

You know, deep rootedness in your own culture. But you're open to the world and the world is your home.

You're confident to absorb everything without losing one's identity, but nurtured by all that wealth belong to humanity. That's what it is.

Part 5: Sharing the Wisdom

So at the Dandelion School, you are engaging a community as a master gardener and proliferating all those other master gardeners. What a wonderful thing. So in that vein, one of the things that I think is important is sharing stories like these.

So when you encounter young people who are inspired by these stories and they ask Lily, what do I need to keep in mind on my way towards this work? What do you share?

I know you gave me the question. I actually studied it and typed it out. The answer.

Oh my word.

So I'm looking for my glasses. So I can't. Well, where's my glasses? But anyway, let me turn on the light. I want to read. Okay.

This is what I wrote to cherish the current moment, whether we are in a good or not so good place. There are life's lessons to be learned in the present. Work hard and learn everything one can. But knowledge does not necessarily lead to wisdom.

To find purpose and meaning, one needs to look inside and be patient and be ready when life calls us to go into our personal journeys. It requires everything from us. It is for this purpose we were born.

It is the chance for us to offer what we have to fulfill the reason we were born and exist. And I want to read this other quote, one of my very favorite book for young people.

You know, it's written by Rene Maria rilke and his 10 letters to a Young Poet. When I feel lost, when I feel not knowing where to go, I always read him.

And he said, have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves. Like dark locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language, do not now look for the answers.

They cannot now be given to you because you could not lift them. It is a question of experiencing everything live fully at present. You need to lift the question.

Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer some distant day.

Oh, so beautiful. Two wonderful quotes. I think you and Rilke have a lot in common. Patience and an intense belief in the magnetic mystery of questions.

And that is a charge that I would love to give to any person who aspires to be a teacher, is that their job is to facilitate that incredible joy and exhilaration that comes with engaging questions.

I am so excited about the new project. And that's a call from Asheville, North Carolina, and from the victim of the severe flood. I was so touched by Verena Wheelock.

And she said, we're like broken mosaics, broken pieces of tiles. We're waiting to be made renewal into beauty, into hope, into future. I was just so touched because I have such fear for the future generations.

The mess we made in the world, you know, I said, with our generation, what did we do? And then. So the climate change is the top existential problem we're facing, but we are fighting, you know, and drill, drill.

I mean, I cannot find words for our stupidity. And so what can we do? We just do whatever we can to express our true belief.

And then so when I got this email and in actually three days I'm leaving and I hope the weather is kind. And then I have no idea what will come out of it, but I said Life is calling.

You know that I want to come and just be there to witness and to listen and to conduct a workshop and to do a presentation to show what's possible and then to listen to them, to hear their story. And then we will see how life guide us for the next step. So I'm very excited about that.

It's a question that address my most immediate and deep anxiety and grief. Yeah, right.

And there's for obvious reasons, the opportunity to literally get your hands in the work to make something that is not a tragedy, but is at least the beginning of telling the next chapter of the story.

Right? Yeah.

Lily, you make my heart sing. I am so happy to have finally come to have this short conversation about a very long, many chaptered story.

Simple story.

Yes. So, Lily, have a word. Wonderful trip to Asheville.

Yeah. And I hope I see you in a conference and listening to you leading the audience to sing again.

Okay, I'm game. Adios, Lily.

Thank you.

And thank you to all of you out there who have joined us to tune in to stories of Lily's continuing adventure.

And for those of you who are interested in learning more about Lilly's exploits, we will have links to her website and some of her talks in our show notes.

Also know that we have included a short video that we produced on the history of the Village of Arts and Humanities as an attachment to our podcast player. Change the Story, Change the World is a production of the center for the Study of Art and Community.

Our theme and soundscape spring forth from the head heart and head hands of the maestro, Judy Munson. Our text editing is by Andre Nebbe. Our effects come from freesound.org and our inspiration comes from the ever present spirit of ook235.

So until next time, stay well, do good and spread the good word. And once again, please know that this episode has been 100% human.