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Stories of resistance and empowerment
Our Healing Bells blog is a space for voices that resist, transform, and uplift. Through healing arts, musical storytelling, and co-creation, we amplify the strength of survivors of all genders; of feminists, womxn, and LGBTQIA2S+ communities.
Rooted in compassion and interdependence, each story invites empathy, courage, and reflection. From forced migration to gender-based violence, our contributors transform silence into expression, complicity into resistance, and trauma into empowerment. Join a global community grounded in social justice, creativity, and collective healing.
Stay tuned for new posts every Tuesday!
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Cuando la tradición deja de sentirse familiar
Cuando las tradiciones comienzan a sentirse pesadas en lugar de nutritivas, algo dentro de nosotros se transforma. En esta reflexión, Yurani Cubillos explora el valor de decir no, de soltar expectativas y de crear encuentros arraigados en el cuidado, la curiosidad y la honestidad. Una invitación suave a imaginar el hogar como un espacio donde es posible descansar, pertenecer y ser plenamente quienes somos.
Yurani Cubillos
17 minutes ago3 min read
When Tradition Stops Feeling Like Home
When traditions begin to feel heavy instead of nourishing, something inside us shifts. In this reflection, Yurani Cubillos explores the courage it takes to say no, to release expectations, and to create gatherings rooted in care, curiosity, and honesty. A gentle invitation to reimagine home as a place where we can rest, belong, and be fully ourselves.
Yurani Cubillos
28 minutes ago3 min read
La curiosidad es cuidado. Cómo los terceros espacios florecen cuando estamos presentes
La curiosidad se vuelve un acto de cuidado cuando desaceleramos lo suficiente para notar a las personas que sostienen nuestros terceros espacios. La comunidad sobrevive gracias a la atención, la responsabilidad y la decisión sencilla de estar presentes. Esta reflexión nos invita a pausar, escuchar y apoyar los lugares donde la pertenencia crece.
Yurani Cubillos
Dec 94 min read
Curiosity Is Care. How Third Spaces Survive When We Notice and Show Up
Curiosity becomes an act of care when we slow down enough to notice the people who hold our third spaces together. Community survives through attention, accountability, and the simple choice to show up. This reflection invites us to pause, listen, and support the places where belonging grows.
Yurani Cubillos
Dec 93 min read
Gratitude, Opportunities, and Compose for Change: Healing Arts course content
As we step into a new season, we offer gratitude for every person who has walked beside us, trusting in the power of art to heal. At Healing Bells, we weave community, creativity, and justice. We honor what has shaped us and open our hands to what is coming next. You are invited to journey with us, to co-create, to nurture this flame that grows when we gather in listening, memory, and the shared hope for a more just world.
Pamela Ruiter -Feenstra
Dec 14 min read
A Sensory Nature Hike: Compassion for Ourselves
On my sensory nature hike at EarthWell, I felt myself slow down, breathe, and listen. Moving with Healing Bells, I let taste, smell, touch, sight, and sound soften the weight I carried. Among welcoming stones, seasonal flavors, and the quiet rhythm of yoga and self care, I sensed empathy and compassion rising from within. Rest, belonging, and the earth reminded me that healing begins when I return to myself.
Pamela Ruiter -Feenstra
Nov 255 min read
¿Dónde se fueron todos los terceros espacios?
En un mundo donde la conexión se siente costosa, nos preguntamos a dónde se fueron los terceros espacios. Yurani Cubillos piensa en aquellos lugares que antes nos recibían sin agenda. Parques, bibliotecas, librerías y salas donde la comunidad respiraba con libertad. Mientras estos espacios cambian, aprendemos a reimaginarlos con cuidado, colaboración y el valor suave de reunirnos distinto.
Yurani Cubillos
Nov 186 min read
Where Did All the Third Spaces Go?
In a world where connection feels costly, we ask where our third spaces have gone. Yurani Cubillos reflects on the places that once held us with no agenda or performance. Parks, libraries, bookstores, and living rooms where community breathed freely. As these spaces shift, we learn to reimagine them through care, collaboration, and the quiet courage to gather differently. Belonging becomes a practice we build together.
Yurani Cubillos
Nov 185 min read
¿Marketing inclusivo? El poder de la representación: voces, memorias y justicia.
En esta reflexión, Ayub Elias Jaime, especialista en marketing y diseñador web de Healing Bells, reimagina el marketing como un acto de empatía y cuidado colectivo. Desde la inclusión, explora cómo la comunicación puede honrar la dignidad, sanar a través del relato y fortalecer el sentido de pertenencia. Inspirado en la producción Ni une más de Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra, nos recuerda que la creatividad es resistencia y que el marketing inclusivo comienza al escuchar.
Ayub Elias
Nov 114 min read
Inclusive Marketing? The Power of Representation: Voices, Memories, and Justice
In this reflection, Healing Bells’ marketing specialist and web designer Ayub Elias Jaime reimagines marketing as an act of empathy and collective care. Through the lens of inclusion, he explores how communication can honor dignity, heal through storytelling, and foster belonging. Inspired by Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra’s Ni une más production, he reminds us that creativity is resistance and that inclusive marketing begins by listening.
Ayub Elias
Nov 114 min read
In defense of empathy and compassion
Empathy is humanity.
In a world that often mistakes compassion for weakness, we return to the simple truth that love and care are the roots of our collective survival. This blog reflects on the rising anti-empathy movement and contrasts it with the Dalai Lama’s teachings on compassion, interdependence, and healing. It invites us to transform helplessness into empowerment through Compose for Change: Healing Arts, a course where creativity becomes an act of justice and belongin
Pamela Ruiter -Feenstra
Nov 45 min read
How did social activists Frederick Douglass & Susan B. Anthony listen and respond?
Walking through Mount Hope Cemetery became a quiet lesson in courage. There, the resting places of Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony whisper of justice, persistence, and hope. Their voices still rise in the wind, reminding us that progress asks for struggle and that compassion remains a form of resistance. We carry their light forward each time we choose to listen, to act, and to believe in a more just world.
Pamela Ruiter -Feenstra
Oct 214 min read
"I thought of my whole body as an ear." Deep listening inspired by Civil Rights activist Dr. Maya Angelou
Inspired by Dr. Maya Angelou’s deep listening, this reflection by Dr. Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra explores how art, memory, and the senses become pathways to healing and justice. From silence to empathy, from trauma to transformation, we are invited to listen with our whole bodies to stones, rivers, and one another, and to rediscover the power of belonging, care, and creativity in shaping a more compassionate world.
Pamela Ruiter -Feenstra
Oct 143 min read
What are the 8 Stages of Listening? Learn how they transform relationships!
Discover the 8 Stages of Listening in Compose for Change: Healing Arts, a Healing Bells course launching this January. Learn how deep, compassionate listening transforms relationships and communities through creativity, empathy, and care. Join a journey where art becomes healing, attention becomes love, and every story finds a listener.
Pamela Ruiter -Feenstra
Oct 72 min read
La tierra está cansada (The earth is tired)
The earth is tired weaves healing, belonging, and resilience through memory, women’s voices, and the land itself. It’s a story of exhaustion and care, of how both soil and survivors need rest to flourish. Rooted in interdependence, this piece invites us to slow down, honor our bodies, and let nature restore balance. In collective action and stillness, we reclaim justice, nurture strength, and create the possibility to heal and bloom again.
Yurani Cubillos
Sep 303 min read
La tierra está cansada
La tierra está cansada entreteje sanación, pertenencia y resiliencia a través de la memoria, las voces de las mujeres y la propia tierra. Es una reflexión sobre el cansancio y el cuidado, de cómo tanto el suelo como las sobrevivientes necesitan descanso para florecer. Enraizado en la interdependencia, este tejido nos invita a bajar el ritmo, a honrar nuestros cuerpos y a dejar que la naturaleza restaure el equilibrio. En la acción colectiva y en la quietud, reclamamos justici
Yurani Cubillos
Sep 303 min read
Save the Evidence No Matter What: Tad DeLuca on Letters that Proved His Case
In this week’s Healing Bells blog, Tad DeLuca reflects on the power of evidence. Letters he saved from 1975 became undeniable proof that the University of Michigan knew about abuse and did nothing. Decades later, those papers not only redeemed his truth but also helped over a thousand survivors come forward. Tad shows how keeping records, no matter how painful, can root out lies and bring justice, healing, and belonging even after fifty years.
Tad de Luca
Sep 236 min read
La historia personal de Alexandra Ruiz Costas sobre la sanación a través del arte.
Alexandra Ruiz Costas, Secretaria de la Junta de Healing Bells y Co-Directora de la Colectiva por Andrea: Sanarte, compartió valientemente en Ni une más la historia de su hermana Andrea, asesinada tras no recibir protección de las autoridades. A través de la música y la danza, Alexandra encontró un espacio de sanación, donde pudo llorar, nombrar su dolor y transformarlo en memoria viva. El arte se volvió un puente de justicia, cuidado y comunidad.
Alexandra Ruiz Costas
Sep 165 min read
Alexandra Ruiz Costas’ personal story on healing through arts engagement
Alexandra Ruiz Costas, Board Secretary of Healing Bells and Co-Director of Colectiva por Andrea: Sanarte, bravely shared her sister Andrea’s story in Ni une más. Despite Andrea’s efforts to seek protection, she was murdered by her ex-partner. Through music and dance, Alexandra discovered a path toward healing, reclaiming her grief as part of her own story. Art became a vessel of justice, memory, and belonging, ensuring Andrea’s spirit will never be forgotten.
Alexandra Ruiz Costas
Sep 165 min read
Kay Hanna-DeLuca: What honeybees can teach us about community
From pollinator flowers to the hive, honeybees show us what interdependence, loyalty, and compassion mean in practice. Each bee holds a role, each gesture protects the collective. In her garden and beekeeping journey, Kay Hanna-DeLuca reflects on how tending to the hive mirrors tending to our own communities. To heal, to belong, to rise together, we can learn from the bees: support one another without hesitation, and balance thrives.
Kay DeLuca
Sep 94 min read
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