Parya’s Vision
Payra’s drawing and gift to me
I met the creator of this drawing while volunteering at a center for women and children called When We Band Together (WWBT). When We Band Together serves the mental and physical well-being of refugees living in the grim, inadequate Mavrovouni Camp on the Greek island of Lesvos, which is 4.5 miles away from Turkey. The small island of Lesvos became a center for global awareness for the refugee crisis in 2015, when half a million refugees, mostly from Syria, arrived on the shores of this island (see the Netflix film The Swimmers to put part of the 2015 crisis into context). Although the numbers of refugees have abated since the height of the crisis, more refugees are now coming in larger and larger numbers during this tragic era of displaced populations owing to war and other disasters.
In coming with her mother and three siblings to the WWBT facility located a few miles away from the Mavrovouni camp, Parya and her family find sanctuary. When Payra’s mother and siblings arrive at the center, they are welcomed by staff and volunteers. Parya and her sisters can begin to play, and their mother can sit down with her infant and drink a cup of tea and biscuits in community with other women. Later on, there will be access to fitness activities, language classes, crafts on some days, and a shared lunch. The women and children who come for the day take refuge in an environment where they can take a shower in a safe space, do their laundry, participate in learning opportunities, and try to regain a sense of equilibrium (see https://beckysbutton.org/beckys-bathhouse/).
During my three weeks of volunteering at the center, I had the opportunity to get to know the approximately seven-year-old artist and her two younger sisters. Meeting these sisters was one of the many great blessings of my time at the center. The children I met like Parya touched my soul. I saw in these children a reflection of the resilience shown by their mothers. I was granted, moreover, access to the universal language of wisdom that marks human beings in their earliest years on this planet, perhaps before they reach the age of nine or ten. In her ever-precious youthfulness, Parya carries the wisdom of a still-present connection to Source that renders her capable of seeing the world through sacred, wise eyes.
Parya’s wisdom comes to life in her artwork, which shows seven land masses encompassed within a circle held in place by little human faces that smile and little hands bound together in the sacred task of holding our world together. Each being that she depicts wears a smile, and each human holds the hand of another, creating a spirit of love, cooperation, and even joyfulness. Parya intuitively knows at her tender age the truth articulated by mystics like Saint Francis of Assisi; her artwork embodies the wisdom of the interconnectedness of all living things on our planet.
Parya’s figurines, moreover, are set within a context of a larger galaxy of stars and hearts. Her vision is not only global but galactic.
She knows that each one of us is tiny and yet vitally important to the whole of creation, and she imagines that we might work together to repair, bit by bit, the fabric of our badly hurting planet. Her vision is one that cynical adults might easily dismiss as naïve, impractical, and devoid of self-interest. Yet embedded in Parya’s vision is the formula for saving humanity from our most self-destructive, often unconscious, impulses to be motivated by unresolved trauma, fear, disinformation, vengeance, and greed.
Parya tells us simply this. Our human family is fragile, people. Look at my family living on the brink with no idea if we will have a future. Let’s hold hands, she says, for we are clearly in a time of crisis. Smile, because love is powerful. And look at us holding one another! It brings a smile to all of our faces. Let us, together, form a protective bubble that will encompass this most glorious, fragile planet.
Parya’s drawing intends to bring her viewers out of their individual selves. It suggests that we pause together in unison, so that we might begin to glimpse the fabric of the shared humanity that binds us together. She transcends the limited human mind with its old patterns of turning to violence, revenge, and the dehumanization of our neighbors. Her plea is for unity; in her vision of planet earth, there are no exclusions. We as humans can band together in order to spread a field of energetic grace to all the continents, to all peoples.
If I knew the story of Parya’s life so far, I would be even more amazed by her calm and wise presence on this planet. I don’t know her story, but I did come to know the stories of some of her fellow travelers visiting the center, who had made their way to Lesvos from places including Afghanistan, Iran, Palestine, Yemen, Eritrea, Somalia, and Sudan. One day, a mother of three from Afghanistan plopped down beside me and told me that she had had three young children and one year of university under her belt when the Taliban bombed a school next to her home. She walked out to see the body parts and still suffers along with her son with headaches from the explosion. She now struggles to stay sane while raising her young children in a tent. Another family from Palestine had suffered the bombing of their home and the loss of one of their daughters in that explosion. For them, there was no other option than to flee; they had lost everything.
The individuals and families who leave uninhabitable zones on the planet face vulnerability, theft, and violence on their journeys. After giving their precious treasure to brutal smugglers, they routinely face violent pushbacks by the coastguard that send them back into the sea to die. If they survive, they try again. If after multiple and perilous attempts these refugees make it to shore, they live in a camp where they will inhabit a metal container or tents without temperature controls during the cold winters and unbearably hot summer months. They wait for hours in line for one barely edible container of food per day per person and lack the medical care they might require. They might be transferred out to a worse camp near Athens, where they might be deported, or they might be denied any movement forward and consigned to live in the camp for years, at which point they will be denied access to the food and water made available to them while they were waiting for a decision. There’s no making sense of the policies that make their lives a mental and physical hell. They are pawns in a larger web of politics.
Refugees embody our greatest fears as humans, as they are deprived of any sense of “home,” and their basic rights and human dignity are denied to them. They belong nowhere; they are the unwanted. It is the status of the stateless.
Now, go and pick up your passport. Hold it in your hands. Touch it, examine it, and acknowledge that to have one, or to have the opportunity to apply for one, is in itself a small miracle. It means that you have a place to call home on this planet, the right to travel, and the luxury of being treated like a human being in the places where you might visit.
Parya has none of these things, and yet she stands tall at the children’s table, her short hair pulled into a ponytail on the top of her head. She looks to me, as do her peers, for approval as she carefully writes the alphabet and copies the words of English that as a child she learns quickly. Parya yearns for eyes that mirror back her own humanity and native gifts.
Another girl looks to me for permission each time that she picks up another colored pencil. A little girl who has seen her father beaten up in front of her eyes, and lost a sister and a home to a bombing attack, copes with anger and shame. I meet her with lessons on how to pass a basketball, which she loves, and with lessons in how to write the alphabet. She tries so hard to learn to write the letters that she has to squint to prevent the tears that need desperately to flow but will wait. With patience and persistence, she learns to write all of the letters. Then she learns to write words as well. Her mother, who speaks a bit of English, tells me her name is Nour. This tough little girl, who knows how to push away a bully, basks briefly in the glow of her mother’s approval. The shame that has clouded her face lifts. She’s excited to play now. Perhaps, for a moment, she glimpses her own worth.
Parya’s younger sister is consistently so sad that I do not see her look up, and I begin to fast-forward toward imagining her as a beautiful, depressed young woman. Asking her if I might color with her, we become a team. The next day she places her head on my shoulder. A smile, and then a child who begins to color and play. Every human being wants to be seen. It is perhaps one of our strongest instincts.
A selfie with Parya’s younger sister
Human beings need to know that they matter, and WWBT provides a space for this to happen multiple times a day. The facility is the size of a small school gym, but there is an outdoor covered area, and a play area that can be used in the warm months as well. One volunteer observes that the little organizations like WWBT make a huge difference for the people who reside in the camps. When at the center, women take a break from an environment that is dehumanizing and unsafe for them and their children. Regularly, too, the women spontaneously break into dance. While dancing, they lose themselves in the joy of movement, communicating with one another through a shared joy.
Each woman and child at the center is one of a larger circle of human beings that Parya depicts in her vision of our world as it must become if we are to survive the onslaughts of war, disinformation, brainwashing, and cynicism. We do not have to be continually alienated and torn asunder. We can make choices instead that celebrate our inextricable link to one another through our shared humanity.
When We Band Together is part of Parya’s vision of a world that exists within a galaxy that includes our magnificently beautiful planet with its continents, oceans, and stunning natural beauty.
All the love that Parya gave to me through her drawings can be returned to her, and others like her, contributing to a better world for all. We can set aside feelings of burnout, jadedness and cynicism and instead hold hands. We can unite with Parya in an inspired vision for humanity that seeks to break a cycle destructive patterns that create yet more violence. We can give of ourselves through donations to worthy organizations like WWBT and through sending love out into the stratosphere to all those who need us.
This now, is joy.
See donation link for When We Band Together: