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Festival of Inner Peace Aims to Help Students

By AILEEN BURKE
News Editor

When Joan Horgan saw a sign in a small town bookshop last summer that read ‘Festival of Inner Peace,’ she knew she had to bring it to The College of Saint Rose – in her own way. From Mar. 25 to 27, she is doing exactly that with the help of people throughout the Pine Hills and College community.

The College Office of Spiritual Life’s first Festival of Inner Peace will supplement Hubbard Interfaith Sanctuary’s current weekly programming, and allow for students and faculty alike to start considering the practice of introspective self-care to find inner peace.

“Inner peace isn’t like a drive-thru where you can just pick up some peace,” said Horgan, the director of Campus Ministry at Saint Rose. “It is something to practice. The results come with time.”

The week has many places for members of the campus community to start practicing. On Monday Mar. 25 alone there are 3 labyrinth sessions in the Sanctuary, each with a different theme. That same evening there will be a meditation session with Damien from the Shambhala Meditation Center located on Madison Avenue by Quail Street.

Another schedule highlight is the Tuesday morning session called “The Energies of Inner Peace.” Ruth Ann Smalley, a former employee of the College, will speak on dealing with stress and nervousness through Eden Energy Medicine. That same night the Student Art League is holding a session on Art as Meditation.

“Art, or just making, is therapeutic,” said Johnathan Desousa, the executive assistant of the League. “It puts my hands and mind in a focused and calm state. It isn’t always like that, but when I’m in “flow”, when I create with a clear mind and an engaged body, it’s the best.”

This Festival comes from a growing dialogue on campus about how students are attempting to find peace, calm, or a sense of connectedness in an seemingly unprecedented time for many.

“Each decision has an enormous impact not just on the now, but on the future,” said junior Joyce Hills. Hills is the president of communications organization Saint Rose Television. “When that intensity [of a presidency] disturbs your inner peace, it tends to impede work, success, and enjoyment. I try to remind myself of all that the club members are capable of just as individuals, let alone as a team, and that, more often than anything, they teach and lead me. When I remember that, it restores my own inner peace.”

Hills noted the presence of religion in her process for finding inner peace, and how different students find their happiness in their own respective ways. These latter feelings were echoed by First Year students Emily Mousouroulis and Megan Frederick.

“Inner peace is super important in order to be able to handle and tackle stress,” said Mousouroulis. “Especially in the first year of college where you’re living somewhere new and figuring things out, [the idea of] inner peace is an essential to helping with adjustments.”

Students like Frederick, a busy english and criminal justice double major on the pre-law track, acknowledge that incorporating these ideas and practices aren’t always the easiest for busy college students.

“To me, inner peace means feeling secure within myself, and confident in who I am as a person and what I am doing as a student,” said Frederick. “Inner peace is knowing that’s it’s okay to take a moment for yourself, and that moment may be stepping away from schoolwork or friends or anything of that nature and finding that ‘inner peace’ away from the stresses of being a freshman. Inner peace is also definitely something I’m still working on, and struggling sometimes to find.”

No matter where a student is on their journey, or if they have even started, the Festival of Inner Peace aims to offer something to reflect on and a community to reflect with.

The Office of Spiritual Life is additionally looking forward to hosting their rescheduled Death Cafè on Apr. 3.

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