There’s nothing more powerful than art and music to inspire the human spirit. The word “inspire” simply means to breathe in and we inhale the inspiration of art and music deep into our souls, transforming pain, grief, and sorrow into a sense of hope and possibility.

Art saved my life when I was depressed and broken after ending a marriage and leaving my home in Africa. With no friends or family around me, I had to turn inside to find new strength and courage to face an uncertain future. I had always kept journals, and sometimes doodled or drew in the margins. During this period the drawings were images of sad, floating women, seemingly unable to find steady ground to support them. As I began to explore ways of self-healing through my improvised art therapy, the drawings mirrored my progress as the women stood up, began to stride and one day, joined hands and danced. The drawings, which seemed to come from my unconscious, informed my evolution from a weightless creature to someone who would one day sprout wings and soar. This is the message of my new memoir, “In the Heart of Life,” which also tells the story of how I transformed the loss of my son Dan, a young Reuters photojournalist killed in Somalia in 1993, into a movement celebrating “creative activism,” the belief that we can use our creative spark to launch projects that can positively impact the world around us.