A Book of Healing, Told in Words and in Paint
Her Tears Are Our Tears
Healing an Unconscious Root of Violence
In memory of all missing and murdered women and girls in Canada and along the U.S.–Mexican border.
In friendship with the South Sudanese with whom I walked through joys and extreme suffering.
In honour of all who respect Mother Earth and natural ways to heal.
Simple, enjoyable, multicultural methods for healing stress and trauma — tested with tens of thousands in South Sudan. Tapping. Breathing. Movement. Ways to hold our emotions gently, "as you would hold a hurt kitten."
A courageous journey into the symbol and image of blood, buried in our collective, intergenerational unconscious — where it comes from, how it operates, and why changing our conscious attitudes isn't enough.
The path toward healing, told in image. New images to replace the ones that have held violence in place — the transformation of repulsion into wonder.
"A wonderful book! Dr. Barbara Paleczny, SSND, weaves together her academic research with her experience as an educator and her practice as an artist in exceptional contexts of injustice, violence, and trauma. The result is a compelling book that unpacks the power of symbols and images in a healing journey."Dr. Darren Dias, OP — Executive Director, Toronto School of Theology
"Sister Barbara's prophetic ministry of healing and reconciliation comes across powerfully on every page. This little book helps us to transform the unconscious and conscious roots of violence individually and as peoples, and teaches that a deep transformation is possible to heal our personal and communal psyches so that we may create new images that can ground a non-violent, inclusive society."Thomas Rosica, CSB — Basilian Fathers of Toronto
"Sister Barbara Paleczny packs this short book with powerful reflections on body-mind-spirit connections and adds to this framework the addition of ecological considerations. The book features many striking images painted by Sister Barbara as she shares her own lived experience of healing through art with those who might benefit from this approach."Carol Ann MacGregor, PhD — Vice President Academic and Dean, St. Jerome's University
Barbara has lived and worked in Canada, England, Bolivia, the USA, and South Sudan. For twelve years, she lived and worked in South Sudan, helping form Healing Stress and Trauma Teams that gave workshops to tens of thousands of people — youth, medical professionals, teachers, soldiers, police, prisoners, women's groups, people with special needs, interfaith leaders, and politicians.
Doctors Without Borders told her that roughly 75% of the illnesses they treated in South Sudan were rooted in stress and trauma. She saw healing happen regularly — physical, emotional, and the kind that surprised everyone.
For thirty years, alongside her theological and pastoral work, she has painted — canvases that reach where words cannot. This book gathers both: three decades of paintings, and the question she has spent her life trying to answer. "I call Mystery, Love," she writes. "I think of my entire life as learning to love, learning to accept love, learning to be love."
All of Sister Barbara's royalties go to South Sudan.
Barbara has directed all of her royalties from this book to Friends in Solidarity, the American NGO that channels support directly to Solidarity with South Sudan's Healing Trauma Ministry — the ministry that continues the work she began, training teams and running workshops with communities still living with the aftermath of catastrophic violence.
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A nun. A theologian. A trauma healer. An artist. Thirty years of painting. Twelve years in South Sudan. One question, and her answer — in words and in paint.