Author: Chris Shaw

The Shelby County Drug Court has traded jail time for drum circles and reflective meditation, a holistic approach that’s shown positive results for some of the county’s drug and alcohol addicts.

Three years ago, the drug court teamed up with the HART Center, which uses acupuncture, drum circles, and deep meditative reflection to help patients. Today, the drug court is boasting positive results from that seemingly unlikely pairing.

Jane Abraham, one of the founders of the HART Center, said that addicts don’t typically get exposed to holistic treatment in other facilities.

“Our treatments get you more in touch with the feelings inside, the physical and spiritual aspects of rehabilitation,” Abraham said. “We see people come in very strung-out but leave extremely balanced. We consider everyone here a big family, and that openness really helps people feel welcome.”

In addition to group therapy three times a week for three hours, clients of the HART Center also take Lifestyle Shaping courses and undergo experimental therapy sessions that incorporate music as a mechanism for dealing with early dependency withdrawal.

The Shelby County Drug Courtwas started in 1997 by Judge Tim Dwyer, after he saw what he calls a “revolving door” of people with drug and alcohol problems coming through his courtroom. Dwyer started implementing alternative sentences to the people who weren’t getting the treatment they needed in jail.

And, while drug court offers an alternative to serving time, it’s certainly not an easy way out for the participant. Among many other requirements, clients of drug court must enter a 12-month rehabilitation program, receive random drug testing, attend 12-step meetings, and undergo assessments for chemical dependency. Failure to comply with the rigorous requirements can result in jail time and a violation of probation.

Besides the required rehab treatment and drug testing, clients may also participate in programs such as the holistic care offered by the HART Center. Andy Boone, who found himself in Dwyer’s courtroom after receiving three DUIs in a year, is one of those clients who opted to try the HART Center.

“At first I was very skeptical of allowing Andy into the [drug court] program,” Dwyer said. “It’s a huge risk letting someone like that out of jail and back on the street.” 

After convincing Dwyer that he was committed to drug court, Boone began receiving treatment at the HART Center.

“My problem with drinking started when I was around 18, but every time I was forced to seek help I would find ways to still drink and do whatever I wanted to do. That all changed at the HART Center,” Boone said. “Something just clicked when I was there. I don’t know how to describe it, but I decided I was going to make this work for me.”

After graduating from drug court last July, Boone decided to go back to the HART Center to volunteer as a mentor.

“I realized my story is a lot like other peoples’ stories, so once I graduated I wanted to help others,” Boone said.  “I’m not ashamed of what I went through, and I’m proud of where I’m at now.”

Laundry lists seldom include things like child services and family planning, but that may change once the South Memphis Alliance opens its laundromat this April.

The latest undertaking of the South Memphis Alliance (SMA), a nonprofit that helps struggling inner-city families, is the construction of a full-service community laundromat in the heart of Soulsville that will double as a clearinghouse for information on Department of Child Services (DCS) programs and services offered by SMA.

SMA primarily focuses on helping youth in foster care and families in crisis through programs that help young adults transitioning out of foster care, pregnant teens who are or were in foster care, and kids who are trying to avoid alcohol, drugs, and HIV infection.

SMA was founded as an outreach program through various neighborhood associations in South Memphis in 2000, but it has flourished into a nonprofit organization centered on helping struggling families in South Memphis.  

“What we were originally doing was working with local neighborhood associations so everything could be organized and we could get our message out,” said Reginald Milton, founder and executive director of SMA. “But it didn’t quite work that way. It was really challenging trying to get people to respond.”

After working with neighborhood associations in South Memphis for five years, SMA moved into a building on South Bellevue, next door to a laundromat. SMA development manager Shelley Thomas said members of SMA began to interact with people at the laundromat, handing out pamphlets as well as giving them the change needed to use the machines. When rumors circulated that the laundromat was going to be sold, Milton saw an opportunity.

“The laundromat had been there for about 20 years,” Milton said. “The owner was about to sell it, and he wanted to turn it into a nightclub. We didn’t think that was going to work for the community. After all, a laundromat is one of the base things that a community needs.”

Milton said that DCS had come to the SMA asking for help reaching out to families. Milton saw the laundromat as a possible solution to help DCS reach those families, and after receiving funding from the Assisi Foundation and the city of Memphis, a plan was put into action.

“We realized that people using the laundromat are just sitting around for at least an hour,” Milton said.

“The problem DCS had was that they couldn’t reach people until they were on the emergency radar screen. How do you reach people who don’t know they need services?” Milton asked. “So when we came up with the idea for the laundromat, it just worked in every possible way. Here we have people who have free time. They’re in a good mood, and they have to come back on a regular basis. The biggest part of prevention is repetition.”

With the opening of the SMA laundromat drawing near, Thomas and Milton already have their sights set on other buildings in the community, including the Reed Brothers Dairy Plant across the street from the laundromat. They want to build a family services facility there. Fund-raising for the dairy plant has already begun, and Milton estimates the funding will cost around $4.5 million.

Plans to revive Overton Square are shaping up in the new year — literally.

A comprehensive yoga studio, complete with a juice bar and healing arts center, will soon be added to the list of improvements the square will see this year. Owner Olivia Lomax announced last week that Delta Groove Yoga Studio will occupy the space at 2091 Madison, next to Memphis Pizza Café.

Lomax has been teaching yoga for more than 10 years, most recently at Give Yoga in East Memphis. After Give Yoga closed last year, Lomax was approached by Cosmic Coconut co-owner Arielle Moinester about the idea of starting a hybrid pop-up shop combining a yoga studio with a juice bar for December’s MEMShop event in Overton Square.

Moinester said that after being contacted by the Mayor’s Innovation Delivery Team about setting up a juice bar at MEMShop, she decided to incorporate Lomax into the plan, calling the pop-up shop the Cosmic Collective because it featured juices from Cosmic Coconut’s menu, coffee from Bluff City Coffee, and a studio space for yoga.

The Cosmic Collective had such a successful run at the pop-up shop last holiday season that Lomax decided to pursue a permanent location at the historic intersection in Midtown.

“I hadn’t really been considering opening in Overton Square. I was thinking of trying to work in a church environment or something more casual,” Lomax said. “But after my experience with MEMShop, I saw an opportunity to teach yoga in a relaxed environment, which has always been a dream of mine.”

Lomax said that teaching in an area so close to restaurants and cafes will help create bonds between her yoga students and the Midtown environment, in addition to providing a community that other yoga studios can’t offer.

“I’m really trying to build a community with the atmosphere, the music, and the openness of the building,” Lomax said. “I chose this building because it has such an open atmosphere. One entire wall is glass. There are huge windows that look out over Palm Court. It’s going to be beautiful once the courtyard is renovated.”

Delta Groove Yoga Studio will also have a light retail section with food and juices from Cosmic Coconut for sale. But Moinester said that there are currently no plans to consider Delta Groove a second location of Cosmic Coconut.

Having her own studio will also allow Lomax to teach the Kundalini style of yoga, a type of yoga that focuses on shorter meditations with quicker results.

“What would take me 12 hours with other yoga takes me 20 minutes with Kundalini. It’s hard to explain, but I think people will be very interested to learn this type of yoga,” Lomax said.

Lomax plans to open the doors to Delta Groove Yoga Studio by March 1st. Until then, she’ll be teaching classes in a temporary location at 2095 Madison. Celebrity yoga teachers Ravi Singh and Ana Brett will be joining Lomax at the temporary location for a weekend session from January 25th through the 27th. The entire workshop is $160, with individual classes also available.

Moinester said that having a yoga studio in Overton Square will make the area more than just a nightlife destination.

“A range of different activities will be offered, which will hopefully bring more vibrancy to the community,” Moinester said.

Pulitzer Prize winner and best-selling author Chris Hedges will be the keynote speaker at the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center’s anniversary gala, “Living the Legacy of Nonviolence,” on Saturday night at First Congregational Church.

In addition to serving as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times for 12 years, Hedges has written 12 books, including: War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction in 2003. A veteran war correspondent, Hedges has reported from more than 50 countries and was part of a team of reporters at the Times that was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for the paper’s coverage of global terrorism. Hedges currently works as a senior fellow at The Nation.

Flyer: As keynote speaker, are there any topics related to the work of the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center that you’ll be addressing?

Chris Hedges: I’m obviously going to look at the whole Occupy movement and the serious problem that we face with political climate change and corporate power.

How effective do you think Occupy Wall Street was, and how effective is nonviolent protest these days?

If it wasn’t effective, the state wouldn’t have been so scared of it.

Where do you see peaceful protest under the current Obama administration?

We know from the redacted FBI documents that there was an effort to shut it down. [Hedges is referring to FBI documents obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund through the Freedom of Information Act.]

on Truthdig.com, you wrote about people monitored by the federal government for being involved with the Occupy movement. Have you experienced harassment for being a commentator on the movement?

Yes, I spoke in Italy, and on my way back, I was taken and held by Homeland Security [officials] for an hour without explanation and then released. I overheard the official tell another guard that I was on a watch [list]. He didn’t say it directly to me, but he told another guard, “He’s on a watch, but he can go.” I sat there for an hour with people who were suspected of having forged visas before they let me leave.

Do you see social media outlets as helping or hindering rapid news output?

The problem with social media is there’s very little reporting done on it. Traditional media does the bulk of reporting, but as traditional media dies, the reporting is being diminished. There’s less and less being reported on. A lot of people who write on social media [websites] don’t get paid a cent, so states are going dark, which is dangerous because it exacerbates the abuse of power.

The Peace and Justice Center spent much of 2012 fighting wage theft in Memphis. How big a problem is unfair treatment of unregistered workers in America?

It’s a huge problem, because even documented workers no longer have any protection. We have no unions anymore. We have states with right-to-work programs. Union activity has never been strong in the South, especially in areas like agriculture, landscaping services, the hotel industry, and the restaurant industry. Undocumented workers have very little legal protection, but workers across the country, unregistered and registered, are suffering because their rights have been taken away.

Church Health Center employee Ken Hall doesn’t normally take on the role of curator for the gallery attached to the Leadership Memphis building on South Main, but after waking up from a procedure in his doctor’s office, he liked what he saw.

“I awoke from a really good sleep and saw these beautiful photographs of nature,” Hall said. “Later, I found out they were taken by my doctor, so I recommended him to the people at Leadership Memphis and Gallery 363.”

 Gastroenterologist David Sloas started taking photos for that exact reason: His patients needed something pleasant to look at after coming out of a procedure. But Sloas didn’t stop there. Five years after he hung the photos in his lobby, Sloas’ hobby has turned into a civic campaign with Sloas donating all the proceeds from the sale of his photographs to charity.

In addition to selling his work in local galleries, Sloas also helped set up the new Nature Photography Garden at the Memphis Botanic Garden. Wanting to create something similar to the photography garden at his home (four acres of sprawling landscape in Cordova complete with a private lake and waterfall), Sloas approached Botanic Garden executive director Jim Duncan with his idea.

“At first, they didn’t know how serious I was,” Sloas said. “They looked over all my information and said they’d call me back in four to six weeks, but he called me back in two days.”

Opened this past October, the Nature Photography Garden at the Botanic Garden is self-sustaining, with the plants providing shade, shelter, and food to attract wildlife. Concrete walkways provide level ground for a tripod, and because each plant is carefully placed, photographers can take advantage of both afternoon and morning light.

“Everything has been done for a reason, which makes it a convenient place to practice your hobby,” Duncan said.

This spring marks the first bloom in the Nature Photography Garden, but Sloas’ focus has now turned to developing a similar garden for the Sears Crosstown building. Crosstown Arts co-director Todd Richardson said that after hearing about the Nature Photography Garden at the Botanic Garden, the Crosstown team began brainstorming where their garden could be.

“Currently, there are three bigger green spaces that we are looking at,” Richardson said. “One is the big parking lot. We plan to turn that sea of asphalt into a public plaza. Another possibility would be west of the parking garage, and the rooftop is also a possibility. But how it all gets worked out is still up in the air right now.”

Once the location is set for the Crosstown Nature Photography Garden, Sloas would like to see it become a certified wildlife habitat with native plants that attract wildlife, an heirloom fruit orchard, a fountain for butterflies and hummingbirds, and numerous other attractions.

“It’s going to be a beautiful and creative way to use empty land, and it’s an opportunity for people in the neighborhood to use this space in a way they couldn’t before,” Richardson said.  

The exhibit at Gallery 363 featuring the photography of David Sloas will remain open until January 21st, with an extended schedule possible. All proceeds from the show benefit the MIFA.