The CARDS: being human
®
Jane Myat
CREATOR & FOUNDER
Jane has been a GP partner at The Caversham Group Practice, in north central London since 1997.
Inspired and assisted by the Transition Network, Jane is the co-founder of The Listening Space, a therapeutic garden in the middle of her practice that supports a range of gardening, arts, craft, cooking and walking opportunities for patients.
Jane is a council member for the College of Medicine, director and medical lead for the Circle of Soup, fellow of the Patient Revolution, ambassador for the Fathom Trust, and a passionate advocate for community-based healing, sometimes referred to as social prescribing.
When she is not busy with all the above, Jane likes to be with her family & friends, swim in cold water and carve spoons.
Chrissie Nicholls
ARTIST & INKSMITH
Chrissie is an artist working in the fields of illustration, mapmaking, printmaking and artists’ books.
Her work has a strong drawn element, using colour to enhance the stories within it. She is inspired by the natural world, and by our response to the human condition and the challenges of everyday life.
Chrissie’s workshops encourage and support exploration to areas that can be hard to navigate, through the creation of maps and visual diaries. She self-published her ‘The Diary of an Artist in Lockdown’ in 2021 to international acclaim, selling out of the limited edition before the official publication date.
Chrissie lives in north London and loves tending to her family of garden flowers and weeds.
The Cards: Being Human Ltd - Company Number 15887516 ® ©
Simon Lewis
COLLABORATOR & WAY FINDING
Simon is a child and adolescent psychiatrist working at University College London Hospitals focussing on young people with complex presentations. He led an adolescent inpatient psychiatric unit for 21 years.
Simon is passionate about the unity of the bodymind in his work and teaching; and how this approach can lead to more collaborative and compassionate doctor/patient relationships. Simon lectures and examines UCL Medical Students and examined for the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Simon is the lead for the Bodymind Faculty - College of Medicine, a Trustee for Global Generation, a cyclist and photographer.
Most important to Simon is his family.
S t o r y & V i s i o n
Life is a big adventure, a strange mystery which we can never fully know or understand
Simon and I are privileged to be doctors. We have been immersed in the stories of the many lives that have touched ours both personally and professionally. In medical practice we often meet people at threshold moments, when life might not seem certain or the path is not clear.
On graduation from Medical School we say the Hippocratic Oath which reminds us that: ‘there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug’. And as doctors people come to you with the big questions of life. It can be overwhelming but life is an adventure after all. And I have always loved a good treasure hunt, and to try to solve a puzzle.
There is so much wisdom out there to help us if we are open to it. Wisdom beyond what is taught in medical school: in art, books, in stories, poetry and nature. In the many acts of kindness and courage shown by ordinary people every day. So we can always be on the hunt for the clues as to how to ‘do’ this ‘human being’ well.
And although we might come to know things from books, from teachers, we really understand things from living, from getting things wrong, from ‘failing forwards’, from noticing, watching and experimenting.
Just like all other humans, we have been through our own periods of challenge and difficulty. Times when we don’t know, where we feel lost and confused. These are composting times, messy, unpleasant and full of breakdown but also rich in possibility.
In the Autumn of 2022 as a family we found ourselves in a landscape we weren’t expecting, when the ground we were standing on no longer felt firm and secure. The Cards were born from this threshold time. Our family found some peace in the storm, sitting quietly playing cards. I was drawing out pictures as I often do for patients navigating their own difficulties whilst going through our own. The idea emerged from this tumble in the darkness to produce an alternative pack of cards. One that could help to restore balance and provide seeds for regeneration not just for us but for others too.
In January 2023, in Cornwall, with an uncertain year ahead, in between swimming in the sea and walking in the beautiful fierce landscape, the first prototype pack of The Cards was born. They helped us find our footings again, reminded us of what could be true, what is good and beautiful in a world that can be dazzling, confusing and full of conflict. We brought our embryonic idea to the Phoenix Court Works Foundation who generously supported us to work with Chrissie to realise the beautiful images for The Cards. We have put our collective knowledge, experience, skills and connections together in a compassionate endeavour: to bring our version of some of the ingredients we might need to navigate being human, and we share these with you with humility.
We hope that you enjoy and share The Cards. We envision them being used in workshops, as a companion for health and social care students and practitioners, in community groups, families and schools. We would love to aspire to The Cards being developed in different languages and cultures.