Creative

Healing
Creative Healing ................................................................................................................. 1
Chapter Two.................................................................................................................... 5
How art and healing are one ........................................................................................... 5
Your inner artist finds your inner healer ..................................................................... 6
A lets say story .......................................................................................................... 6
A guided imagery story of art and healing: The legend of the old woman of the
springs ......................................................................................................................... 7
Reclaiming your inner artist...................................................................................... 10
Art as a way of healing, our own personal stories .................................................... 10
Marys story: ............................................................................................................. 10
Michaels story: ........................................................................................................ 12
How does the "art of healing" relate to healing art? ................................................. 14
An imagery exercise to contact your inner healer: The journey on the sacred spiral 14
Chapter Three................................................................................................................ 19
Story time: The history of art and healing .................................................................... 19
The new field of art and healing is the oldest healing we know of .......................... 20
The story of art and healing ...................................................................................... 20
In the beginning was the mother ............................................................................... 20
The cave man and woman and the animals .............................................................. 22
Dancing to free our boiling energy ........................................................................... 22
A guided imagery of freeing boiling energy ............................................................. 23
The first artist and the first healer were one person: the shaman.............................. 24
The guided imagery story of the legend of the old woman of the springs: how art and
healing were born. ..................................................................................................... 26
The power of the springs........................................................................................... 27
Egyptian and Summarian art ..................................................................................... 27
Sacred art and sacred healing .................................................................................... 27
Tibetan Buddhist art .................................................................................................. 28
Chapter Four ................................................................................................................. 11
How art heals: the physiology of art and healing ......................................................... 11
Art from the spirit, affects the mind and body .......................................................... 11
A story of healing cancer with art and imagery ........................................................ 11
How art affects the body: the physiology of art and healing .................................... 13
Now lets put in the soul ........................................................................................... 16
Spirit and the inner world ......................................................................................... 17
Healing energy .......................................................................................................... 17
Guided imagery ......................................................................................................... 18

Healing art ................................................................................................................. 19

A guided imagery of the old woman of the springs: how she made our bodies to be
healed with art ........................................................................................................... 20
The proof that art heals ............................................................................................. 21
About time and space and healing ............................................................................ 22
Section Two ...................................................................................................................... 25
How You Can Use Art, Music, and Dance to Heal Yourself ........................................... 25
Chapter Five .................................................................................................................. 26
You are already an artist ............................................................................................... 26
We will be your artist in residence ........................................................................... 27
The gifts .................................................................................................................... 28
Step one: reclaiming your inner artist ....................................................................... 28
A guided imagery: reclaiming your inner artist ........................................................ 29
Step two: making your own studio ........................................................................... 30
Making the studio beautiful and yours...................................................................... 31
Creating a time to make art ...................................................................................... 32
Creating sacred space ................................................................................................ 32
Step three: choosing a medium ................................................................................. 33
An imagery exercise for choosing a media ............................................................... 35
Step four: making art starting from where you are in your life right now ................ 36
The spiral of lived experience ................................................................................... 36
The spiral of transformation...................................................................................... 37
The spiral of empowerment ...................................................................................... 37
The spiral of love ...................................................................................................... 38
Chapter Six.................................................................................................................... 38
Healing yourself with the visual arts: painting, sculpture, photography and crafts ...... 38
Introducing your painter in residence ....................................................................... 39
How visual arts heal .................................................................................................. 39
Starting out : Marys story of reclaiming her inner artist ......................................... 40
Making a studio for the visual arts ............................................................................ 42
Sacred time and the visual arts.................................................................................. 44
Letting your healing images emerge. ........................................................................ 45
Giving birth to the earth, patient stories.................................................................... 47
Out of her cocoon...................................................................................................... 47
I take pictures so I can never forget .......................................................................... 48
Mary Lisa tells how she started as a artist in residence ............................................ 48
Your artist in residence Mary Lisas advice about how to heal yourself with visual
arts: ............................................................................................................................ 49
Lee Ann tells about starting out as an artist in residence .......................................... 50
Lee Ann Stacpooles advice: ................................................................................... 51
Lee Ann tells stories about the tile wall .................................................................... 53
Celelia Thorner on breast cancer and transcendence ................................................ 54
Cecelia's advice on starting to heal yourself with visual art ..................................... 56
Releasing your inner critic ........................................................................................ 56
Gina talks about compassion, body feelings, and healing ........................................ 56
Gina's advice on letting go of judgment and making healing art.............................. 58

What are healing paintings, going to museums, viewing art to heal yourself .......... 60
Chapter Seven ............................................................................................................... 62
Healing yourself with the word: Writing, Poetry, Storytelling and theater as healing . 62
Introducing your writer in residence ......................................................................... 63
How words heal ........................................................................................................ 63
A story of a man with cancer learning guided imagery ............................................ 64
Michaels story of a healing journal ......................................................................... 65
From Only Things of Beauty Persist, Michaels bone marrow journal .................... 66
A studio for writing. .................................................................................................. 68
Once upon a time ...................................................................................................... 69
Jans advice and experiences .................................................................................... 69
Ellies advice on storytelling .................................................................................... 71
The mystical path: healing stories about springs and animals .................................. 72
John Graham-Pole M.D. talks about poetry, laughter, and healing. ......................... 75
Chapter Eight ................................................................................................................ 77
Healing yourself with movement: dance as healing ..................................................... 77
Introducing your dancer in residence ........................................................................ 78
How dance heals ....................................................................................................... 78
Jill's advice about using dance to heal yourself: Making a dance studio .................. 80
Choosing your dance: Your first steps ...................................................................... 80
An interview with Jill Sonke Henderson .................................................................. 81
The story of Anna Halprin: healing her own cancer with dance .............................. 84
An interview with Anna Halprin about healing dance.............................................. 88
Advice from Anna Halprin on healing yourself with dance ..................................... 89
Chapter Nine ................................................................................................................. 91
Healing yourself with Sound: music as healing ........................................................... 91
Introducing our musician in residence ...................................................................... 92
How sound heals ....................................................................................................... 92
Becoming one with tones .......................................................................................... 93
Edie's advice on how to use music to heal yourself .................................................. 93
Music heals in an instant ........................................................................................... 95
Lewis played guitar for Nancy as she died ............................................................... 96
The sounds of nature heal ......................................................................................... 98
Singing to others as healing ...................................................................................... 99
The community of making music ............................................................................. 99
Toning and sound as vibration. ............................................................................... 100
Silence as sound healing ......................................................................................... 101
The strolling musician as a healer ........................................................................... 102
Listening to music to heal yourself: Tapes as healing tools ................................... 102
Section Three .................................................................................................................. 105
How professional artists are using art to heal ................................................................. 105
Chapter Ten ................................................................................................................. 106
The wellspring: How to become a healing artist, an artist healer ............................... 106
We invite you to become a healing artist ................................................................ 107
The healing artist honors themselves and the person they work with .................... 107
Changing the world of art ....................................................................................... 107

A call to artists ........................................................................................................ 108

A guided imagery to become a healing artist.......................................................... 108
Art programs in hospitals: how healers use art, music, and dance to heal their patients
..................................................................................................................................... 110
How hospital art programs started: art on the walls and performances .................. 111
Art at the bedside .................................................................................................... 112
International programs ............................................................................................ 114
Major programs with national visibility ................................................................. 115
Mary tells us the story of the Arts in Medicine Program, (AIM), at the University of
Florida ..................................................................................................................... 116
How art and healing is different from art therapy................................................... 121
Healing environments: changing the hospital ......................................................... 123
Sacred space ............................................................................................................ 123
Creating a healing environment in a hospital ......................................................... 124
Creating a healing environment in our home. ......................................................... 125
Chapter Eleven ............................................................................................................ 127
How Professional Artists Use Art to Heal themselves, to heal others, and to heal the
earth............................................................................................................................. 127
Artists making art to heal themselves ..................................................................... 128
Hollis Sigler talks about painting and breast cancer ............................................... 128
Visionary artists ...................................................................................................... 129
Alex Grey talks about visionary art ........................................................................ 130
Alex Grey's advice on making visionary art ........................................................... 131
Artists making art to heal other people ................................................................... 131
Christiane tells us about how she makes art to heal others ..................................... 132
Starting a healing art group ..................................................................................... 132
Medicine art ............................................................................................................ 133
Artists who use art to heal the earth ........................................................................ 134
Anouk's path of the feather ..................................................................................... 135
Vijali talks about healing the earth ......................................................................... 136
Vijali's advice on how to heal with art .................................................................... 137
Doing ritual on sacred sites to heal ......................................................................... 138
Mending the Heart Net, Putting it all together ........................................................ 138
Alex Grey's visualization to mend the heart net. .................................................... 140
Chapter Twelve .......................................................................................................... 141
Conclusion: Transforming the future: become a healing artist ................................... 141
Let art and healing change your life ....................................................................... 142
Our dream, an artist for every patient, a patient for every artist ............................. 143
A guided imagery of the future of art and healing .................................................. 143
The Medicine Wheel Web ...................................................................................... 144
A collective guided imagery to heal yourself, others, and the earth. ...................... 145
Seeing more of the vision ....................................................................................... 145
A final invocation for our healing work to be done ................................................ 146
Art is a way of healing, art is a way of knowing, art is way of caring. .................. 147

Chapter Two

How art and healing are one

Your inner artist finds your inner healer

The basic message of Creative Healing is very simple. Art heals you, art heals others,
and art heals the earth. Each of us has deep within us an inner artist and an inner healer.
The inner artist is the part of us that is passionately creative, that feels love, that feels
connected to everything around us, that can see, that knows who we are, that is at home,
and that is at peace. The inner artist can go anywhere in the inner world. No place is
closed to them. They can even go to the inner healer and merge with it and bring it out.
The inner healer is the part of you that balances your body perfectly and sets your blood
flow, your immune system, your killer T cells to be in harmony. Art frees the healer
within so you can heal yourself of an illness. Art frees your spirit so your mind and body
are in harmony. Art frees your immune system to work at its optimum and help you heal.
Art helps you conquer disease by freeing your inner healer to work at its optimum.
A lets say story
Lets say there is an aspect of you that you cannot see. And even more puzzling, it is the
wisest and deepest aspect of who you are. Lets say that you are an ordinary woman or
an ordinary man. You go through your daily routine- pick up your kids, run a business,
do all the things you do. And still you somehow feel confused, disconnected from
something deeper within you. You have a feeling that there is something missing, almost
a life unlived. And then, one day, you get a diagnosis that you are ill, or find yourself in
crisis. It could be any illness, or a life event that results in a deep depression. You go to
all kinds of health care providers, physicians, psychologists, and alternative healers, to
seek healing. You take herbs, do exercise, get body work done , and utilize many
different types of therapies. They all help in differing degrees but none of them feels
like the essence of healing. Your body experiences itself as ill and you feel disconnected
from it and betrayed by it. You know that deeper within your body is the source of your
life, and now that you are ill you feel the need to make contact with this source.
Somehow you know if you can make the connection to that part of yourself it will help
you heal.
Now lets say you can make art, any art and that this process will help you find the part of
yourself that will heal, the part of yourself you have been looking for. Lets say it is that
simple. Lets say that all you have to do is to find the part of yourself that can say "I am
an artist." All you have to do is to allow yourself to be more creative, to move, sing,
write, dance, and do it spontaneously without censorship. Lets say that if you allow it to
be seen, it will liberate you so you can get in touch with the healer within. For example,
when you paint with abandon, you find an aspect of yourself that knows the truth. You
are manifesting your own creativity. This creativity is your passion, this passion is your
life. Slowly something within you starts to stir. As you realize that you are the source,
you realize that you are what you need to heal.
You can picture art and healing like a heros journey, a myth, a story, or a fairy tale.
Picture yourself as a person who needs to heal your land from a great problem or evil.
You travel to a foreign land you have never seen before to find helpers. You go into the
forests, the mountains, the deserts and the darkest places. You meet a person who is pure
6

magic, a teacher, a seer. They lead you to the secret place where the person who has the
power to heal or solve the problem lives and they introduce you to them. The healer is
stuck in a cave or prison and needs to be freed. Only you can perform the feat that lets
them out to heal the land. You throw the ring in the fire, or say a prayer, or do a dance,
and they come out and are free and their enormous power heals the land. Of course the
meaning of this story is clear. You are the one who will be healed. The land is the inner
world of your imagination. The figure who is the seer is you as the artist. The figure who
is the healer is you too. It is all you. It only seems like they are different parts. This
journey will bring you to them. This journey will make the story true.
When we each find our own song, as Larry LeShan says in Cancer As A Turning Point,
and find out what we love the most, our self- healing mechanisms begin to function at
their optimum. Deep within all of us is the place of perfect beauty from which we all
come. It the same place from which we are born. It is the same place to which we will
return. In that place we will find our deepest peace, our most profound memories of who
we are. In our lives this is the place of the memory of our brightest moment. It is tied to
our vision of being touched, being nurtured, being loved perfectly, being in the presence
of something greater than ourselves And it is also tied to our memory of our greatest
sadness, of our losses, of our fears of our own death. In the center of this place of beauty,
is the energy that heals us. This is also the energy of our own passionate creativity.
A guided imagery story of art and healing: The legend of the old woman of the
springs
Stories have always been used by healers. We are taught most profoundly by symbols,
morals, and archetypes whose meanings sink in without our always understanding them
at first. This is why fairy tales were told to children, why stories from the Bible, the
Koran, or the Vedas were told to help people feel the presence of a greater power, why
even older myths and legends, have always been used to help people grasp the ineffable,
the sacred.
Guided imagery as a mind body therapy is also deeply relaxing and experiential. It is a
basic tool in medicine used for many illnesses. It is used in cancer clinics worldwide to
help cancer patients relax and heal. Guided imagery is as simple as picturing an event or
memory in your imagination. If you relax and close your eyes and picture your bedroom,
you can look around in your imagination and "see" your bed, your dresser, the windows,
and the color of the walls. When you use guided imagery for healing, you can picture an
illness and your body's healing mechanisms. For example, you can picture cancer cells
and your white blood cells eating them. We did this in the first imagery exercise above.
Michael has used guided imagery with cancer patients for twenty five years, and the
artists in Mary's program all use guided imagery whether they dance, draw, or tell stories.
The legend of the old woman of the springs that we are about to tell is an ancient myth ,
that links art and healing. It talks about how art and healing were one in a mythical time
of spirits and how we are still connected to our ancestors through deep memories and our
own physiology. The legend itself is as old as any story and aspects of it appear in
Native American legends, Jewish lore, Sufi myths and African stories. The legend of the

old woman of the springs is about the wellspring of creativity that is within each of us. It
is about creation, connections, and our birth.
It is also a story about you being loved perfectly for who you are right now. In the
legend, the old woman of the springs who created you, loves you, even if you are ill, in
crisis, depressed, or lost. She loves you into the very center of your sadness, the deepest
heart of your pain, the core of your anger. In a real sense, the old woman of the springs is
our ancient mother. And we all have the memories of being inside her body in the soft
whooshing, the moving, the dimmed colors, the lub dub of her heartbeat, the flowing
sounds of her breathing. This is the first healing art, music, and dance that we recall.
This ancient legend brings us there as softly as she sings. Do you hear her voice?
Healing art is about going back into the place where we were loved perfectly, and where
we were embraced by sound, colors, and movement. It is about you loving yourself for
who you are right now and being seen and honored for who you are right now. In the
legend, the old woman is the one who nurtures us in that way. For you, the old woman
can be anyone; it can even be an old man- gender is not important here. In this book the
love starts from inside of you.
All through this book we take the story of the old woman of the springs and expand it and
use it to help you understand how art heals. Whenever we tell the story, you can rest.
You don't have to think, analyze, understand, or learn anything. Each time the story is
told let it take hold of you as if it were a lullaby. Relax, have fun, be entertained. Let
yourself heal.
I will tell you a story. It is a story that is older than any other. This story is deep in our
memories, this story is deep in your soul. It is the story of the creation of art and healing.
It always begins with the story of the old woman of the springs. She has always been
seen as the weaver of our dreams, as the mother of creativity and art, as the one who
could heal. Close your eyes, relax, let your breathing slow down. We will start from the
ordinary, from your kitchen table, from a drive in your car, or a hospital room from
wherever you are. And we will take you deeper. We will go into our imagination on a
journey. Let us go into a mystical forest. It is a secret place, it is the place that only you
can see, it is a place in your imagination . You can find it in any moment. You will find it
by becoming ill, by being in a life crisis, by seeing death, by falling in love, by becoming
an artist. First, imagine that you are on a path. It is a narrow path, the ground is dirt, it
is hard enough so it is comfortable to walk on. It is the path of the creative healer. As
your feet find it, you can imagine that you start to walk. Feel the hard ground, hear your
footsteps fall, feel the grass on the sides of the path touch your legs. Smell the air, feel
the warm soft breeze on your face. As you walk you begin to feel differently, the air itself
changes, it opens and fills with light., it expands and as it expands, you expand too.
Your eyes open wider. your ears can hear more clearly. Your body moves by itself and
your breath is not only yours anymore.
As you go down the path, your way darkens and narrows slightly. The leaves touch your
skin and the soft earth caresses your feet. The warm moist air glistens on the leaves like
dew drops and the energy within you flows outward. As you look ahead, you can see an
emerald pool down a short hill. It is round and beautiful and it shines in the afternoon

sun. It is on the bottom of a glade of small trees.. The pool is deep blue and perfectly
round and in its center is a spring that flows upwards from the earth as pure clear water.
You can see the bubbles coming to the surface in whirlpools, you can almost hear the
bubbling as it goes on forever. Now look upwards on the ground next to the spring.
Above the spring, she sits, in perfect and eternal peace. She is the most beautiful
creature you have ever seen, she is a woman of pure spirit. As you look at her, you can
see that she changes as you see her. One moment she is the virgin Mary looking down on
you with perfect love. One moment she is your lover, looking at you with eternal desire,
and in the next moment she is an old woman with a loom who weaves the silver and
golden threads that make the springs and the earth itself. And then, in another moment
she is a turtle who has sat forever on the side of the spring watching all of it being born.
As she sits and changes like the light you can see that she has been there forever and has
created the world. She weaves the fibers of her most beautiful dream. She weaves art
and healing as one. She weaves each of us into the vision as artists, as healers. She
weaves the very spirals that we travel on, on the energy that makes us fall in love. She is
weaving this story as I am telling you. She is weaving this book as her song on earth. She
is singing to us.
Now look more closely. She sits on the edge of the spring and as she looks down inside
the spring, she can sees the eternal wellspring of creativity and she can see your life.
She has meditated here for a million years and she can see the water spring up from the
very center of her own heart. She sees how beautiful she is, was, and will be. She sees
how it always flows, and how it will flow for a million lifetimes. For each lifetime, each
of our ancestors before us from the first one, she has sat there. She has been there for all
of eternity.
You can see that out of the spring comes a turquoise light. It shines on her face and on
yours. You can see that she is very ancient. If you look closely you can see that a part of
her is young and youthful, and a part of her is very old. Look at her hands. As she sits,
and you look at her hands, it is almost as if she holds a magic wand, from which she is
weaving a magic web. You can see that she looks deep into the springs, and from the
center of the spring you can see the energy go up into her hands. She weaves a magic
web for you. She catches the springs energy and power, and weaves it into the earth.
She sees it and her hands can feel it. When you look at her hands closely, you can see
that she is weaving a spiral of light, and if you look very closely at what her hands are
weaving, you can see that it is the light from exploding nebula that come from the deepest
inner depths. This is the moment and source that is the creation of images. As she takes
the dream of art and healing from the spring, she takes it to each one of us and weaves it
into our hearts. There is a string inside of each strand of woven web. These strings go
from her hand and fly up as one, to each one of us, to you, up into the center of your
heart. You are in the place where time and space are not limited and these threads come
up like spirals and you can see them go into infinity and they go up and down in the past,
present, and the future . She holds the interlocking connections together at the side of
this eternal spring. She can see us always, she sees us always. And now, we can see
her. She is weaving the web and holding the connections together. We can see that we
are connected to many others. We are connected to everyone who is healing themselves
with art from the beginning of time to the end of time. As we see her, we realize that we

too are part of her dream. It is the ancient dream of art and healing as one. She sings to
us in her eternal chant. "Each of you is an artist. Each of you is a healer".
Reclaiming your inner artist
The guided imagery of the legend of the old woman of the springs is the first story of art
and healing. In a real sense, the book Creative Healing, is her song. The path to her
spring is the path to creative healing. This book brings each of us to the spring where she
sings, for she sings about the creativity within us. We are all artists, whether we paint,
sculpt, write poetry, tell stories or dance, garden, cook, make a home, or are a caregiver.
You can simply begin by journeying back to the point in which your life was the most
creative. Take a few moments and close your eyes and remember these moments. Relax
and you will remember your moments of creativity. You left them behind, all of us did
as children, we will go back to where you were the artist. We will go back to where you
left that cherished part of yourself. We will guide you to return to that moment, to
reclaim yourself as artist. You may have forgotten. So we have set up pathways of
creative healing that will guide you to reunite with your most creative self. You can
choose whatever medium that resonates with you the most. Follow us. It is the way to
spiral to your own creative source. This medium will reunite with you with your artist
within. It will feel natural. It will be who your are.
Art as a way of healing, our own personal stories
We believe that at the core of the personal story, told as lived experience, is the truth.
All through this book we tell the personal stories of patients, artists, and healers. We will
tell the stories of people who healed themselves with art. Within the personal story is the
actual way it happened, not the theory. Like guided imagery, a personal story is
something to be felt and experienced. For us, art and healing is a passion, art is a way of
healing, a way of caring, and a way of knowing. How did we get here, how did we
become involved in art and healing? Mary is a nurse, a wife, and a mother with three
children. How did she find herself the co-founder of The Arts In Medicine Program at
the University of Florida? Michael was a physician, a father, a husband, and
photographer. How did he come to believe that art is a powerful healing tool for cancer
patients and why did he found Art As a Healing Force? Here are their stories from the
beginning. Here is how they started to become healing artists.
Marys story:
Several years ago I was extremely ill. I was going through a very difficult divorce. I was
in a rage, depressed, and extremely out of control. All the resources in my life had
collapsed and I was drowning. I was not able to deal constructively with my life, with
my children, or with my friends. I was in therapy, but I wasnt making any movement
forward. I was surrounded by my grief and I couldnt see past it. I was in a place of
darkness and despair. I remember the therapist saying to me, "It's time to do something
different with your rage and your grief."
In a lucid moment, I decided to abandon my fears of being a painter, something I had
always dreamed of being, and had never given myself permission to be, because I never
felt good enough. Finally I did not put so much pressure on myself to be "good enough."

10

I just remembered I had always wanted to be an artist. At that time, I felt so devastated
that the fear of inadequacy was minute compared to the painful loss I was experiencing.
In my memory, I remember the way everything happened like it was a slow motion
movie. . I walked out of the therapists office. I was at the end of my rope. It was a
drizzling-rainy kind of day, it seemed like life was going on without me. I was deeply
depressed. My body was in such pain that I wanted to fall down and die. I remember
walking up to a large muddy puddle. I could see my refection in the mud. I thought about
just of falling down in it. I glanced up and there was a slow moving car hesitantly
driving towards me. As I looked at it, I flashed on the face of a woman I recognized. It
was my friend Lee Ann. She was a painter. She came up and rolled down the car
window, 'Why dont I take you to breakfast and Ill take you to my studio and you can
start painting.' " I took out a large canvas and did not even know how to hold a brush. I
looked though magazines and saw a picture of a woman who was broken and distorted.
That was how I felt. I started painting. I got excited about the colors of the paint, how the
shapes appeared on the paper. My painting was large and it started to look like
something, most importantly it looked like my pain and it looked like how I felt. I forgot
about how I felt and instead looked at how I felt. I got excited about the making of the
painting. Then I got another canvas and started a series of paintings of woman. They
were all distorted in the beginning. I painted garish backgrounds. I took photographs of
myself and I started painting myself. I become absorbed in the process and painted how
I felt, instead of thinking of how I felt. I began to realize I was painting my life.
"Next, I created a studio space for myself and simply began painting. I painted
feverishly. In the beginning, I made no attempt to define myself or my process. I painted
from pure feeling states. I became absorbed in the pure expression and gesture of
painting. I could completely release my energy passionately on the canvas. The series
turned out to be self portraits. The first painting I called "Cut Out My Heart." It was my
pain, a deeply intense and dying pain. The figure was broken, distorted, diffuse,
crumpled, crying, and bleeding. I painted "her." This figure had been my despair, my
uncensored and purely emotional energy. And in the moment I had released this image, I
stepped back and looked. Gasp. What I saw was an aspect of myself that I couldnt face,
it was so ugly. Yet I felt calm and detached. I had let go, on an intense emotional and
physical level. Painting is physical for me, I embody my pain as I paint it. For the first
time I was experiencing my pain in a strange and new way. As a painter I stood in front
of the canvas and was for the first time in control. I painted my emotions, I painted my
body. I could feel that I was the creator of myself. I backed away, left the studio, and
went home. When I returned, I saw that the image had captured and contained a moment
that was now past. Then, I had an incredible insight. The painting remained an object
that contained an image created in genuine and immediately felt expression, and I now
had moved past it. I realized that there was movement and I was witnessing my own
transformation.
"As I painted this series of self-portraits, in each painting I struggled with form and
perspective. Metaphorically I was recreating and reconstructing my inner form and inner
perspective. The external creative process mirrored my inner world. I realized the
manifestation of movement and change was powerful and it was a process of knowing
myself. As I immersed myself in the painting, I not only became well, but clearly
became the artist I had always wanted to be, a part of myself I had neither acknowledged
11

nor honored. It was from this personal experience that I realized that art could be used as
a vehicle for healing.
"Art became a way to know myself through the experience of the personal pain that I
painted. In seeing it, I could step away. I became the artist, and the series of paintings
remained as the physical creation of pain. They were now my art, completely separate
from me. It was a tangible experience of growing away from the place I had been when
the images were painted. In essence I became free. Then I spent time in my studio with
my girlfriends painting my life. I spent two years as an artist in my studio. I painted my
children playing on the beach. I painted the surrounding landscapes that I saw. I would
set up still lifes on the kitchen table and I would paint the things that I loved.".
Michaels story:
"I was a physician on the Hopi Indian reservation that was in the center of the Navaho
land. I had been sent there by the Public Health Service when my position at the National
Institute of Health was eliminated. Up to then I had been an research imunogeneticist,
studying antibodies. Now suddenly I was in an emergency medicine situation that was
very sad. I saw hundreds of Navhos and Hopis a day. Each patient visit was mandated to
last no more than four minutes and many of the mid- reservation Navahos did not speak
English. Most of the patients were babies dying of dehydration from diarrhea and we did
not have a laboratory to do electrolytes. This was amazing to me, it was so dark I really
could not believe it. Going to work each day I was more unhappy than I had ever been in
my whole life. The way I was forced to practice medicine felt entirely wrong to me.
Even when I could speak to my patients in English, like I could with the Hopis, I was
excluded from their lives. All I could do was ask them how long they had been ill, what
hurt, what they had been given before?. All I could do was give them a prescription for
medicine or refill the prescription for medicine they were taking. The first night I was on
call, two babies died of conditions that never would have killed them in the city hospital I
had just come from. I felt like we were killing the people with poor care but each of us
did the best we could under what were essentially third world mountain conditions. Each
day that I went through the motions I became more depressed, so I left the reservation.
This was very difficult for me since had I never left anything, but I was at the end of my
rope and did not want to go on doing things I did not want to do any longer. I also
realized that medicine using only drugs and surgery was not what I wanted to do so I
simply stopped doing it. I realized this had been building up for a long time, that I
wanted desperately to do something in my life that allowed me to be who I was, yet after
years of medical training and research it was very hard to leave medicine and find out
who I was.
"So I went back to where I had done my residency. I drove up the California coast and
looked for a place to live. I knew I wanted to be in the country and be on the land. I
found a seaside village that called to me. Somehow it seemed like home. I walked into
the real estate office and sat down and found myself telling the story of who I was.
When the real estate broker heard I was a physician who was interested in the spirit he
gave me a place to live. He was Christian Scientist and wanted a doctor around him who
could treat him without using drugs when he became ill each winter. I was it. So I moved
into a house overlooking the ocean and the sunset, and each day I walked on the beach
and day dreamed. What would I do with my life? How could I heal the visions of the

12

dying babies and the victims of auto accidents and the endless patients in plastic chairs
moving one by one into my office where I could only see them for two minutes. How
could I heal the years of doing something I did not love and the years of abusive medical
training where I had been taught not to feel what was going on around me in peoples
lives.
"So I daydreamed back to the last time I had been truly happy. I had been a teenager,
before medicine or even medical research had taken over my life. I was walking in the
new fallen snow at dusk. The light was soft and purple and I felt I could touch the light
and move my fingers through it like thick air. It was completely still. The silence was
open and I was absorbed in total peace. I was taking pictures in black and white of the
stalks of grass standing upwards, falling over, and looking like dancing figures in the
drifts of snow. I saw the grass dancing before me in slow motion in the last light, the
cold air, space and time opened to me. That moment was the opening doorway and I
went in and in the moment of taking a picture somehow I was free. I remembered this
feeling of peace and freedom, of merging with nature and of almost disappearing into the
world. This feeling was so different from the way I felt in the world of medicine I had
been in for so many years. I decided, not knowing what I would do, or even who I was,
that I would simply return to the last place I was truly happy.
" I remembered that that was when I was a photographer, an artist. So instead of
applying to another residency or going back into research I become a photographer again
and started to spend my days taking pictures of rocks on the beach. I actually defined
myself as a photographer and even tried to earn my living selling photographs. I would
walk each day in the dimming light and find a rock that spoke to me and take her portrait.
I would look at reflections and shapes and in the looking would be enchanted. I would
print the pictures and hang them and look at them deep into the night and feel the
harmony of the earth.
"One day I took nudes of my wife. They were very beautiful to me. Her shapes were
soft and welcoming and also deeply exciting and energizing. Then I juxtaposed the
negatives of the rocks with the negatives of Nancy, and my wife and the earth became
one. I was deeply happy with this and as I made my art I was slowly healed of medical
school and the pain I saw there. I was healed of all my memories of people's sadness
and abuse, and the dying babies. I was healed from the emptiness of the way doctors
treated patients and how impersonal the work was in hospitals and how dark the world of
being sick and only being looked at as a body was. I started to think about creating my
life anew, making my life as art. Nancy and I built our home together and to finance this I
started working as a physician again. But this time I was different. I used meditation
techniques I had learned, I spent time with my patients listening to their stories, and I
started to do relaxation and guided imagery as part of allopathic medicine. I had
changed. My medicine had changed. My way of seeing and my way of being had
changed. Looking back on this story, it seems to me that my artist within came and got
me in my darkest moment and healed me. And when it happened, it just happened. I did
not heal myself, I was healed by my photography.
"Years later as my wife was having a bone marrow transplant for breast cancer I wrote a
journal about the experience and that probably saved my life again. I was staying in her
room in the hospital for the five weeks the procedure took. Watching her undergo this
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difficult procedure and worrying about its complications was as hard as anything I had
ever done. And again my inner artist emerged. For reasons I didnt know I decided to
bring a laptop into her room and write each day. And each day I awakened to the world
of my story and the world of her transplant. What I found was that each day I would see
what was happening to her and me, I would also see it out of the eyes of myself as the
writer- artist. I would also see her spirit and somehow each day I would give thanks for
seeing it. Instead of being sad or being a crises report, my journal became deeply
spiritual. It became a story of bravery and of Nancy as my teacher. The artist within had
changed my eyes. Each time I wrote I could see her differently and see what was
happening to us in a way that was sustaining for me and not depressing. Somehow my
vision was of her beauty, not of her suffering and that is the vision I hold even to this
day."
How does the "art of healing" relate to healing art?
Creative Healing brings forth an illuminated aspect of ourselves in everything that we do.
This book is an activity. It is about becoming illuminated and coming out of
concealment. For everyone who wants to be healed there a moment in their lives where
they can see themselves anew. There is a moment when you drive along the road and see
the sun- dappled leaves, their green richness, and see yourself in it. Creative healing
brings on a shift in experience. For each person there is the vision that stands out in our
lives. It can be a memory of a spiritual vision, a time with our families, or the making of
art. In this book we will take you to that vision and slow it down so you can see it more
clearly. That is what art does. We will look more closely and slower, in between the
moments, in between our breaths.
Creative Healing is about returning to the source of healing, and regeneration. It is
programmed from the spirit to the to mind to the body. This book will help you tap into
the creative source of healing in a spiritual way. This book will be like a seed given
birth. You have this deep capacity for transformation. You spiral inward to make
contact with your healing energy. Any intentional act to heal yourself will access it. We
will use the force of your passionate creativity and in this manner we will intentionally
use art to manifest forms that express healing. We will use art to express light, anger,
joy and change. We will use art to express yourself.
An imagery exercise to contact your inner healer: The journey on the sacred
spiral
This next guided imagery takes you deep inside yourself to the place where images come
from, to the place where you make art, and to the place where you heal. This imagery is
different than the imagery of old woman of the springs. It does not tell a story, it takes
you into a visual place of being inside your body. It takes you into your own healing
physiology. It takes you into the meditative space where time and space are changed and
where art and healing are one.
Close your eyes, let your breathing get slower and deeper, relax. All you have to do now
is let yourself go into your imagination, into your mind's eye. Let yourself read these
words and just be with them and everything will happen by itself. There is nothing to do,
your mind will take you where you need to be with your imagination. All you need to do

14

is rest. Lets picture in our mind's eye, going inward on a journey on a sacred spiral.
The spiral is very ancient. It comes from ancient memories of our birth and our rebirth.
The spiral is how we emerged in the birth canal. As we were born, we all turned and
rotated and went downwards towards the light. As we die, we all spiral and turn and go
upwards towards the light. It is all the same, all deep within our remembrances, deep
within our souls. In mythology the spiral is the movement of going into the center all
energy. In nature spirals are the basic forms of space and time, they are in stars, light, in
nebula and galaxies, and seashells.
Now see and feel your body as made of energy and movement. Inside it you can see
colors and flow, you can see channels and fluids moving. Now look inside your body and
see the spirals of motion that are within you. There are small ones in the cells, larger
ones in the organs, and a larger one within your whole body. They do not necessarily
correspond to anatomical body parts, they are just the beauty within us. See and feel the
spirals within your body merging with each other. See and feel your spirals and those of
your loved ones. See how your spirals touch your children, your loved ones. See and feel
the spirals merge when you make love. The vortexes within all of us are constantly in
movement, constantly interacting with the environment and each other. We are all born
on the sacred spiral. and we spiral forever in time and space, like the planet earth spirals
around the sun. We spiral in orbits of space and time. The universal movement is within
us and outside us, it is contracting and expanding, breathing in and breathing out. The
spiral goes beyond ordinary time and space and within the spiral you can connect to
ancient healing spirits that will be your helpers and will be your guides. As you spiral
inward to a deeper place inside of yourself, you will pass through a membrane to the
center of your own heart and you will feel the pulsating of the universe from the very
center of yourself and you will realize that you are interconnected with everything.
In the center of your heart, is the source of love, of passion and desire. There are no
forms there and all forms emerge from it. It is the way the ancient ones knew the earth.
It is the place that is shared with all others where there is no thought or emotions. It is
the place that is sacred. It is the source of your life and the place where you are one
with your creator. This is the place within you that is the source from which everything
emerges. You are now inside of the membrane. The membrane holds the space between
the inner and outer world, it always separates the space of the two sides. The membrane
is a metaphor for going from the outer world to the inner world. It is chosen as the
metaphor because in the outer world, the membrane always separates two sides. In our
bodies, the membrane is the sac around the amniotic fluid before birth. All cells have it,
all birth is though it. It is like a veil. At any given moment on the membrane it emerges,
the source of life comes from the other inside of the membrane. Outside is the outer
world, of your body, your family, your environment, all the thing that you know, you are
now across the membrane, inside your heart in the inner world, which is spirit,
formless, your source, your source of creativity. . In the membrane is something inbetween the inner and outer worlds. You can always access the place inside you, through
your art. In the act of your passion and your creativity, you can spiral to this place that
is your inner source. You can always return to this place though the tangible world.
This moment or place resonates and spirals throughout your experience of who you are,

15

and goes though all the experiences in your life. You are inside the membrane in a place
where you are totally free. When you return from this imagery you will go to your living
experience, to the place of tangibles. This is the point from where you will start to get
well. Your illness may be the place where you feel that all your resources may have
ended and all is gone. It is the place to return to your desire to live, to be fully alive, and
to be happy. The point is to get well, this is the choice. To heal yourself. The artist is a
way of healing.
Now rest a moment and let yourself become aware of your breathing. Notice that there
is a moment between breaths, there is a pause, a moment of suspended animation. There
is a moment where you are not actually breathing, you just are. Move into this space
with the intention to heal. Say to yourself "I am starting from this place with the
intention to do what I have always wanted to do in my life". This is a prayer. In this
moment you shift into being one with your creator, one with your source, and then you
begin to breathe in and out. You breathe in and out to move into any other dimension.
The process is the pathway. Now you are on the pathway. Art is the way. All that was t
unconscious is now conscious and you can see deeply that there is a wisdom and a truth
of what you are doing in your creation. You can see the glimpse of it in your heart. You
heal instantly by the glimpse of what is the miracle of your life, and what you are in this
moment emerges as the purest and most beautiful of forms, You are now the artist, you
are beautiful and passionate. You are creative. What is now important is having the
faith in your own creativity. You have become one with your artist. This artist is the
pathway to the healer.
In this guided imagery exercise, you have become an artist. From now on, your artist is
on the pathway to your healer, the healer within. This artist will activate the pathway of
continuous creation. Your objective as an artist is to make forms. You make art in
forms that are fluid. You do not need to understand these forms, you only need to flow
with them.. Flow with your own spiral of creativity. Inherent is constant change,
constant beauty, the ability to love. You see this. Inherent in the creative is the ability to
be formed.
Instead of illness teaching you about limits, your artist can take you into freedom and
passionate creativity. You are powerful. You are now the creator. You go into the
opposite of illness, you go into freedom, creativity, limitlessness. Then you become
empowered. As the artist you stand in front of yourself. You can see who you are. You
have changed as an artist. You will not stay the same, you will grow and change. Now
you realize that art is the way to open the door again and again to something new and
different. You realize that you harness the creative energy inside you and therefore can
influence what happens to you in your life. This energy can deeply effect your personal
inner world, if not necessarily the outer one. It is exhilarating to feel creativity, to
experience the empowerment which comes from the ability to create. That is the source
of the life change.
Next you realize that the only way to keep the flow going is to let art come though you
into the outer world. Let it go out, let it flow. It comes from love. It is about
cultivation and grace. You offer yourself to be connected to thoughts, you offer yourself
to others, you allow yourself to love yourself and be seen and give someone the
wonderful opportunity to love you back. It is not an outcome it is a continuous process.
16

We give from the center of our hearts to the center of another's. The first path is to heal
yourself, the next path is to heal others. By knowing this path you share it with others.
Know that we are on the path of the healer. This path is not dependent on traditions. It is
just from the center of your own heart. Listen, honor the creative expression, with
acceptance honor the fullest expression of yourself. Know that constant transformation
and healing are deeper than our body, they are in the center of our heart and soul.

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18

Chapter Three

Story time: The history of art and healing

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The new field of art and healing is the oldest healing we know of
The story of art and healing is an ancient one. It tells the stories of how people have used
art to heal themselves from the time of the hunter gatherer human culture to the time of
the newest programs in hospitals today. This story grounds you in the flow of your past,
present, and future, it connects you to your ancestors. It shows you that you are a part of
a great tradition that has gone on since the beginning of both art and healing. We include
this chapter on the story of art and healing to give you increased faith in using art to heal
by knowing that this new field is actually the oldest healing that there is. What is the
main thing we can learn from listening to the stories of the first artist healers? The main
thing we can learn from this chapter is that healing with art is as old as being a mother
and that the first artist and the first healer were one person and they were just like you,
they had your body, your mind, and your spirit. This powerful tool for healing has been
used forever. Now you can use it too.
The story of art and healing
What is the story of art and healing? To summarize it in a short story, it is a journey from
the nurturing care of a mother singing a lullaby, to the hunter in the cave preparing his
vision of the hunt. It moves from the woman mystic doing a ritual around childbirth, to
the tribal peoples who danced together to heal. It journeys to the shaman as a healer
specialist of the inner world, to the sacred artist and healer of Buddhism, Judaism,
Christianity and all religions. It reaches the modern artist changing space again, and
finally ends up in the present day where artists and healers use art to heal themselves,
others, and earth. The journey sounds far, and there are large jumps between each stage
as we describe them. The separations, however, are artificial. The evolution happened in
a more complicated and nuanced way, but the major points add up the same. One person
makes art and goes inward and frees their inner healer. The process is ordinary and
visionary at once. We are still every one of the heroes in these stories. We are parents,
spiritual people, and modern day artist healers. As we make healing art we add our
stories to the ongoing saga. We are the healing artists. As we make art we remember
who we are.
In the beginning was the mother
At the beginning of art and healing, is the simple story of a mother. As she sat holding
her baby in her arms, she sang a lullaby. We believe that the first piece of healing art was
the lullaby of a mother to her baby. And that probably started before the baby was even
born. Within the uterus, the unborn baby could hear his mother singing, he could see soft
colors, she could feel her mother dancing, and making love. Art as healing came from
mothering and loving. After the baby was born, as the mother took care of her baby, she
still sang songs. She decorated the baby's cradle board, she made her beautiful clothing,
she rocked him to sleep in a carved cradle. When the baby was ill, which was common in
ancient times, the mother's songs became more serious, they turned into chants and
prayers. We can imagine that after hours of singing, she would see spirits and hear songs
from the wind or from the night. She would sing these new songs to her baby.
Anthropology tells us that in ancient times women believed that there were spirits,
helpers, forces, or powers, who could help heal a baby so mothers sung and chanted to

20

bring these spirits to their lovingly carved cradles. The fathers too naturally used art to
heal. When the baby was ill, he told stories and made believe he was a great bear.
Ancient stories tell us that fathers even believed that they could contact a bear spirit to
help their babies heal. The mother might say a prayer and carve a doll who was a
protector or an ancestor. African mothers to this day carve amulets to protect their babies
and to honor ancestors and babies they have lost. So healing with art was always about
love and spirituality. Each of us can still be healers in this way now.
We believe that the first healing art was as natural as mothering; it came from the deep
love of a mother for her baby. This could be why most healing artists today are women
and why most healing traditions using art though history have involved mystical women.
Woman mystics are pioneers, delving deep into the mysteries of the inner world. You can
imagine a distant time when women would get together in a circle and sing to one of their
own who was grieving from a loss, or dance with a woman who was about to give birth.
The traditions of childbirth were rich with art: woman midwives sung, instructed mothers
to dance, and made amulets to protect mothers to- be from dangers that in ancient times
were very real. Adorning their bodies, painting, tattooing, and scarification were all part
of ancient healing practices and all were part of a womans everyday life. Art was a way
of caring.
The first art made of a woman was believed to be the Venus of Magellen. This
magnificent sculpture portrayed a woman in her most beautiful shape. Her breasts were
large and pendulous, her belly was huge and round. In the art she looked like she had
given birth to the earth and was breast feeding it daily. This sculpture embodies fertility,
fecundity, and the power to create life. Imagine a man or a woman making this sculpture
during a ceremonial ritual. Such images were believed to be ritual objects for fertility
and childbirth or simply to represent the reverence for the life force itself which was seen
as Her. Amulets of these figures were carried to protect a person or help a woman create
babies, to enhance her fertility and to heal the earth.
The first mothers made their healing art in private with their babies. As a woman sat
singing to her sick baby she might make up a story that would explain what illness was
about or what had caused the problem. This story would be the subject of the healing art,
of the song, of the amulet. This art was not often made of materials that lasted and is
probably lost to recorded history. Later groups of woman told these stories over and over
again and they became the cultures theories of illness and the subject of rituals
performed in healing groups. Men too would tell stories, dance and sing, and build
theories of illness that became the basis of healing rituals or ceremonies. As the rituals
grew and became more elaborate, they probably resembled theatrical performances of
today. They were a mixture of elaborate costumes, stories, songs, and drama. People
believed that this ritual would bring in the healing spirits and heal their loved ones. In
ancient times and even now, all cultures except ours have believed that illness is caused
by being out of harmony with spiritual forces. For that reason, the art used in healing
tended to be spiritual in nature. It often portrayed spirits or protectors or even ancestors
who had died and thus lived in the world of the sprits. Other healing art was about a
persons life, about a hunt or a journey or a place they loved. But one thing is clear from

21

these stories. The art was transformational. It was done to accomplish something, to
heal, to soothe, to love. It was done to make the hunt successful, to make the land fertile,
to control the weather, and to heal. Yes, art was also decoration, but its main function
was transformative: to create balance and to heal.
The cave man and woman and the animals
Most art historians consider cave paintings to be the earliest form of recorded art . On the
walls of the cave in Tres Friers in southern France magnificent paintings portray a human
with large circled eyes wearing a headdress with tall antlers, possibly representing a
hunter or a shaman. These paintings were thought to portray magical visions to improve
the hunt. This would make sense for the early hunter knew his animals deeply. To be
able to hunt animals with a spear he had to get close, close enough to literally touch their
bodies. To do that he had to know their habits, trails, ways of moving, what they ate,
where they found water. He could almost see out of the animal's eyes and when he killed
the animal he worshipped it as if it had offered him its body. The hunter honored the
animal's spirit and became one with it. He knew the animal like he knew himself. When
the animal died, its spirit was often believed to enter into the hunter and then he would
know the animal even better. He would become an even more powerful hunter.
You can imagine the early cave man or woman dancing in a dark cave lit only by fire.
You can picture him or her painting pictures of the dancers in their wild headdresses on
the walls. It is theorized that the hunter believed that when he dressed as the animal he
became the animal. He could speak to the spirit and ask it to come to him in the hunt. It
was a spiritual union of human and animal that spoke of reverence and interdependence.
After all, we share the same DNA with the animals, we have hearts like they do, breathe
like they do, they are our brothers and sisters. The experience of "becoming" the animal
was primary to the making of this ancient art. Hunters would paint themselves with
animal blood and dung, and transform themselves into the very creatures they hunted.
Through their art, they became more powerful, better able to hunt, and feed their people.
Dancing to free our boiling energy
One of the most beautiful stories of art and healing comes from the Kalihari Bushman
people of the African desert. The Bushman are a people living today as hunter gatherers.
Looking at them may yield exciting clues about how peoples used art and healing for
millions of years. For ninety nine percent of human evolution, humans were hunter
gatherer peoples. Richard Katz of the Harvard University Kalihari project visited these
people and wrote about their healing rituals in his book Boiling Energy. He describes
how the bushman would dance all night several nights a week. They believed that dance
freed up the boiling energy within them and was the way to heal. During the dance ritual
their bodies became incredibly hot and enormous energy came up from within them.
These techniques often caused their illness to subside. Sometimes they would go into a
trance after dancing for hours and people around them would touch them and help them.
This community healing ritual was an ordinary part of Bushman life and was not
something special or artificial. It fit in with the peoples world view and probably
evolved over millions of years..

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The healing dancing of the Bushman has several important characteristics in the story of
art and healing. First, the dance "the art" was done by everyone. There was no figure
who did something to you. There were people who led the dance but the healing was
done by the dancing itself. The physical movements freed the healing energy. So in a
very real sense, the dancers became their own healing artists. Each person made the art
that freed their inner healer. Second, in the process people did not separate out "art" and
"healing". Their healing dancing was simply a "freeing" of energy, a transformation. It
was not just for entertainment although it certainly was the most exciting thing that they
could do. Dance and healing were one. We cannot say the dance caused healing- it
simply was healing.
A guided imagery of freeing boiling energy
This imagery lets you picture in your imagination what it must have been like to be
among the hunter gatherers who healed themselves with dance.
Close your eyes, relax, let your beating slow down, take several deep breaths, let your
abdomen rise and fall. Now imagine that you are on an plain, a rolling prairie. Look up
and you can see more stars than you have ever seen before. The whole sky is like an
inverted bowl, the stars are like other worlds. The air feels soft on your skin, Your
breathing feels deep. You touch your feet to the ground and feel the soft earth. You know
that this is a special vision and you feel deeply like you have been in this sacred place
many times before.
Let yourself be on the great plain under the stars on a beautiful clear night. The
mountains shine in the distance and the grazing animals cover the plains like distant
trees. All your friends and relatives are around you, in fact all the people you know and
have ever known are there. You are there to dance, you do this several times a week.
People around you start to dance, to move, to shake. Music starts and drums beat all
around you. You know you are here to heal, to free your boiling energy. Suddenly you
can feel yourself dancing, spinning, and whirling with all your people. You feel your
body getting hot and you feel the energy rising within you. You feel yourself going round
and round in larger and smaller circles and as you spin you feel yourself go deep into the
spinning and deep into yourself. Soon the stars and the plains and the animals all are
forgotten and you see yourself as if you are above you. You are just beautiful, and as you
see yourself dancing you can see red lines of energy shooting up from the base of your
spine and moving all throughout your body. You dance for hours and you feel looser and
looser and more and more wonderful and in the crystal dawn you are free and relaxed.
You feel like you are in perfect balance with the whole world and with all your people.
Then you see a person you know as a lead dancer. They come up to you and you fall in
their arms. And as you fall they hold you and they push on your body where it had hurt.
The healing energy gets even brighter and more beautiful. You are healed, whole, alive,
and full. You go back to your house and you see it is a part of the prairie. You lay down
to sleep and you vibrate like the mountains, you move like the winds, you shine like the
stars themselves. And you remember that you do this almost every night, it is the way you
keep well and heal. It is an important part of your life. Now come back into your own
room and awaken to your usual state of mind. You can see your bedroom or couch and

23

you can see the furniture and the things that usually surround you. You can bring this
vision back with you and you can dance to heal whenever you want to. You have this
memory deep within your cells. You can be your own artist healer. You can bring back
these feelings of freeing your inner energy and use them whenever you want to, in
imagery space or as a dancer. This is how healing with art feels, this is how it always
felt.
The first artist and the first healer were one person: the shaman
The next stage in the story of art and healing comes from the birth of shamanism.
Shamanism is a cultural practice where a person goes into another world, which
psychologists now see as their inner world or imagination, and sees spirits, gods, or
forces. The spirits are communicated with and wield influence to heal, to let a person
free, to let animals come to a hunt, to control the wind or sea, to influence fertility, to
change the world. It is our belief that the shaman evolved from the ordinary person
making art. When you make art you concentrate deeply, you go into a creative place
inside you and have ideas or visions or thoughts. From these inner meditations you
create a work of art. Remember the story of the mother who after hours of singing to a
sick baby sees spirits? That is all shamanism is. The creative trance takes you to the
inner world where you are different. In the Bushman culture every person in the tribe
danced and went into a trance and felt the boiling energy come from within them. Over
time however, the ancient tribal culture changed. As the hunter gatherer cultures became
more complicated people tended to specialize. Everyone did not dance three times a
week because they were out hunting or building houses or gathering food for a larger
group. And as the people stopped making art several times a week they lost their ability
to see into their own inner world. They simply got out of practice. Something else took
their attention. But there were still individuals among the people who danced and made
amulets and sung and went into trances and saw spirits in the inner world. Since the main
cause of illness in all the cultures in the world was believed to be spiritual, these people
were valued and became experts in the act of seeing within. Mercea Eliade, the eminent
University of Chicago history of religions scholar, said that a shaman was a specialist in
seeing spirits, the first specialist in the soul. As such, in contemporary times, the healing
artist is a medical specialist in restoring the body and soul.
The shaman received his or her calling by having a dream or vision, by inheriting the
position from a relative or by healing themselves from a illness. Generally the ability to
see visions or dream was the major requirement. Human culture had gone from a place
where everyone was an artist healer to the place where some people who were naturally
gifted at it did it for the group. But two of the main characteristics of early art and
healing still remained. Art and healing were still one, they just were not being done by
everyone. The shaman was thus the first artist and the first healer. And in the time of the
shaman, art was still transformational. Art was made to heal or to hunt. In that sense, all
of us who are healing ourselves with art are modern shaman.
Eventually, in tribal cultures, music and dance were combined with costumes and
storytelling and with objects and paintings in the creation of a ritual that we would now call

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theater or performance art. In ancient times this ritual was sacred and it was part of the
culture's healing practices. In ancient cultures it was believed that illness was caused by
spirits or forces, and the only way to contact the spirits was by a shaman going into a trance.
In the trance the shaman saw the spirits, talked them into releasing the illness or the person,
and came back to the tribe and told the story of the journey. The ancient shaman did not
venture inward without their powerful animal spirits to guide them. Much art was made by
the shaman portraying their journeys and thus art often contained images of animals, spirits,
canoes, shamans, skeletons, plants, gods and goddesses. All these images were actually
seen by the shaman in the inner world and were painted sculpted and danced as they were
seen. In a very real sense, shamanic art was realistic. It portrayed real experiences that the
shaman had and did so as a means of communication. The art was also believed to have
power in itself: the images were believed to contain part of the power of the object
portrayed.
Art and healing were one in the time of the shaman. Why was this so? There was no art
as such, no art as an activity separate from communicating with the spirits and accessing
their power.. The first healing art of the shaman was about embodiment, about becoming
the spirit or animal, being it as totally as the shaman could. The second way art and
healing were one was based on sharing. When the healer wanted to share their
experience with the patient or the village they told the story. The way they made the
story come vividly alive for people it became a kind of early theater.
Much later, native peoples would carve stone sculptures of human animal
transformations. Often the pieces would portray a shaman with a bear head or a woman
with owl wings or even a dancing shaman with bear claws and an owls face. Native
peoples say that the transformation pieces illustrate the stories shamans told of turning
into animals, seeing out of an animal's eyes, taking on the animal spirit. The carvings
enabled the people to share the experience and see what the shaman had seen. The pieces
would often be carried by the shaman in his or her pocket or hung on their costume. It
was believed that the pieces gave the shaman power by holding the energy of the spirit
animal transformation.
As human culture changed, specialization became more and more extreme, Later in
agricultural societies, certain people made art and certain people concentrated on healing.
Art and healing became separated more and more and each discipline became more
specialized. The person who did each action then became a different person who was
then called an "artist" or a "healer". But there were always those of us who held onto the
original vision of art and healing as one. Some artists painted or sculpted their sacred
visions, and these visions were seen as deeply healing. But the main cultural trend was
clear. Art and healing were becoming two different actions. They were done by two
different people. Further specialization had arrived.
Today artist healers still heal by art from visions of healing forces. When you dance you
can still free the healing energy. When you paint you can still paint healing forces. When
you write you can still tell your own story of how you are healing.

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The guided imagery story of the legend of the old woman of the springs: how
art and healing were born.
As we told you earlier, the old woman of the springs was the mother of all forms on
earth. As we tell more and more of her story she tells us more about how art and healing
were born. In this chapter of her story she tells us how she gave birth to the first art,
poetry, music, and dance and to the first artist healer.
Now go back in your mind to the story of the old woman of the springs. Go back to the
forest, the path, the circular turquoise spring.. And as she weaves the earth from her
dreams she sings to us. Close your eyes and listen to her song, "Listen to my song my
children. I will tell you the story of how art and healing were born. It is the oldest story,
it is a story tied to the story of who you are and where you came from. It is a story about
your origins. It is a creation story, listen, listen to my tale.
From deep within my most ancient memories, from far within my deepest love, my dream
emerges. Oh, I put my hands deep inside my own body, into the stars, into the night, into
the seas, into the forests, and I pull out the strands of the dream, I pull out the animals of
the four directions, I pull out their spirits, I pull out time and space, I pull out my peoples.
And as you listen to her, she reached into herself, she who was all there was, except for
the spring, and she pulled out time and space and she pulled out the four directions and
she pulled out the animals spirits and she pulled out the first peoples.
And the first peoples rested and slept and they stirred and stretched and they stood up on
their legs and they looked around. They saw the spring and they saw her weaving them
still and they were amazed and joyful and they opened they mouths and a song came out
and they moved and it was dance and they touched their fingers to the earth and it was
their visions and they spoke and it was the first poem. And the first peoples made art
with their first breaths and they saw her always above them dreaming them and they
were at peace.
She loved them perfectly of course and she put this memory deep within them and knew
that they would need this connection later when they became afraid. And then the old
woman saw them grow and prosper and she saw them start to make objects and hunt and
farm and she saw them stop making art, and stop seeing her. And she sat one day and
went deep into her heart and pulled out a special silver thread and it was the thread of
her own memory and it was the thread of art and healing as one and it was the thread
that led to her heart too. She pulled out this thread and she put it into each of the first
peoples hearts and it connected them to her because she could see that they were going
away. And she cried and she knew it was time and she knew too that they would be
coming home for that is the way the story went in each of the cycles of the world.
And there was born to these people those who always saw the silver threads and always
heard her song and always saw her face. They were the dreamers and they were inside
and outside at once and they were also the first artist and the first healer. Because they
were on her threads they were the first artist and the first healer as one person. They
were the first shaman, the first shamaness, the seer of visions, the first specialist in the
soul. For as the peoples became busy they saw outwards more, inwards less and finally

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could only see outwards by themselves and needed help to see inwards and the help was
the shaman and the shamaness.
The power of the springs
This ancient story of the old woman and the springs is true. It is paralleled in
anthropology, art history, and in the history of religions. And it is paralleled to in our
own body's physiology and our memories of hearing sounds and seeing colors in utero
and of birth. Every culture has a healing spring and a woman who watches over it.
Native cultures tell us that the woman of the springs sits above each spring and speaks of
the secrets of the earth. They tell us that all the springs are connected and the same
woman speaks to everyone at each spring. They tell us that there are women in the tribe
that still can understand the voice of the old woman of the springs. They say that if you
listen, her voice can be heard next to any spring. Lourdes in France and Tinos in Greece
are two of thousands of springs that are places of healing pilgrimages today. There are
many springs that the Virgin Mary has shown to people in visions. Stone circles and
Megaliths have always been associated with healing rituals. Ley lines cross the earth
with the energies of healing and in England the ley lines are believed to be male and
female, and where they cross they join. Sacred spots on earth have always been
associated with healing energy and have been worshipped in ancient times, tribal times,
and recent times. In one spot often next to a spring there will be an Indian mound, a
church, and a new age pilgrimage site. She still speaks to us though the ancient woman
of the springs, she does.
Egyptian and Summarian art
When agricultural societies became large and specialized the art still was
transformational. In the art of the first agricultural peoples one of the main sources of
imagery was the gods and goddesses. Healing gods were portrayed in human and animal
forms. The images were made to show the people what the gods looked like so they
could see them themselves and to have power in themselves. The huge statues of gods
and goddesses were believed to influence the harvest, the weather, fertility, and healing .
The making of these sculptures was from visions seen by priests and was deeply sacred.
the kings were buried with these works of art and they were believed to influence the
afterlife. The Sumerian and Egyptian cultures had a deep belief in mental imagery
influencing outer reality. Hermetic philosophy believed that a mental image became real
in the outer world if it was accompanied by prayers and the art helped make the prayers
more alive and real. The visions of the gods in their animal forms was believed to reveal
deeper incarnations of the gods that were extremely powerful.
Sacred art and sacred healing
As shamanism spread and became incorporated into mainstream religion, healing art also
became part of religious art. As Judaism developed, it held the belief that idols were not
to be made of God. Faith was to be the way of worship and imagery that portrayed the
deity was considered profane. But there was much sacred art in Judaism. Torahs,
temples, and shawls have the design of the star of David and also portraits of Abraham

27

and Moses and historical events from the bible. Again these images helped share the
visions of the prophets with the people but they were not believed to have primary power
by the Jewish people. In Judaism they were believed to represent the power of God in art
forms.
Christian and Buddhist art was based on the principle that meditating on images or
listening to certain sounds could put a person in a sacred state that would be healing.
Now art and healing were two. The artist was a specialist in making art and the healer in
healing. But because scientific healing had not yet been born, both art and healing
remained spiritual. The next movement in art was largely spiritual. Imagery in both
Christian and Buddhist art depicted sacred stories, drawn or sculpted from the visions of
artist mystics. The healers still believed in a spiritual cause of illness but the model of
the one figure, the shaman healer was replaced in large agricultural cultures by the
separate roles of the sacred artist and the sacred healer. Today, people who are ill use art
from their religion to heal. Patients in hospital rooms put up crosses, icons, stars of
David, Buddhas and pray to them to heal. Spiritual healing art is used extensively around
the world as a primary healing tool like it has been for centuries.
Tibetan Buddhist art
Tibetan Buddhist art gives us the most elaborate description of how art heals. Buddhist
teachings are useful to us because they are the most developed explanations of how spiritual
art heals. Anyone who heals themselves with art uses a similar process to a Buddhist artist
who makes art. They make an image that is believed to have power and share a vision of
healing. The doctrines of Buddhism are the most detailed and intricate and the art itself the
most technical. For Buddhism, art was spiritual high technology of healing which takes
place in a sacred spiritual geography. Art in Tibetan Buddhism is sacred and healing. In
Buddhism, it is believed that a person's life itself can be an art that can communicate the
vision of enlightenment and inspire others to find relief and happiness. In this view, for a
fully enlightened being, the only goal for any type of art is liberating others, healing others
from suffering. The seeds of art as healing are contained in the central doctrine of
Buddhism itself. According to this doctrine, when one becomes a Buddha, one is
transformed into three bodies. The first is the Truth Body, which is the experience of
wisdom. The second is the Beatific Body, which is the experience of bliss. The third is the
Emanation Body, which is the way bliss and wisdom are communicated to others. The
Emanation body is divided into three bodies. The first is the Supreme Emanation Body of
the Buddhas to help others. The second is the Incarnational Emanation body of teachers to
help others. The third is the Artistic Emanation Body made up of anything that represents
enlightenment. This is the aspect that particularly applies to us here. The Artistic
Emanation Body is made up of all the sacred art and the artists who create it. Literature,
visual arts, sculpture that represent the sacred life of the Buddha are all crucial in helping
people attain liberation. It is believed that Buddha could not even begin his task of
liberating people until their imaginations were opened up to the possibility of enlightenment
by looking at art. So art is crucial to the whole structure of Buddhism. It is nothing less
than the way a person can see, hear, listen, understand, and know how a new reality of

28

enlightenment is possible for them in their life. Art is the way wisdom and bliss are
communicated to others.
In Buddhism, healing is seen as total well being and expanded creativity of enlightenment.
It is much more than the absence of disease. So for Buddhism, art is the creative energy that
manifests in order to heal, it is the precious window into enlightenment, into the other world.
In this way, art is viewed as a gift of the enlightened ones, of the gods. It was also believed
that art would make itself when done perfectly: the gods would produce "wisdom
duplicates" of themselves that would merge with the sculpture. Thus Tibetans believe that
a sculpture transmits a living presence and its power can be increased by prayer and ritual.
For the Tibetans, the most important healing art is the life you live. Your Artistic
Emanation Body is the most powerful art form, the most powerful artistic emanation. For
your life to be healing art, you must live with the intent to heal in every breath. The second
most important art is literature. Songs, epics, poems, tales, and legends, are believed to be a
direct path to your imagination, a way to let you picture enlightenment directly. Next in
importance is music. Tibetans believe that harmony and vibration affect your heart directly.
Chants are believed to open the heart, to heal and inspire. Architecture is also important. It
can create sacred geography, sacred space. It designs mandalas which convey delight,
security, and exaltation. Deities are seen at precise places within the architecture, the
sacred building serving as their home. Of course, the most elaborate structures that can ever
be built are those we create in our minds with guided imagery. They are incredible intricate
and exact representations of heavenly abodes.
Sculpture is a way to embody yourself as a god. As you picture the icon, you energize the
mental image until you are merged with it and become it. The Tibetan Buddhist first
pictures the deity in his or her mind and then in the icon. The mind form is the most
powerful. Buddhists visualize themselves being made anew, being born, as it were, as the
deity. It takes the utmost discipline and practice to manifest as an enlightened being.
Paintings also are seen as windows into the enlightened world. They are exact
representations of the Buddha world and must be painted perfectly to be of optimal use.
In Tibetan Buddhism, art is a direct flowing out from the enlightened spaces of Buddha. It
gives a person a way to be embodied as an enlightened one, and that is how healing occurs.
As you are enlightened, you are healed. This did not always involve curing, since everyone
dies, including Buddha and the Dalai Lama. Death in Buddhism is a doorway to
enlightenment and the gateway to the next reincarnation so it is not in itself frightening or a
thing to be avoided. This view is directly applicable to our own experience -even among
those of us who are not Buddhists. We can look at sacred art and picture the images in our
minds eye and help heal ourselves too. Or we can hold any image that we believe will heal
us and meditate on it. This is the Buddhist tradition of healing art. As healing artists, we
each follow the Buddhist practice of helping others achieve well being.

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Chapter Four

How art heals: the physiology of art and healing

Art from the spirit, affects the mind and body
The spirit, mind, and body are one, and an image of art that comes from the spirit, and is
seen in the mind, affects the body. In that view, we are made to heal ourselves with art,
our bodies have evolved to do this, this is our evolutionary neurobiology, it is that simple.
When we experience art, our bodys self healing mechanisms are released to work at their
best. So if you are a woman with breast cancer who wants to heal herself with art you
can understand that the process of making art profoundly changes your spiritual state,
your mental state, and thereby helps your immune system to get rid of the cancer cells.
When a person has cancer, their bodys white blood cells eat the cancer cells. Otherwise
no one would heal. Chemotherapy kills many cells but your body kills the rest. When
you make art, your immune system is freed, its function is enhanced. Your attitude is
changed, your quality of life improved, and we believe your chance of curing the cancer
improved. Come with us and listen to the stories of art and healing about the physiology.
A story of healing cancer with art and imagery
Michael tells this story of a person he worked with. "A man came to see me who had
metastatic liver cancer. The reason he came was to ' let the energy that he knows is in
him, move from his center, to the rest of his body'. He felt he was blocked somehow and
that sadness was keeping him from opening up to the world. Now this was an unusual
chief complaint. That is what physicians call the answer to 'why are you here today.' All
chief complaints are new and different when you actually ask people what is on their
mind and not just what illness do they have. But this was not the response I would have
expected from this type of person. He was a beautiful man, tall and gray- haired and
dignified. He was a wealthy businessman who had had all he wanted of the finer things
in life. He had excellent taste and he surrounded himself with the best and now he was
very ill. His reason for coming was surprising to me considering how conservative a
lifestyle he led. But it turned out he had gone to meditation classes for years and was
deeply connected to his inner world.
"When I saw him, he made a sandtray of himself and his family. In a sandtray you pick
objects from a huge collection of miniature figures, animals, buildings, cars and other
things and arrange them in a tray of sand. The technique was pioneered by Carl Jung and
it is similar to making a painting or sculpture or even telling a story. The man put the

11

small figures representing him and his family in the sand, and his put down a toy house as
his home and up in the far right corner of the tray he put a mystical figure that looked like
nothing else in the sand tray and he made a sun ring around it. I asked him if he knew
who this figure represented, for he had told me about all the other objects in the
sculpture- but this one he had left out. He said he didnt know what the figure was and it
puzzled him deeply. I closed my eyes and looked around him. I saw and felt a presence
over his right shoulder. I asked him if he felt anything around him. He stopped and
meditated and tears came into his eyes. He said that he saw a light and felt a warmth
above him. I asked him to slow down time and to see in between the moments. His
breathing become deeper and he suddenly sat up straight. 'I see an angel, and she is so
beautiful' he said. 'Do you recognize her' I asked. His eyes were filled with tears. 'She is
my daughter who was killed in an accident.' 'Does she want to tell you anything?' 'She is
pointing her finger at my liver and light is coming out of it and it is flowing into me. She
is telling me that she is my angel and that she will help heal my cancer.'
"The next time I saw him he was deeply changed. He looked much more alive, he was
full of energy and almost seemed to vibrate. He told me that the ground under his feet
caressed him as he walked, the wind kissed his face, he walked at a slower pace and he
was at peace. He said that the earth sent healing energy up into him and that it tingled,
that his morning walk was now enchanted. I asked him to tell me what the energy of the
earth felt like. He told me that it was like tiny fireflies flying up into his body and
making him feel more alive. It was like the earth was sending her love up into him.
When he told me this he cried. I asked him if the energy in his spine could now move all
over. He told me it could. I helped him feel the flow of his energy when I moved it in
his body with my hands and then with his. I often move my hands over a person's body
and have them feel energy move inside them. One month later he called me to tell me
that his liver scan had come back completely negative. The three large metastatic
nodules that were growing and had been there for a year were now gone. Making the art
in the sandtray showed us his angel. It would have been more difficult to see it with
guided imagery alone, and much more difficult by any other means. Art is the best way
to see a transformative spiritual vision for an ordinary person. Seeing the angel put him
in the physiology of healing, where his immune system ate the cancer cells. I do not take
responsibility for his healing himself of cancer. He was getting the best cancer care from
a oncologist, he had changed his diet, he did his yoga, he had people praying for him, he
had put together a wonderful holistic cancer care regimen that included me and healing
art. I believe that what he did as a person with cancer was right for him. Everyone can
put together a 'healing pie' that includes all the modalities he used or anything that feels
good to them. Art can be a part of any person's healing force. It is the part that fills you
with energy and changes your life.
This kind of story is why we do the kind of work that we do. I was allowed to be part of
this mans intense beauty and share his light. I was allowed to see what he saw. I was
allowed to be with him as he was healed. When I started out as a physician I was taught
that medicine involved doing what was proven by scientific studies. I had done
immunogenetic research studying the white blood cell's ability to make antibodies against
foreign substances and I knew what a good research study was. But as I started seeing

12

patients with cancer, the world I found myself in was much different than the world I had
been taught to see. If I actually listened to the stories of the people I was seeing and
respected and loved them as human beings, I needed another world view. As I listened to
their stories and saw them heal, I found that I had deep beliefs in a healer within that
were not at that time supported by double blind studies. At first I was in a dilemma.
Should I wait for studies to be done on guided imagery before I did this kind of work
with my patients? I could not. I knew imagery and art would not hurt them and that I
would continue giving them the best allopathic care, but I also knew that my life was
changed, that I had to do what I believed in, I had to make my own inner experiences part
of my external world. At that time I started to do guided imagery with patients that
wanted it. Many years later studies were done that showed that imagery effected the
immune system and blood flow. Finally there was patient data to support this therapy. I
was glad I had used it for twenty years before the studies were done."
Art and healing is now in the same place in the progress of research that imagery used to
be in twenty years ago. We know art heals and yet we do not have many good
randomized studies directly proving it. The studies are being done now. Basically the
research is of two types, patient outcome studies and physiological studies. As these
studies show us that art heals, it may be easier to fund art and healing programs that are
starting in hospitals all across the country. However there are many good studies already
published that link on art to reduced pain, that show on art improves the quality of life,
that describe the impact of art on different patient populations and illnesses, that relate art
and symptom relief, that connect art and attitude and empowerment, and yet these
studies have not changed medical practice as much as they should have. Many studies of
music reducing pain have not helped put music in every hospital. If a drug were found
that was shown in studies to do what art does it would be used extensively. Only the
passion of a musician and a doctor working together has done that. It is only our beliefs
and passions that cause change, it is only our love for this work that makes it happen.
How art affects the body: the physiology of art and healing
For the physician in the medical center, art and healing involves observing how thoughts,
emotions, and images change blood flow and hormone balance in the body. As we make
art, we see images. The images involve the firing of neurons in different areas of the
brain. The firing neurons, the nets of cascading activity connect to the body in three
simple ways.
First the right brain, the home of imagery, sends messages to the lower brain areas which
connect to the hypothalamus. Images of art, music, movement and dance are first held in
areas that are responsible for thought and instituting muscle movement. The discharges
of neurons come from both the making of art or doing a movement, and the memory of
art and movement. The way it feels to the person is that there is a thought, an idea, or an
image of art, music, and moving that comes from their imagination or memory. Since
art, music, and dance are so ancient and involve so many propriaceptive sensory and
motor pathways, both the imagination of art, music, and movement, and the memory of
it, appear very real and intense as a person gets in touch with them. The movements are
reflected as discharges in areas that send messages to muscles and even if the artist or
13

dancer does not actually move the muscles that would be moved, they move
microscopically.
The places where the images of movement are held send nerve messages to the
hypothalamus that are processed and then go out to the rest of the body. Likewise the
image or dance movement itself is picked up by the brain and that area sends messages to
the hypothalamus too. So the artist or dancer's brain sends out messages to the whole
body if there is a movement or even if there is an imagined movement. The areas of the
brain that control movement have in them the memory of previous images or dance
movements that are stored in memory pathways. I believe that many of these memories
of images or movements are ancient flickering steadfastly within the human brain as it
evolved. When these visions come to the surface of our consciousness and are released,
it can be deeply healing.
When a person translates images in the mind to art made by muscle movements it
produces a deep level of concentration. They take the persons whole attention and take
them away from worries and concerns of the outer world. This happens automatically.
The person does not need to do anything except make art to focus intensely. The ancient
neural pathways of the mind take over and the person is taken "elsewhere" to a mental
state of pure concentration that most resembles meditation. The physiology that results
from this state is similar to the physiology of prayer and meditation and basically
involves deep relaxation and healing. Dr. Herbert Benson at the Behavioral Medicine
Clinic at Harvard University Medical School, wrote about this in his classic The
Relaxation Response. He showed that meditation alone lowered blood pressure, heart
rate, and breathing rate, and was a primary therapy for heart disease patients. Today, Dr.
Dean Ornish uses meditation as a major part of his heart disease regimen, to reduce
stress. He also uses it for its spiritual focus to reduce alienation and promote feelings of
connectedness and oneness.
How does this physiology process work? Images held in the right brain activate the
hypothalamus. The hypothalamus activates the autonomic nervous system and results in
arousal or relaxation of a double balancing system that impacts the whole body, touching
virtually every cell. The autonomic nervous system is a healing system that balances and
maintains the blood flow, heartbeat, breathing rate, and hormone level needed for any
activity we are doing. It is also the system that we need to heal. This system was thought
to work by itself but it is now known to be profoundly influenced by thoughts in the
mind. The autonomic nervous system has two branches, the sympathetic, and the
parasympathetic. The sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system is the branch
that controls "fight and flight," creating the physiology necessary to run from the tiger,
or to assume the defensive posture. The image in the large hemispheres of the brain of a
threat alerts the hypothalamus causing sympathetic arousal and this speeds up the
heartbeat, increases breathing, sends blood to the large muscles, floods the body with
adrenaline and stress hormones, and thus creates a physiology of alertness. The memory
of running away from a threat, escaping from a tiger or facing it and fighting and getting
away, takes us through a whole cycle of experience. When you are out of danger at last,
the feeling of safety relieves tension and puts you in a state of release. The cycle is called
the arousal/ release cycle and it charts each person's way of reacting to any event that is
exciting.

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On the other hand, the stimulation of the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic
nervous system results in relaxation, in healing, in body repair, in preventive
maintenance. The image in the brain of a peaceful scene, of making art, of creativity, of
prayer, alerts the hypothalamus to trigger a parasympathetic arousal and the heartbeat
slows, and blood pressure drops, breathing slows, blood goes to the intestines, the whole
body changes. The dance movement of a soft caress stimulates the circuits that
remember deep relaxation and creates that physiology. We now have the physiology of
healing, of creativity, and of prayer. This oversimplified model gives us an idea of how
the mind is connected to the body and how images and muscle movements stimulate our
entire being. When a person pictures art, music or a dance movement in their mind, or
makes art or dances, the area of the cerebrum that holds images of muscle movement is
stimulated and it sends messages to the hypothalamus which allow us to respond to the
imagery. If the image is one of deep joy or release of tension, our body is put in a healing
state through the hypothalamic pathways of the parasympathetic nervous system. When
the artist puts down an image of himself in pain and that vision is seen for the first time,
the tension around the pain is felt and then released. Relaxation ensues and the healing
physiology is started.
Second we have the hormonal flood that bathes every cell in the body as the imagery of
threat or passionate creativity lights up the neural nets in the brain. As the nerve cells
discharge like a loom of light flashing through our brain, the hypothalamus also sends
messages to the adrenal glands to release epinephrine, adrenaline and other hormones
which travel throughout the body and are picked up by receptors that cause some cells to
contract, others to relax, some to act, others to rest. So our entire physiology is changed a
second time by an image or dance movement held in our brain, our consciousness. The
second change is chemical resulting from hormonal shifts. It is slower, but it is just as
profound in that it affects almost every cell in the body.
Finally we enter the realm of the neurotransmitter. This is a third way of art changing
the bodys physiology. Here, images cause specific areas of the brain itself to release
endorphins and other neurotransmitters which affect brain cells and cells of the immune
system. The neurotransmitters relieve pain and make the immune system function more
efficiently. They cause killer T cells to eat cancer cells, white blood cells to attack AIDS
viruses and generally change the body's ability to respond to illness. So when a person
makes art or music, or dances, or pictures an image that is freeing and joyful, the body
actually changes its physiology to heal itself. The release of the endorphins when we
make art is felt as deeply pleasurable. It is like a person exercising. The endorphins are
like opiates or mind- altering drugs and they make a person feel expanded, connected, at
one, relaxed, vibrating, tingling, at peace. In a real sense the release of endorphins during
passionate creativity may be the major healing force. It is psychonueroimmunology at its
best. Psychoneuroimmunology is a term that puts together psycho for the mind, neuro for
the nerve nets of the brain, and immune for the immune system to describe how thoughts
or images in the mind affect the immune system. One artist we interviewed heard our
question "How did you end off where you are?" as "how do you endorphin?" The
concept of endorphin release was basic to the way she looks at art and healing.
So what do we have here? We are in the midst of a modern story or scientific theory
which basically says that a thought, image, or muscle movement changes a cell which

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helps us heal. It does this in three steps. 1- the thought, image, dance movement, or
creation of a piece of art. 2- a message is sent to the cells, by a nerve impulse, a hormone,
or a neurotransmitter. 3- the cells become activated eating a cancer cell or virus, sending
blood to an area of illness, or relaxing or tensing. This is a simple model. It is
biological, physical. It tries to connect the mind and body which it still sees as separate,
but it at least sees them speaking to each other. It does not view the body as an
automaton uninfluenced by thoughts and perceptions or the mind as irrelevant. The
evolution of this model took a half a century and was a great step forward in modern
science. It defied the Cartesian split of mind and body that ruled science and even
psychology for a century, and prevented perceptions, emotions, and life experiences from
entering medicine. When we went to medical school and nursing school in the sixties and
seventies, we were still taught that the mind did not affect the body, but now thankfully,
that training is outmoded. Now we know that when your mind makes an image, or your
body makes art, you produce the physiology of healing in every cell of the body
including the immune system.
Now lets put in the soul
So, with this oversimplified three step model in mind, lets drift gently back to the world
of our experiences. How did that model make you feel? Safe, solid, bored, confused,
science- ignorant, grounded, cold, convinced, secure ? It certainly is not spiritually
elevating for me but it is very useful, almost necessary, to understand as a base of belief,
a connection between the worlds of science and the worlds of art. So lets drift back into
art, lets feel again how art opens our hearts and relate that to the three step model. Lets
imagine making art with a person with cancer, seeing them come into your studio with a
beautiful child, seeing them paint, seeing them look into their babys eyes and then trace
the baby's hand over theirs and get tears in their eyes and feel love all around them. Just
trying this for a moment tells us that there is something incomplete about the model of
mind /body alone. As we close our eyes and feel our heart opening, as we watch our
patients heal and feel their love, as we hear a song of love or see a dancer enter a hospital
room or view art work in our sacred space, our shrine of rebirth, the three step- model
doesnt seem to tell us enough about our experience. It is not an accurate description of
how much more we feel and see .
So here is another model, one that merges medicine with our spiritual beliefs, one that
comes a little closer to describing how we actually feel inside. Remember, this too, is
just a scaffold, a structure to try to explain the ineffable, to try to put a foundation under
us as we undertake the exciting journey of trying to understand how art heals.
We see our body's spirit attracting matter around it like a cloak. The spirit is more like
what we see as our soul. The idea has no independent existence, it is of the whole. From
far within, from the reaches of the deepest space this idea has grown, formed, reformed
and changed. If you go deep into the darkness, far back, way back, downward,
downward; you reach the place of birth. From there flows our soul, our spirit, the first
manifestation of light. And from the darkness, wholeness, where there is no beginning or

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end, no time and little space, the soul grows, expands, and enters the mind and body for a
while. And so body, mind and spirit form an aggregate, an entity, a being. And that
being is you and me, , whole and one and at the same time connected.
The bodys health depends on its balance, its physiology. When its systems are in order,
blood flows at a certain pressure, the heart beats at a certain rate, the hormones are in a
certain balance. Many of us now see this balance as coming from a dialogue of body,
mind, and spirit. I see the spirit awakening, being awake, being listened to, talking to the
mind and the body. It tells the mind and the body both through the bodys feelings and
tension levels, and through the minds feelings, emotions, images and thoughts, how to
balance. When the spirit is not listened to, imbalance results. This feels like discomfort.
When the spirit is listened to, the body, mind, spirit, resonates as one, it dances and sings,
and healing happens. The spirit dances itself to you, sings its song to you, paints its
picture for you. And when the spirit becomes alive, the inner healer that is body and
mind working as one is free. Gone is the tension and fear that blocks this healer when the
spirit is asleep and the blood can flow to a cancer bringing the immune cells and natural
chemicals that kill the tumor and the chemotherapy drugs too.
Spirit and the inner world
When you ask an artist about healing they talk of light, of darkness, of places in the inner
world where they see the visions for their paintings. They talk of how freeing their spirit
helped them heal. They don't talk about white blood cells. Gordon Onslow Ford, a
surrealist painter has written about art and the inner world extensively. In his writings he
calls the places of creation within us "the deep spaces". He believes that the true haunt of
the pioneer painter is to go to the place of creation, the furthest inward they can go in
their imagination and see creation. Only by doing that, he feels, can the artist see the
truth and bring it out to share with us. We do the same process when we work with
patients. Art takes them as far into their inner world as they want to go. So we have a
similar experience of the inner world with patients that he has with making art.
Gordon believes that far within us, are the deep spaces, the furthest reaches of the soul.
By traveling inward we can glimpse worlds, feel them , live in them. And we can bring
back their memory traces, bring back their spirit, only with art. By "art" we mean all the
arts: painting, sculpture, storytelling, poetry, music, and dance. We believe that the
voices of the inner worlds, of the spirit, speak to us in a language that is most similar in
our world, to art. It is below words, it is above silence, it is closest to poetry, music, and
dance. It is God singing and dancing. It is our soul listening. It is the voice of the life
force, of expansion, of love, within us. It is the connection, the real bridge, the source of
all power.
And when we pray, when we travel inward and see, we can bring back traces of the pure
spirit. These footprints are art. Art is the voice of the spirit. And when the spirit is freed,
when the spirit is seen and heard, the inner healer is released..
Healing energy
And here we must speak of healing energy. When you talk of healing, when you
experience healing, you feel energy. When we talk of a resonation of the body, mind,
and spirit, we mean a freeing of energy, a buzzing, tingling, a vibration, a hovering. And
the energy is felt as a sensation, a feeling, it can flow throughout the body, from body to

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body, from the universe to us. It can be seen by psychics and meditators, and can be
portrayed in art. What is this energy, chi, prana, kundalini, Gods breath, acupuncture
energy meridians, chakras, the life force? It has been described throughout all time. It is
an integral part of the human experience. Because art acts at the level of the spirit,
because art is the language of the spirit, energy is involved. Perhaps the simplest
metaphor for how art heals is that it frees our bodys healing energy to flow. This is the
image of the Kalihari dancing in the previous chapter. The image is seen by the spirit, the
spirit soars, goes home, unites with the deep source, and energy is released like a torrent,
like a breakthrough, like a waterfall. The bringing home releases energy. That is all. The
making of art puts you there by itself. You need not do anything except make art.
Guided imagery
What are these things called images that we have been talking about and how are they
related to art? Images are thoughts that come in the form of lived experiences. They
have the shape of the sensory modalities that feed them. They are part of real time in that
they are touch, sound, sight, smell, muscle position, and taste, and are beyond real time in
that they can glimpse realms that cannot be felt with senses.
Psychologists divide imagery into several categories which help us understand what
images are. Memory images evoke events took place in the past, imagination images are
not based on discrete events from the outer world- they are the result of combining
memory events in new and creative ways or they come from outside us, from the world
of the spirit. Dream images are experienced in sleep, hypnopompic images are the
visions we see as we awaken, hypnagogic images the images we see while falling asleep.
Visions are images experienced while awake or in a trance that are very vivid.
Hallucinations are images experienced while awake that are poorly controllable.
"Vividness" and "controllability" are terms that show us how psychologists describe the
imagery experience. When the experience of imagery is intense, when the images are
bright, loud, or very attention- getting, they are "vivid." When images are unbidden,
cannot be gotten rid of, or cannot be changed, they are "poorly controllable."
In his book, Seeing With The Minds Eye, Michael divided imagery into two basic
types- receptive and programmed. Receptive imagery comes to you, it arrives on the
scene, bidden or unbidden, and rests in your minds eye. Programmed imagery is
different. You choose an image and hold it in your thoughts for a reason. The choice
may be deliberate or you may choose an image that came to you from the receptive
space. Either way the image effects your world.
How do healers work with imagery? The most common technique involves having a
patient picture their illness, their healing forces, and the healing process in their minds
eye. First, the patient imagines what the illness looks like, in as much detail as they can.
Next, they imagine how the bodys resources could deal with the visualized illness. This
is imagined as a process over time. For example, a patient can picture cancer cells,
picture them in an area of the body, picture them as a certain color, shape, smell, texture.
They then can picture killer cells or white blood cells eating the cancer cells, they can
picture the bodys defenses advancing, multiplying, engulfing the cells whole and wiping
them all out. This biological imagery is more effective if it is anatomically accurate and
detailed. Researchers have found that this imagery is very specific, for example if one
type of white blood cell is pictured, it alone is found to rise in blood counts. Next
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patients are encouraged to allow metaphorical imagery to form. This is the stage where
little men, dogs, or white light, blast, eat, or dissolve blackness, mud, or other little men.
Generally this metaphorical imagery takes place spontaneously after the biological
imagery. Finally, patients can hold a programmed image in mind. They can picture
themselves healed, surrounded by white light, surrounded by energy, as a God, as a
power animal or as strong and secure.
So, healing art, like guided imagery, can be used by a patient in two obvious ways. The
images can be viewed and the balancing nature of them can be allowed to change a
persons consciousness, or images can be used to help a person visualize the healing
process or a healed state. In both of these types of healing, the art provides imagery seen
by the artist. The imagery is healing if it relaxes, allows release of tension or fear, puts a
person in an altered state, opens their heart, or moves them and gives them energy.
Monets Water Lilies were so relaxing that people with a wide range of illnesses would
visit the museums and sit and meditate in front of the paintings for hours. From the point
of view of this model , the Water Lilies were memory images, rendered as art, evoking in
the viewer a the physiology of healing. The painting puts the viewer in a state of deep
relaxation, in the place of Monets spirit, in the place of water, light and color, in the
place of intense beauty and harmony.
The third way art heals a viewer is by showing a patient images that move them
emotionally. When patients with breast cancer for example, see art, music, or dance
made by other breast cancer patients it opens them up to emotions they may have hidden.
This allows them to discuss these emotions with family, support people, and their healers.
Patients who have a particular illness are moved by art that portrays other patients
experiences with the same illness. It makes them feel connected, relieves isolation, and
releases deep emotions. This type of art can be very disturbing for other people to view.
The images are often gory or graphic, this imagery is not for relaxation or transcendence,
it is for opening the heart.
Healing art
So, for the healing artist, there are several types of healing art: relaxing, balancing
images whose presence is transformative by themselves, biological images that provide a
library of images to visualize, and images of pain that are moving and result in a release
of emotions,. This last type of healing art provides a cathartic release, an emotional
discharge. During disease or in any major life event stress builds up. The stress can
accumulate and gets held in the body and lost inside hidden memories. Making art opens
a Pandora's box holding deeply held secrets. The art releases the stress like a dramatic
explosion. The release causes your body to re-achieve balance. All these types of
healing art are powerful and effective. They all work by changing consciousness, by
freeing energy, by awakening the spirit to resonate body mind spirit. This is the
technology of healing art, its tools, its machines.
Images made by artists can be so powerful, so filled with energy, that even though they
are not personal to the patient, they too can be transformative. Throughout recorded
history, artists have believed that their images have power in themselves. Shamanic art
was believed to actually have the power to change the physical world. Its shape and

19

color were believed to be powerful in themselves, to be able to transmit and move real
energy. Just standing near a piece of healing art was believed to heal. No viewing was
necessary, no understanding obligatory, just an experience that brought about molecular
change. This concept is difficult for many westerners to grasp scientifically, but it is not
that foreign from our lives. People carry good luck charms, relics, holy objects; people
make shrines, sacred spaces, churches and meditation rooms. Patients surround
themselves with power animals, religious talismans and crystals. The belief in the
healing energy of objects is deep even in our rational logical world.
A guided imagery of the old woman of the springs: how she made our bodies to
be healed with art
This chapter's story of the old woman of the springs relates how she made our bodies to
be healed with art. She tells us that she made us with creative forces and as we make our
art with creative forces, the process is the same. The old woman of the springs in this
legend is the spirit mother. Many healing artists have told us that the new line they draw
on a blank page feels the same to them as creating a new body to heal, making new
healthy cells. It is creation, it is making something out of nothing. This is a story of how
she made us of light and energy like we make healing art of light and energy.
Close your eyes, go back to the springs, see the old woman of the springs sitting above
you weaving. Listen to her story, she wants to talk to you now, relax deeply, listen to her
song. She sings to you, " I want to tell you how art heals, for I know that people have
been taught that their bodies are made of only matter and energy. Do you see me sitting
above the springs looking down at you in perfect love? Do you see me now as a painter
with my paper and paints. Look deep into the center of the springs my child, see the water
flowing upwards from my blue white light, see it bubbling forever up from the light into
the deep blue pool and then resting for a moment and then forming the river that flows
crystal clear from my heart to the whole earth. And I sit above you both as the painter
and the weaver and as I paint the spirals in the spring and as I paint the world you can
see the sliver threads coming from my hands to the spring and the silver threads coming
from my hands to the painting and the silver threads coming from above into me. I weave
the tapestry of the world, of healing art. As I paint the world comes into being. As I
paint, the silver threads from above that are her pure love, coming from before the
beginning of time, from the place of peace, come into my body and into my eyes and into
my hands. And as I put down a line or a circle or a dot my body remembers her dream as
she made the earth and as I paint I again paint it all into being. The silver threads that
come from her into me go outwards, and in my love and in my dream I weave them into
the spring and into the waters and into you my child and into your body.
And as I am the woman of the springs, the weaver of the earth, my art is the world.
Watch me carefully my child. Look at my fingertips. See the light coming from them in
sacred spirals spinning outwards. See the matter forming around the light dancing to it
and popping from it and coming into being. As I weave the world I weave your body. As
I weave the world I weave you inner healer, I weave your immune system, I weave your
self healing abilities, I weave your ability to heal. As I weave the universe I also weave
your bodies. For they are of the same fabric. They work in the same way. I weave your
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bones and muscles and blood vessels of the stuff of the stars. I weave your energy and
your vibrations of the energy of the spheres. I weave your souls and your spirits of the
dreams of the ancient ones. I weave your heart and your love of the love that created the
universe, of our mothers love. See the waters forming on the silver dots that flash as I
move like fireflies in the night. See it all being born, as I love you out of my love and
light, do you not see it? Feel me touching you and feel your body being born anew and
being born as a light body to be healed. How does art heal? As I paint the world into
being and as I touch you with my dots of light that come from her heart, you are made
anew in my vision, as I am the creator and the manifestor of form. How does art heal?
As I paint and touch you with my fingertips I make my vision of pure love become matter,
I dream the world into being and I make it as art and as matter at once. Can you do less,
for you are me and I love you perfectly".
The proof that art heals
When we go to conferences and talk about art and healing people often ask us if research
needs to be done to help art and healing be incorporated into healthcare. The Question,
do we need scientific proof that art heals to use healing art, is very much an issue with
physicians and hospitals today. For us, the answer is simple. It is provided by our own
body. To feel it, close your eyes a moment and try this brief guided imagery.
Relax, take several deep breaths, let your abdomen rise and fall as you breath in and
out. Now go into the space where you make healing art, the space where you heal
yourself, someone else, or the planet... drift, spin, turn, whirl, ..go into the space where
your imagery comes from, where your visions are born... imagine yourself listening to
your favorite music or singing, watching a dancer or dancing, looking at a relaxing
painting or painting. Imagine a wonderful artist is making art with you, for you. Go
with the art, fly on her love.. let her carry you into her heart.. deeply.. further and
further.. deeper and deeper.. feel her love all around you see his light surrounding you
feel it go into your heart and feel it flow into your soul see the light come alive.. see the
images and come and make your art, feel yourself fly.. feel yourself heal.
Do you need proof that you are an artist, that you are a seer? And yet we are always
asked for the studies that prove that art heals, that it improves quality of life, cures illness
or lengthens life. And this is very pertinent to a person who is living with a life
threatening illness and is looking for ways to make themselves better or improve their
life. And it plays a part in funding, implementing programs, motivating people to
continue their work, and moving art and healing forward as a field, both for artists and for
healers.
Art as a complementary therapy is currently being studied in randomized research that is
being done showing its effect on many physical and mental illnesses. There are many
studies showing how art, music, and dance can improve quality of life, decrease pain,
help attitude, relieve depression, and help symptoms disappear. But this is not the whole
story. Mind-body interventions in general are difficult and expensive to study and are
fairly new in modern medicine. These studies are not funded by drug companies,

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companies making surgical apparatus, or electronic apparatuses that generate large profits
for the companies or health care facilities. The research is also difficult to do because art
is different for everyone and individual ways of working are different. Research on inner
states of consciousness is always harder to do in the traditional way of collecting data..
Relaxation and imagery were not studied for years after they were widely used and even
now guided imagery has not been proven to cure cancer or lengthen life yet is a major
complementary therapy used in almost every cancer center. Currently there are no
definitive studies that show that art by itself cures cancer or lengthens a persons life. But
like imagery it is so obviously beneficial to people that it is used widely.
There is also an ongoing discussion in body, mind, spirit, medicine about the difference
between healing and curing. Sometimes it is not possible to cure an illness and prevent
death, but it is possible to heal the person's whole life so they can be fulfilled and
connected to life until they die. This healing of a life is extremely beautiful and
meaningful to the person who is ill and their family and friends. Art has been shown to
increase quality of life so markedly that it heals, even if it does not always cure. After
all, no one can cure everyone. There is a time to die that is part of nature. Sometimes we
have to accept that healing is as important as curing, although the patient always want to
be illness free and survive.
Fortunately there are studies in parallel fields whose results are applicable to both
imagery and art and healing. Guided imagery in fact is closely related to art and healing
in that its basic mechanism is mind-body and its way of acting is related to freeing
imagery from the inner self and which balances the mind-body interface and resonates
the soul. Do we need proof the soul exists to use that word or that God exists to pray?
The two studies that have been most influential in this regard are David Spiegels study at
Stanford showing that women with metastatic breast cancer lived twice as long when
they were in support groups than women without support and Fawzy Fawzys study from
UCLA that showed that people with melanoma lived longer and had fewer recurrences
with ten hours of structured support and education. These two dramatic studies of life
extension with relatively minimal mind-body interventions lead us to postulate that an
involved intervention like an artist making art with a patient could be very beneficial. Art
and healing uses the core concepts of support, release of fear, attitude change, and feeling
connected. Art and support groups in fact have much in common. One way to look at art
as healing is that it is a way of caring, a way of loving, a way of honoring.
About time and space and healing
The physicist Irving Stein from University of San Francisco has a new and somewhat
unique theory of time and space. Because he is a quantum physicist, he does not believe
in the older vision of matter and energy, or time and space, being separate. For quantum
physicists everything is interconnected. And like other quantum physicists he believes
that the observer effects the results of all experiments. When you are there to watch, you
change the results. Like other quantum physicists he also believes that the
interconnection of all things goes from one end of the universe to the other. When a
particle moves on one side of the universe, it moves one on the other. When a butterfly
flaps its wings in Thailand, something changes in New York. Now you can see that this

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world view is different from the one held by an ordinary person. Most of us still hold
Cartesian reality principles that basically state that cause and effect are independent of
the observer and that matter, energy, time, and space do not effect each other and that
when one thing moves, it has nothing to do with anything else. Now this old world view
works most of the time when objects are large and move slowly, but it does not work
when they are the size of subatomic particles or when they move the close to the speed of
light. In these situations the old view breaks down and no longer predicts what actually
happens in the world. In the world of quantum physics, light bends as the observer
moves, matter turns into energy, time changes as we move close to the speed of light, and
particles effect every other particle.
For healing, Cartesian reality is an unfortunate paradigm to hold as our major world
view. Healing, like physics, simply does not always work in slow or large systems. In
fact nonordinary reality exists in the same place the quantum physics exists and in the
world of nonordinary reality, probability is very different. A miracle is simply an
occurrence that has a low probability of occurring in ordinary reality and a higher
probably of occurring in nonordinary reality. For one of Cartesian realities main tenets is
that the mind and body are separate, and spirit is a different thing completely. Now
Descarte had to make this theory to avoid persecution by the church in the dawn of
science, but separateness is an outdated paradigm for modern physics and also for
modern healing.
Back to the theory of Irving Stein. As a quantum physicist he has postulated that time
and space are like little particles. They have a beginning and an end, a length as it were,
and then stop. And there is a break. And they start again. Now if you think that is
strange, he has also postulated that they are the same. A particle of time is the same as a
particle of space. They are interchangeable. And, if you think about it, which he certainly
did, if time and space are the same and if they start and stop, there is no time and no
space between the particles.
So modern quantum physics has found nonordinary reality. Shamans have always said
that there is a place where there is no time and space, where its laws dont apply in the
usual way. And that is the place of shamanic healing. That is the place of miracles.
Now Irving Stein stops before that point. He does not theorize that you can get into, or
use the breaks between time and space. They are there according to his theory, but that is
as far as he goes. The shamans go much further. They say that if you stop the world you
can slip between the particles of time and space and fall into non time and non space, and
that is precisely the nonordinary world of healing. And what is the best way to fall in
between time and space? Make art. For that is precisely what making art does. As any
child who makes art will tell you, time seems to disappear, and space is all confused, and
when they make art they feel like they are "elsewhere". And elsewhere for a person who
is ill, means diminished pain, fear, symptoms, and concentration on creativity. So maybe
part of the physiology of art and healing is the physics of non time and non space.
Making art puts a person in between time and space in a place where its laws dont apply
in the same way, where you as the observer create reality and influence outcomes, and
where all is interconnected. Just as prayer is a way of changing time, space, and matter,

23

so is the making of a piece of art the creation of a new space- time continuum where
miracles have a larger probability of taking place.

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Section Two
How You Can Use Art, Music, and Dance to Heal Yourself

25

Chapter Five

You are already an artist

26

We will be your artist in residence

This is the "how to" section of Creative Healing. Again, it is for anyone who is ill or in a
life crisis and for any artist or healer who wants to heal others with art. The chapters in
this section are meant to be practical and immediately useful. Say you are a woman
recently diagnosed with breast cancer who has always wanted to paint. You have found
this book on healing yourself with art, or someone who loves you has found it and given
it to you. And there is no art and medicine program in the hospital you are going to for
your treatment. Or say you are a man with AIDS who has always wanted to write poetry
and there is no poet in residence in the outpatient clinic you go to. Or say you are an
artist or healer and want to use your talents to heal others now and there is no art as
healing program for you to participate in nearby. For all of you, this section of Creative
Healing will try to substitute for your art and healing program. This section of the book
will facilitate your making art just as an artist would when they came into your room and
helped you heal yourself with art.
We will be your artist in residence in several ways. First we will talk to you in the words
of the artist in residence. We have interviewed painters, storytellers, poets, dancers, and
musicians, and we will pass their advice and love on to you. We believe that the best way
to heal yourself with art is to make art, and to do it now. Whether you want to heal
yourself, to heal another person, or heal the earth, the first step is the same, start making
healing art. The way to heal with paint is to become a painter, to paint every day. The
way to heal with poetry is to become a poet, to write a poem every day. This section will
empower you to do just that.
Making healing art is easy. Anyone can heal themselves with art. Through the work of
our artists in residence we have found that there are four simple steps to begin. The first
is to reclaim your inner artist. The second is to make a studio to create the space and time
for yourself to heal. The third is to choose a media that is natural for you to begin with.
The fourth is to begin to make art with the subject that is the most meaningful and
compelling in your own life. We believe that a book like this one is a tool. Like a
hammer, it does work in the physical world. It makes changes. With art, like with a wall
you build in a new house, there is something there to see at the end of each day. Your art
is real, tangible, and can be seen, felt, or heard. Your healing will follow. Come. We
invite you, blessings fellow artist healer, welcome.
This section is not about teaching you how to make professional art. It is not an art lesson on how to draw or how to dance. It is
instead an invitation to you to do whatever you want to do to explore what you are attracted to. In art and healing, the singing of one
note can be as healing as singing a choral work. The writing of a paragraph as healing as writing a novel. The painting of a T-shirt for
your child as healing as painting a masterpiece. We want to make the process of making art, dance, storytelling and music as simple as
possible so you can do it every day. All you need to do is give yourself a half hour a day to do it. Whatever you choose to do needs to
be as simple as possible so you can do it easily. Paint a half hour a day, write on a laptop a half hour a day, play the guitar a half hour
a day. Maintain your creative work in a way that is easy and fun. That is what healing yourself with art is about. The how to section
is not meant to be followed as a teaching of one method of making art. The road to get there will be your own. Any way you paint,
write, dance, or make music is fine. In fact to start out, the simplest way is probably the best. It will grow from there.
We have found that there is advice we can give you that works for all the media and is general enough not to hold you back. First, it is
essential to be as flexible as possible. All the artists in residence always talk about being able to bend to the situation they find
themselves in. If you are in bed and want to dance, you can still do it, you just have to move differently than if you were on a dance
floor. Second, consistence is important in the beginning. Try to have enough consistency to make art every day. Know that this work
is your gift to you to, to be healthy. You give yourself this time for you to be healthy, to feel alive, full, and the most creative that
you can. Value yourself enough to do it. Believe that this is simple and as important as anything else that you do in life. In our

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culture where most of us work long hours, this is about being free. We need a place in our lives and in ourselves to be truly free, to be
who we are and to be ourselves.

The gifts
One day there was a woman who got sick healed herself with art and set up an art
program in a hospital. She had her best friend who taught her to paint become the first
artist to work with patients and called her an "artist in residence". Since the program
started there have been many artists in residence using all media. We will have the artists
tell you their story of how they have learned to make healing art. They are real people in
a real program. The artists in residence that will speak to you in this section of the book
are artists who believe deeply that art is a way of healing. They more than believe this,
they live this with their whole lives. They are part of a community of artists all over the
world that share this vision of art and healing as one. In fact each artist has a gift to share
with you. Once we went around a circle of artist healers and asked them what gifts they
would give you, the reader of this book. This is what they said to you.
"My gift is that you delight in your own essence and embrace the light of your spirit as it
is reflected back to you from your own heart." Another artist says "I am a gift giver,
offering an escape into the creative world and its positive power of healing." Another
says "I will give you the pearl, the pearl of wisdom. Encourage your own self expression,
let yourself shine, let yourself be the star." Another artist says "as an artist I give the
knowledge of what I know, and I am your servant. As an artist I serve you, by being
kind and genuine. Although you will do art for yourself, you will only gain if you put
others before you." Another says, "my gift is to allow the children I work with to still be
children, to allow them to play, maintain the spirit of their child, while dealing with the
illness." Another artist says "the true gift as an artist is the good will and intention of
bringing my gift to you, as we keep this in mind all apprehension and anxiety will
disappear." Open your heart and take your gift from the artist in residence. Pick one gift
or more than one and take it for you. You deserve it. It is about loving you, it is.
Step one: reclaiming your inner artist
Reclaiming your inner artist is one of the most important shifts you will ever make in
your life. This process is about realizing that inherent in your life, inside of your life, is
you as an artist. You have always been an artist, but you may not have seen it or valued
it as much as you will now. This process is about illuminating the beauty within you.
Our goal is for you to be able to say, "I am an artist.", or even better to say, "I am a
healing artist". To internalize this concept, know that in everything that you do each
day, there are opportunities to be creative. An artist is a way of being, a way of seeing.
An artist looks deeply at light, at shadows, an artist looks deeply into each moment. The
essential step is realizing that you want to be an artist. In most peoples lives, there have
been barriers and obstacles, that have prevented them from doing it. Often, this was due
to a career choice or due to criticism. Realize that all of us have had obstacles to
passionate creativity. The obstacles will not hold you back anymore. Now in this
situation, whatever it may be, it is worth the risk to become your inner artist now. Let go
of any insecurities. The risk of your illness, depression or lack of meaning in your life is
more than what you feared in being an artist. This is an opportunity to let go of your
fear. What was threatening before is no longer important now. When Mary started

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painting she felt she was up against the wall, there was nothing else she could do. The
risk of not painting had become worse than the risk of painting. It was her time.
First reclaim the "yes I am an artist" that we all have within us. In the broadest sense the
definition of artists is much wider than most of us think. We usually think that an artist is
a painter, musician, dancer, or poet. But for healing art, an artist is in any and every way
you can think of. We have separated ourselves from what we have done in our lives.
We say we are not an artist as a mother, a physician, a gardener, whatever. We want to
broaden artistry to include our whole lives. You can become clear that you are an artist
in your work and in your whole life. It is a shift of who you think your are. Once a
physician came to our workshops and felt awkward making clay figures. We told him he
was an artist nevertheless. When we saw him next, he told us he realized what we meant.
The same feeling we talk about in making art, he realized he had in his practice. He
realized that he saw each of his patients with beauty. He saw them as interesting and
their lives as precious. He treated them with care and even reverence. He knew he was
an artist in the art of healing. When you reclaim your inner artist, you realize that there is
an aspect of yourself that you illuminate like an artist. You reclaim a way of being that
has been reserved for artists.
A guided imagery: reclaiming your inner artist
We believe that reclaiming the inner artist is the same natural process as the trees opening
up each spring. Here is an imagery exercise that lets you feel how the tree feels as its new
leaves emerge on that first warm day. As naturally as the leaves pop out of the branches,
you will emerge from yourself as your inner artist. This guided imagery is to let you feel
how natural making healing art is.
Close your eyes and relax and let your breathing slow and imagine yourself in the
physical form of the tree. Imagine yourself as a tree, a tree growing from the earth.
Imagine that the tree is the form of your being, it is your body, it is your physical
experience. This is where your self resides. Imagine that as the tree, you have
sensations, thoughts, and emotions. The tree is your ability to sense the world and your
being within it. The tree is your being grounded in your life. Imagine that you are
deeply rooted in the earth, that you are one with the earth and you are the earth at once.
You are deeply aware of how you are connected to the earth and your environment.
Imagine that you rest and grow and that the rain comes up inside you as the food. You
are connected to the body of the earth like a tree is connected to the ground. Rest a
moment and become aware of how you are deeply connected to the earth and your
environment.
Now imagine that is a the first warm day of spring. The gentle wind blows through your
branches, the sun warms your body. Be aware that you are from the earth and in the
center of your body is a sap flowing, the sap is the sweetness of your own creativity. Feel
the sap rising, feel it moving in a spiral up your body. See that inside your body is a
sacred spiral that spins you into the being of your life. In this sacred spiral inside you is
the central life force that spirals you into expansion and contraction along the space time
continuum of your life. Imagine that this eternal energy that spirals within you is a

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snake. This snake is a life force, it is part of you, it is not a snake from outside, it will not
bite you, you are perfectly safe with it. Imagine that the snake spirals up from the earth
that you are rooted in, up the trunk of the tree in your own body. Now imagine that in the
very center of this spiral you can feel your heart. And now see that in the very center of
your heart there is an eye that is closed like your eyes are when you are sleeping. The
heart is the center of yourself. It is the way you go inside the place inside yourself of
pure love. The most important step you need to take is to open the eye in the center of
your heart. When you open this hearts eye, you will see the world with love. You can
see that you exist in the world, you wake up, you begin sense yourself and witness your
own life. Imagine now that the eye in the center of your heart opens, and as you open up
your eye, you can see for yourself.
Now let your arms be like branches on the tree and let them reach up towards the sky.
The branches of the tree, as they reach up to the sky, follow your desire to reach up to
the light. Your branches are the passage ways of your energy up from within to the
outside. Now imagine that there are tiny new leaves within each branch of your body.
These beautiful new leaves are curled up under your skin or bark, they rest waiting to
come out into the light. You cant see your leaves from the outside until they open out but
each leaf is alive inside your branches You know that at the right time, they are born and
at the right time they fall to the ground. You know, there is a creative process in each
new light green leaf. Now imagine that each of your leaves comes out the tree to the
world. They are physical manifestations of what is inside. They are manifestations of
your being and the open eye within you. Now imagine that the leaves pop open into the
light. One moment your arms are bare, the next they are covered with beautiful light
green leaves. And each leaf is a story of the life of the tree, a story of your life now. Each
leaf is a poem, a drawing, a dance, each leaf moves in the wind, each life is like a
conversation with the world. Each leaf is your presence, a gesture, a creative act. Each
leaf is a refection of what has emerged from within you. Each leaf is your hand reaching
up to the sky. See the new leaves as staggering beautiful. They are tiny, curled, almost
wet in their newborn essence. But they are open and they can see the sun.
Now open your heart, open your eyes, open your leaves,. Move with the tree, open your
inner eye in the center of your heart, be an artist. let your leaves open as your art, You
know the fist bud that comes out of your body on the first warm day of spring as you
begin to blossom and reach up to the sun? That same energy of renewal and rebirth is
there for you as you become your artist. For you have seasons and cycles too. In the
most difficult of times there is the moment of your recovery, the moment your leaves
open, the moment you are an artist for the first time. Open your leaves now. Open your
leaves now.
Step two: making your own studio
One of the most essential parts of the process of healing yourself with art is to allow
yourself to create space to make art in your busy life. One of the ways you do this is by
making a studio. Your studio can be a pad of paper, a laptop computer, a corner of the
kitchen, a whole room at home, or a room out of your house. To make healing art, you

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make a commitment. You decide that your art is as important as anything else that you
do in your life. It is as important as your children, your job, your lists and shopping, it is
as important as the most important thing in you do. For making art is what will heal you,
your studio will be the space that you will go to survive and heal. It is about finding an
opportunity for yourself to do exactly what you want and need for yourself.
For many people, taking care of themselves is a crucial step. This is especially true for
woman who care for everyone around them. The decision to make yourself the focus of
your healing process is critical. It is about you, making healing art is about you healing
your life. When you do this your family, children, and friends will be taken care of
because you will be whole. You deserve it, you do. One woman who was a healer felt
that she was selfish when she made her art, she was so used to taking care of others, that
when she gave some pure time to herself, she felt guilty. Then she realized that she had
breast cancer and she deserved to be taken care of by others now and more importantly to
finally take care of herself. So she made a piece of art with a healing artist that showed
all the hands of all the people who were taking care of her with a message of love in each
palm to her to get well. It made her cry every time she read the messages and realized
she needed and deserved the wonderful care her friends, family and caregivers were
giving her. A crucial part of her art was accepting that she as the caregiver needed and
wanted the care.
Making the studio beautiful and yours
The studio is the place where you will enter your passionate creativity. It is your
doorway, your entryway. So make it the space where you will be the most comfortable.
Put in personal things, find things you love and associate memories with, sacred things,
beautiful things. Own it, it is deeply yours. Pick a place with the light that you love,
with music, favorite pens, photos, paintings, objects that you are attracted to. You create
these spaces, these conveniences so that the artistic process is accessible, so you have
inner privacy. Mary tells us more of her own experience, "When I made my space, my
friend Lee Ann helped me. I did not know what to do, I had never made a studio before.
I had made houses for my family but never a place for me to be creative, a personal
place. We brought in an old favorite rug, I put paintings I had done on the walls, to
remind me I could paint. I carved out a personal place, something I could move in to.
We went to an art supply store and we just bought things, we bought paints, brushes, we
both had never done oils, and we did not know what to buy. We just grabbed things off
the shelves that seemed to make sense." You need to create structure you can go into.
You need a place to start from. An easel, blank paper, water paints, have to be right there
so you can start to work. The empty blankness is an invitation to fill it up. Have enough
room psychically and emotionally so you can daydream. Remember it is about getting
touch with yourself, being in your own body, thoughts, and emotions. You take yourself
out of the formal structure of your life. You make a void in the middle of it so you can
use your own life as your palate. You need to put your life aside enough to look at it so
you can participate in your imagery. You get a distance away to see yourself as who you
are".

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Creating a time to make art

Every day create a routine. Work so many hours a day, or so many hours a week. But
most important, create sacred time, a time that is undiluted by time as you ordinarily
know it. Time is the most precious resource you have. When you give yourself time, it
is the most useful gift for healing art that you can give yourself. You give yourself
attention, you listen to yourself. In the studio you can share with others, but you need
your own space. You create a boundary around yourself, walls or rugs or bookcases,
you go into that place and work. At home, TV and your ordinary life keeps you from it.
This is an opportunity to go into your own world. You take a deep breath, you go into a
different flow of time and consciousness, it is a suspension of time. It is an experience of
time that is different than everyday time. It has to do with being totally focused . You
have to go in to be focused, for images to emerge. It is like giving birth, you pay total
attention to what you are doing. In ordinary life you never are focused enough to be still,
to go inward enough to be truly creative. The distractions are not healing, we go to a
therapist to focus on ourselves, this does it better. The focus and concentration create the
physiology of healing and help the immune system function at its best.
Building a studio is like a bird building a nest in the spring. When the bird builds the nest
there are no babies, no eggs, there is only an anticipation of something to be born. Build
your studio like the nest in anticipation of the birth of yourself as a healing artist. The
eggs will grow and mature and one day there will be baby bird. An artist makes or rents
the studio, then starts painting, writing, dancing, or making music. The first attempts may
be not much to look at, but they are important. One day the first healing painting will be
born, one day the first healing poem or song or dance. For some people they can create a
process before the space. Everyone is different. In another vision, a woman with a busy
life does it at home. She built the studio in her life as a moment of time. She is creating
a space in a different way. She goes in the kitchen for a half hour to write before
everyone wakes up or before she goes to bed after everyone is asleep. In the same way
the space is being created for yourself. Some people need a studio away from home,
some people can work at home. It is organic, each person is different.
It is really about creating moments that are your own. Create a space right now in the
moment. It is a conscious act that is deliberate, that has a space and a time. The space is
sacred because it is the work of your heart, the work of who you really are. Dream space
that is secret, like our wish for a lover to take us into a place in ourselves where our
hearts are free. Make art with letters you never mail. Steal a moment to sing a lullaby to
yourself, to another. Activate the artist within.
Creating sacred space
Sacred space is really as simple as making meaning. A rock in the road does not mean
much by itself, it is seen as something to sweep away. If you collected rocks it could be
precious, if you needed it for your collection, or if it was rare. If it was the rock that
someone you loved had touched, its meaning would go up more. If it was the rock that a
holy person you revered had touched it could be seen as deeply sacred. If it was the rock
that Jesus or Buddha had touched before their death, or as they were enlightened, it
would be seen as sacred to a whole culture. Sacredness comes from the meaning in your

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life story. If you want to make art with intent to heal, you make a space and a time that is
full of meaning to you. The space that you carve out of your life is the place where
magic will happen, the place where you will be healed, grow, and change. It is as sacred
as a church or mountain top where you would receive a vision, for after all that is exactly
what will happen. And the time too is sacred. This is a time that is only for you to do
what you want to heal. It is a time of life and rebirth. It is sacred in its healing intent.
Many artists and healers make the space they work in sacred, with intent. They stop for a
moment before entering the space and say to themselves that the work they are about to
do is sacred, full of meaning, full of life, holy, about life and death, about the spirits,
about forces, about service, whatever way of looking at it that is their own story. One
woman oncologist stops before entering each patients room and prays, and imagines that
the doorway is an arch like a church, and imagines that she is entering a holy place full of
luminosity. And then she goes in, centered, and is a physician. Many artists who work
with patients, or make healing art in a studio, say a prayer or do a guided imagery before
starting work. The prayer is to make their work holy or full or rich, whatever they wish,
and to make the space full of energy to allow the work to happen. Many people call in
imaginary helpers or spirits or ancestors or teachers to help them. They do this in an
imagery exercise or an intentional prayer. Many artists we work with have a whole
ritual they do each time they make healing art or work with patients. They center
themselves, quiet themselves down, pray to the helpers around them, whoever they are,
and only then make art. So many healing artists do this, that we look at it now as a part
of the process of making healing art. That is the way it was done in ancient times, or
with Buddhist artists. That is in fact, the tradition we work from as healing artists. So
before you make healing art yourself, consider stopping, pausing, centering yourself, and
saying a prayer of healing intent to heal yourself, others, or the earth.
Step three: choosing a medium
When we have a physical illness, a depression, or a life crisis, or when we need to grow,
we start to heal ourselves with art by opening ourselves up to our inner voices of change
and creativity. We allow ourselves to listen to those voices and to let their messages to us
emerge. In this process, choosing a medium is the next priority. Resonating with the
medium is resonating with the creative process. Resonating means doing a type of
artistic process that will flow with your energy. What is it that you do, that flows with
your bodys energy? Everyone has different affinities for different types of art and
different processes. You do not need worry much about which medium you will choose,
because when creativity flows it becomes multi- media, but you need to start with
something as the doorway, something that will allow you to have the sense of being an
artist, so you could say "I am a painter". Then the world will expand to other mediums.
When you use art as healing, you dont package the experience in one media, because it
is not about making art to make art. It is more about making art to free yourself, making
art to heal. When we talk about resonating with a material, the process is unique and
personal for each person. Explore materials in the next chapters, read them and see what
appeals to you. We will talk about many mediums, for example in the chapter about
painting we will discuss the difference between water colors and oils. As you read, let
yourself imagine doing it and see what you like, imagine how you would feel. Listen to

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the stories of the artist and how they work and see if one of the stories feels like yours.
There are two ways you see yourself as an inner artist. In the spirit world and in the real
world. One is a dream the other more practical. In the spirit world Mary saw herself as a
dancer, but in the real world she saw herself as a painter. Sometimes the real one is just
easier, and your spirit one will follow as you become learn to use many mediums. Or
you may have chosen your medium already. You may have made art or played music
before or seen yourself as making art in your daydreams. Or you may have to ask
yourselves what you want to do. Am I a painter, a sculptor, a musician, a poet, a
storyteller, a dancer? Have I ever wanted to create something and have been afraid or too
busy to do it? The artist is all of these people, the artist uses all media as healing.
To choose your medium, be open to the choices ahead. As you read the next chapters
dont be held to one, dont worry about which one to choose. Be confident that you will
choose the right one; for now dont close off any medium. To start to make a choice, go
back in your life to where you were the most happy, or go back to a time in your life
when you were doing something where you were most at peace. Go back in your life
and examine that moment deeply. What surrounded you, what were you doing, seeing,
smelling. Or go back in your life to where you were the darkest. What did you do to
recover on your own? For example, if your were a runaway teenager and you found you
always went to the art school, and worked on a dance project, that is a good place to start.
When you were a child, did you write, draw, dance? As a child, you are more playful in
problem solving, so go back and remember the circumstances and bring it up to your
consciousness. Also when you were a child, what did you always want to do? Did you
want to be an artist, a movie star, a dancer, what did you want to do when you grew up?
What did you want when you had no inhibitions, when you thought you could do
anything and not fail, before you were hindered by life, when it was still a dream.
When you close your eyes, what one medium emerges for you? There are two times in
your life when you were most likely to have been an artist. First as a very young child,
next as a teenager. As a young child you may have had art lessons or done art in school.
As a teenager when you started to separate from your parents, to form your own identity,
there were things you did naturally to become yourself. There is something from that
place of individuation that can help you now. Go to what were you before you became an
adult. before you became formed and more defined in roles.. We will do an imagery to
go back to both of those places and be there and see what medium resonates with us. But
we will see more than that, we will see ourselves as artists again, you can.
Mary tells her story, "I remember a moment in an art project when I knew I wanted to be
an artist. I was an adolescent in a crises. I was depressed and a runaway. At school, I
went to the art room, not to other classes. The teacher would stare at me because I would
never leave. I would add red color to the plaster to make the plaster pink I was the only
one doing that. I loved it, my teacher said it was wild, but in that moment where I was
trying to be who I was, art was one of the only places I could rebel and not hurt myself or
others." Michael tells his story, "for me it was painting an airplane mural in class. It
was second grade, I had just moved. I had no friends and I stood and painted for days, it
was the clearest space for me with the least worry and fear.."

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An imagery exercise for choosing a media

Close your eyes, rest, let your breathing get deeper, let your abdomen rise and fall as you
breathe, let your body take over and take you deeper. Now go back to the moment in
your life where you were a child making art. Go back in time through the past, go back
many years to a point in your childhood where you remember a moment of making art
that was full of happiness, a moment of making art where you were the most free. Go
back to that moment in your life where you actually lived making art, where you allowed
yourself to be truly creative and satisfied. Go back to that moment and go into your
body. Remember how it felt, remember the world around you, remember the way you
experienced the situation you were in, and spend some time in your childs body and be
with that child. Be in the situation where you were making art as a child and watch your
hands. Remember your thoughts, what did it feel like, and look at what materials you
were using, and feel how they felt, and how you felt, and totally be with it. Spend some
time being with the activities you were doing, feel your hands, feel your body as you
were doing it, be there and rest in its beauty.
Then go back to a moment in your life when you were in trouble, where you were sad or
lonely or lost or upset. Maybe it was a time when you were a teenager newly exploring
who you were to separate from your parents. Go back to a time when you were
discovering who you were. Go back to a moment where you were in conflict and pain,
where you experienced despair. Go back to the darkness there, experience your full
range of emotions and remember what you reached out for when you reached into
yourself. Remember who you were then, what you were thinking what you were seeing
with your eyes. Remember what you talked about, what you wanted to achieve, was it
writing poetry, making sculpture, painting? How did you explore the possibilities in
your life, what did you do to get away from the problems, to go deep into your privacy,
into yourself. Go to that moment, see what you were striving for, what were your desires.
Now remember a time in your youth when you were still uninhibited, What was that
dream, what was the dream before life became so formed, when you thought anything
was still possible, without any concept of failing, what was it, what was your dream and
desires, what was the glimmer of what you might resonate with, what did you do to go
elsewhere and find out who you were. When you see yourself in a time of trouble,, before
you return, come back into the brightest place you know now in your life. Come back
into the most beautiful vision that you can remember, a moment of love and joy. Let that
moment of happiness wash over the moments of sadness from your past. Let them be
cleaned, let yourself come out into the light and rest there now. Dont stay in the sadness
after seeing it, come back now into your joy.
Next you will pick a medium, but the opportunity to integrate all the media in the process
is important. We dont want to segregate the arts, to compartmentalize them into
panting, music and dance, and poetry and storytelling when in our experience it is a more
integrated process. We have found that being a healing artist is about being open to all
the modalities. We separate them in the beginning because it's usually one medium you

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choose, but we have found it is an integration that actually occurs. The dancer for
example uses all of the arts. In many programs we've watched healing artists as they
have evolved into renaissance artists. They walk into patients rooms and can draw,
dance, and even play music. They may be best at their own media, but the rest come
forth and make them more alive.
Step four: making art starting from where you are in your life right now

Finally, we make art. Next is the process itself, to draw, to move, to write, or start a
song. It is really simple. As simple as breathing or being in love. The experience of art
and healing can be visualized as taking place on four spirals: the spiral of lived
experience, the spiral of transformation, the spiral of empowerment, and the spiral of
love. This description of how art and healing takes place is not theoretical, it is real. It
comes from the experiences of people who have healed themselves with art, music, and
dance, and it is taken from the actual stories they have told us. It starts from right where
you are now. The first spiral of lived experience starts from your illness, your
depression, your problems, your joy. The four spirals or art and healing are about you
starting out from your life, about making the first piece of art simply from who you are
now. We think the four spirals are useful for you because this way of seeing art and
healing divides the process into four parts that you can look at separately. Its framework
helps you to understand that the process is easy and automatic and yet powerful and
profound.
The entire healing process can be pictured in your minds eye in metaphorical form as a
journey on a sacred spiral. The spiral down can be imagined as a concentric pathway of
creativity. Spirals are concentric forces that bring a person down into their own inner
creative energy. When we reach the center of these spirals we will reach the center of our
heart where we are deeply connected to the world. Within the center of the heart, an
inner eye opens up, the eye of awareness and witness. From the center of our spirit, we
experience our inner connectedness . As the art comes out, you see that everything
comes out, and you are like everything. This is about birth. The art is what you are
giving birth to. The art in this sense is an offering that heals you, an offering directly
from your heart.
The spiral of lived experience
The first spiral is the spiral of lived experience. The first art you make takes its subject
from your life as it is now. You do not need to change to start, to be someone else, to
pretend. You start from who you are now, from where you are now. This spiral is the
spiral of your life. Where you come from, who you are. This spiral comes from each of
your stories of living, both beautiful and painful. It is the first meeting, where your eyes
meet, when you see yourself, when you feel the events of your life. It informs you. It is
about the experience of your life, your divorce, your children, your illness, cancer. It is
what life has given you to work with, the material of your process. It is not an accident, it
is the embodiment of your life, your thoughts, emotions, your body, the embodiment of

36

the experience of living. The actual pain and suffering is the palette, what you will use to
make art, how you will discover who you are. The reality of living informs you in every
living moment of your love.
When you deal with art with the intention to heal, you deal with your own life. It doesnt
come from books, from art school, I comes from who you are . In the beginning you go
into your life, you look at who you are. In the act of creating there is movement and
change, a technique, a process. The movement is inherent in the process, you become,
absorb, you go beyond your life into an other space, into another world. Your intuitive
nature, who you are, comes out. It is as if something else writes the story. There is
confidence in an essential experience, it is tangible. There is the act of creation.
So as you make your first piece of art, come into the first spiral, into your feelings,
dreams, into how your body feels, your ordinary memories. your emotions, body
memories, how you are embodied in the world. It can be deep joy, deep pain, your
cancer, depression, go into the place where your tumor lies. Dont be afraid, for the
spiral starts going in a circle, then goes inwards towards your center, then starts again to
spiral you into your light. You go into the place where you are love again and it fills with
fire. The event becomes alive again, not a memory of the past. You go into that space,
you make a choice to take that energy that is inside of you, to take that energy and go
deeper in the spiral. You do not have to think of a subject. In healing art it is there, it is
you.
The spiral of transformation
The spiral of transformation is about art changing you. On this second spiral you are
making something, creating something. As you immerse yourself in your art, your
consciousness expands and you may move to a deeper where you begin to glimpse
yourself as beautiful and the wise person within you comes out. If you dont judge
yourself, the beauty in yourself unfolds. You just let it come out when you go into other
world. And you see that your art is where you are, and where you were. You are now
changing. The you that sees your art unfold is different from the you that was living in
fear and unable to act. You look at the painting, or read the journal, and you see that you
were like that , and now you are different. You are a person looking at a person who was.
You are now changing. And you can see that the art is changing too. The person and
their world view is new. You are transformed.
The spiral of empowerment
The third spiral is the spiral of empowerment. The spiral of empowerment is about
immersing yourself in the process. This is when you paint or make poetry in a passion.
This is when you are deep in the artistic process. In this space you get to go elsewhere,
you go into places where you may not be able to be in your life especially if you are ill.
You get to be who you want to be there. The process deepens by allowing you to
experience your journey, to go from one place to another. The process is very tangible.
It involves a mobilization of inner resources. This is where you tap into the passionate
creative fire, a point of departure occurs, you immerse yourself into the creative process

37

and there is an experience of generation. Your inner strength and innate wisdom
emerge. With no judgment the person can play and be who they are.
Then you go into technique, into process. You can paint, make music, do movement,
With your feelings, you create a process to channel the love energy into a work of art.
You go into the studio, you journal, you set aside time so that you fill it with that
experience. You make a space in the world. You capture the experience into the present
moment and make art from your body, thoughts, feelings. Something unexpected will
emerge when you spontaneously let your body be what it wants to be, when you let the
artist /medicine man/ healer free. It can be painful. You can connect to your despair and
your passion. In the hand of the artist you have given it to her, the artist heals by
transformation itself.
The spiral of love
In the final spiral you are in love. It is about the art flowing from you like a spring, about
giving your art away. You go to the place where you know who you are and accept who
you are. You know yourself better. You know what your problems are and you accept
them and yourself. You can deal with your life and create it as art in your life. This
state of openness to the universe, to other people, to your own crises becomes your
teacher..

Chapter Six

Healing yourself with the visual arts: painting, sculpture, photography and
crafts

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Introducing your painter in residence

"Welcome to my studio, my name is Mary Lisa, I am the painter in residence with the art
program here. I am here to make art with you. If you are sick, or a family member of
someone who is ill, or an artist who wants to learn how to make healing art with another
person, I am here to show you how to do it. I am a visual artist, a fabric painter, a
painter. I have been an artist since I have been a small child. I have worked with patients
in the hospital since 1993 and I will share this experience with you. I am your artist in
residence today. what do you want to do? Lets put out a big piece of paper to make a
body tracing, lets put out a t- shirt with a pattern on it, lets put out a piece of puzzle
jewelry you can paint, lets make a mandala circle painting of imagery you have had,
lets start making art".
Mary Lisa Kitakis is the painter in residence at Shands Arts in Medicine at The
University of Florida. When you meet Mary Lisa her eyes are always sparkling. She
usually giggles as she is talking. At first she seems chatty, but when you watch her she
hesitates to give you a chance to wonder what she is up to. Actually it is like a tease.
She is holding out the art supplies, getting everyone to play with her. Her brown hair
softly caresses her face and is held up with a jeweled comb. She is always wearing
something delightful with animals on it and many jeweled stars or rainbows. You know
that what she will do will always be fun. She often sings as she moves and says " Does
anybody want to play?"
How visual arts heal
Visual arts have an immediacy of imagery that make them the first doorway for many
people who want to use art to heal. The first artists at the bedside in most hospital
programs were visual artists. That may be because images of healing that come from
deep in inner space often come up as visual images. Or it may be because there are more
visual artists than poets or dancers who do this work. Visual images are more concrete
than movement or sound and for many people easier to connect with to start out. We
constantly experience visual imagery in our lives, from movies and television to
photographs, paintings and sculpture. The concept of being an artist is tied to one who
makes visual images, the first art most people think of is painting, and the first recorded
art are the ancient cave paintings. There is a powerful cultural tradition of the artist as
the painter. The figure of the painter as an artist who can be who they are, who is free, is
rooted deep in our cultural traditions. Being an artist explains eccentric behavior, it
allows you creative freedom. For a person who is ill, seeing themselves as a painter
frees them to be themselves.
The visual image is a compelling link to guided imagery. When most people think of
imagery, they think of visual imagery. The term "visualization" that is still used for
guided imagery, refers to visual images, because they are the most accessible images to
start with for most people. Visual images transport you into another place. When you
look at a painting it is no longer habitual seeing, it is something from within you brought
to life. When we close our eyes and imagine a scene, we see inwards. We are in a place
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that we can look around in, feel, and move in. It is really a total experience, but the
visual modality is the one that most of us are most aware of. It is not visual imagery like
the outer world, or like a movie, it is softer, more transitory, faster moving, more like a
dream. And that is the place from which we make visual art, the place of softly glimpsed
images, the place where images come from. When we start to paint or sculpt, we bring
an image outward, whether the image is consciousness or unconscious. The image
becomes real and we can then see it in the outer world.
When you ask visual artists who work with patients, how art heals, they all have different
answers. One day we went around a circle and asked all the artists how art heals. One
artist says art heals by distraction. It gets peoples minds off their illness, and then
unconscious healing happens. Another says it is different for each person, no two people
use visual arts to heal in the same way. Another artist says that making healing art is a
meditation. A physiological shift occurs when meditation takes place. You concentrate
deeply, you go inwards. Another artist says that making art is real magic, that a new line
on a page where there was nothing before puts the person in the world of creation. Many
artists say that making a painting takes you inside. They use the term "elsewhere" it is a
feeling of going somewhere else. People call it different things but everyone knows what
it feels like. Another artist says art heals by connecting you to something, to something
larger, to your greater self. Most artists in residence agree that people can go to a
different place with art, people can make art and not be distracted. They can be with
themselves differently. They can tap into their healer within. In an objective way art can
help a person witness themselves. Art can take a person from the inner world outward to
the community. Artists also say that art heals because it is like play, it brings you back to
your childhood space.
Many artists talk about control. Even when you are ill you can still control your art. Art
is your own, you have control of all its aspects. You can erase a line, take a whole shape
off, change a color. You can manipulate it, you can even tell the artist that you refuse to
make art and not do it. Art shifts the person to what psychologists call an internal locus of
control. When a person becomes the artist, they have mastery, they lead it. A woman
with a lung transplant who was recovering, told the artists working with her "When I
make art, I am in control of my body and mind, I have power to reduce fear, I feel my old
power come back. Doctors and nurses have told me what to do for months, now as a
painter I tell myself what to do. This is the part of my life that is completely mine," Art
is a vehicle to create focused intention. It helps you regain power, it is a tool to
concentrate on any aspect of healing you want to. This is very different from the medical
model. The choice to do art is part of the empowerment, the person can make the artist
do what they want to, they can make anything they want to instead of being told what to
do.
Starting out : Marys story of reclaiming her inner artist
Both the authors of this book started in healing art as visual artists, Mary as a painter, and
Michael as a photographer. We will tell you more of Marys story as a detailed example
of someone who healed themselves with painting. Her experience happened by itself, she
had no one to help her become a healing artist. There was no program in art and healing,

40

an no healing artist nearby. She had never heard of art and healing. It just happened.
She only had her friends who were painters to help her start to paint. Her story has many
of the aspects we hear from people who start out using visual arts to heal. If she can heal
herself with art, you can too. She was just an ordinary housewife without an healing
artist. She did it herself.
"I was always drawn to the visual arts, I loved to look at paintings. When I looked at
them, I could go elsewhere. There was a spatial experience in a visionary world, a
window into a free state of consciousness. As it engaged my eyes, it engaged my interest
and took me inwards. So when I became deeply depressed and overwhelmed by my own
despair I knew my medium was paint. There was an agony of despair that ripped my
body and I cried for months. At that point in my life when I was experiencing such pain I
wondered what I could do to survive. The first time I painted I got help from a friend who
was a painter. Lee Ann took me to her studio the first time, and handed me paper and
crandache crayons, water color crayons, and watercolors . I made my choice of
crandache because they were brightly colored, I liked the way they looked. There were
lots of them, they are in a box like crayons. I had no idea which materials to choose, I
just grabbed the ones that appealed to something in me, to my sensuality. Then I started
making marks, lines, shapes, and colors. My first picture turned out to be a still life of
the studio. It was clearly what was in front of me that grabbed my eye. It was the lived
experience before me. I looked at my life for my point of reference. I did not know what
to do, so I just looked around the room. Lee Ann would say that was beautiful, what a
nice shape, those colors are great, you are a natural, oh Mary you are an artist. I was
confused, I did not know what was happening. The more I painted, the more I was
surprised that I could create forms. It was so gestural, somehow the lines were connected
to how I felt. I was surprised by how the medium responded to my emotions better than
words. It seemed so pre-verbal, the medium responded to my sense of creation. It
expressed deep feelings that words cant.
Then I looked around and found an image of a distorted women in a book. I looked at
images in my life that resonated with me, that I wanted to look at, that had meaning for
me where I was then. I took the woman image as a point of departure. I just took
something that I responded to, something that was around me, that came from my
experience. I took whatever I recognized, what related to me. I knew somehow I needed
to start with images that were immediately available to me, images that I could create a
dialogue with. I then recreated an image in the painting and needed to relate to the
image. I saw the woman in pain. It was how I felt, it was a true rendering of the pain.
of the brokenness, almost as if it was talking back to me. I couldnt sort out the images,
the painting did that for me. I brought something that was deep inside of me out, and
released it. There was a huge experience of being released, the image released me from
what the image is. I externalized the form, I created a page I could look at and think
about. Before, it was inside and could not be seen. The images come from a place before
thought, when I allowed them to come through me, they came from before consciousness.
Then when they came out I could make sense of it.

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So my process was a shift from the still life that started me out, to the picture of the
woman. First she looked like a stranger, then I recognized myself in her, I realized she
was me, so I decide to do self portraits. I got the idea to take pictures of myself in
postures that reflected how I felt. I used pictures to render the figures. Then there was
another shift. I became totally involved in constructing the forms. When I began to paint
myself as the figure, I became absorbed in lines, shapes, the folds of her dress, the fingers
receding into the shadows, the lines going into the cloth. Now I was involved not only in
the emotions but in the figure in space. This was exciting because I was using the image
to reconstruct my life. I did not know it then, but as I reconstructed the image, I was
reconstructing myself. To make the image readable, I remade myself. I went from being
bent over, torn, open, to being expanding, to raising my head, to bathing in pure waters.
As the images changed in content, my body changed to. In the space of working things
out, the process is unconscious. The process that emerged by itself took me from despair
and fear, to bathing in water and laying back in my body, and looking forwards".
The steps of healing yourself as a painter can be seen from Marys story. First she
choose painting because she knew from her whole life that she was attracted to it and a
part of her had always wanted to be a painter. Next she set up a studio and choose which
materials appealed to her. She bravely made the first lines and watched as they turned in
something. She saw her illness as her despair and she followed the process to allow it to
heal her. She saw the healing take place as she was reconstructed and realized that the art
was healing her. During the process she did not analyze or try to figure it out, she just
trusted it and continued to make art. She also felt herself heal and saw herself heal. The
steps of choosing a medium, making a studio, choosing materials, making the first line,
and watching the healing process emerge and heal you, are what we will talk about in this
chapter. They are the ways painting heals. Where does intent come in? Start with intent
to heal with art, that is all you need. Trust in the process. It will do itself. Honor who
you are and what you want to no, hold no value judgments. Let the art heal you.
Where is art coming from, what is the source of desire? All you need is intention to
create space, choose materials, make something. All you need to do is to give yourself
the space to allow what emerges from you to be seen and to heal. Finally, keep on doing
the task, persevere. For the healing artist, creating intention is first. The painting studio
is an intentional space where you can release the critic. The goal is to go inside yourself
to make art as the doorway to your own health, to your own soul. The path is to go
inward in your outer and inner life at once. It is not about approval, about paintings that
mean something to someone else. Make healing art with the spirit of befriending
yourself. Take pride and joy in your own life. Enter healing by your own generosity of
spirit. Make art to help yourself change your life. Honor that you are doing something
you need to do to live more fully, to move from one place to another. Healing art is not
about material success, it is about you healing from within .
Making a studio for the visual arts
One of the most important things you can do is start in an accessible way with a
sketchbook. That is a good way to begin drawing. You can choose pencil or pens, and
a blank book. Take the opportunity to connect to something visually, to draw it. You can

42

take your paints and you can caress the image with your hand. You take the shapes,
render forms, become familiar with the way you gesture. You can do this because it
develops confidence in doing images and it take any moment and takes you elsewhere.
You take something and look at how the light plays on it, how the wind move it, you
play. Right in the heart of the ordinary day, you take advantage of opportunity that
present themselves to see deeply.
Take time among your busy moments to yourself create an artists tote bag. Make one
that has the materials you want to use and is easy to carry. You can put in watercolors,
gauche, a jar with water and a lid, colored pencils, or quash crandache crayons. It is
only important that the materials are accessible to you. You can work anywhere you are
comfortable. You can set up in your home, on kitchen table, go to springs, go out in
nature, go by yourself, set up still life. It is like exercise, you have to do it consistently
to enjoy it the process. It seduces you into it if it takes up space in your life. The
experience will draw you back to it, you cultivate desires to want to do this.
If you want to setup a studio, a room of your own, a space of your own, spend time in
your process. You are making a place to spend time with yourself. You can do this on a
lunch hour, or whenever you are free for a while. It is also helpful to seek out
relationships with artists or other people who are painting. Get in community. People
are sources of inspiration in making art, Watch people painting along side you, this is a
reminder and a refuge. You can share a studio, rent a studio with another artist, rent a
studio in a group space where other artists rent too.
You can also cultivate a friendship with an artist. In that way you can enjoy a
relationship, the artist can become a support person in your process. You talk to them as
you go on. This is not therapy, it is community. Be with yourself , be your own healer,
your own therapist. You share with yourself. What is critical is that you are giving
yourself time to be with yourself. Take the one hundred dollars you would give to a
therapist and make an appointment with yourself to paint. When I started to paint, I did
not have a healing artist, I only had a friend who was a painter. She encouraged me to
paint and the healing came by itself. That is why I think it is most important to be with
artists. They need not be healing artists. A healing artist is not necessary in this process.
It is most important for you to paint. You are with people who facilitate your creativity.
The environment, time, and space, are what helps you make art. Be in a community that
will empower you as an artist
For sculpture, the studio is similar but it needs the tools you will use for whatever type of
sculpture you are making. The most basic sculpture studio has materials from nature like
feathers, bones, sticks, wood, rocks and other objects. Beyond that, all you will need is
glue, a saw, a hammer and tape measure, a chisel, sanders, and nails or screws. A
workshop can be in a basement, a storeroom, a garage, or a corner of the living room.
One ninety- year- old- man with prostate cancer made a studio in the corner of his room
in an old age home so he could make sculpture. He cut the wood in the basement and
brought it up to his room to glue and paint. He made life-size sculptures of beautiful

43

woman goddesses that were inspiring to everyone around him and deeply healing for
himself.
If you are photographer all you need is a camera. The type does not matter. Polaroid
cameras, point and shoot, or expensive cameras will all work. Each has strengths and
weaknesses in the process. A Polaroid camera gives you instant gratification. Many
hospital artists use it with patients right in their rooms. You can color the prints, mount
them, put them in collages or hang them as they are. You can put them in a journal with
stories, or hang them in spirals on the wall. A point and shoot takes pictures of excellent
quality, has the advantage of portability, and is inexpensive. The prints can be worked
with easily since they are not mounted like Polaroids. A complicated camera takes a
variety of lenses and is more flexible in exposure and composition. You can have the
film developed professionally or do it yourself and you can use either color or black and
white film. With color film you can shoot slides or prints. The darkroom and other
elaborate photo materials are optional. You can make yourself a darkroom in an extra
bedroom, a laundry room, or a large closet. You can carry water from a bathroom sink.
You can block off the windows with cardboard and soft cloth on the edges to keep out the
light. All you really need is an enlarger, an easel, a timer, trays, a safelight, a tank, a
thermometer, and chemicals. You can even print color yourself or use digital
photography with computers.
For crafts, you need to fit your studio to the craft you are working- clay, glass, jewelry,
metal, or fiber all are healing. Weaving and quilt- making are also deeply healing and
have been since women started to make art. Currently some of the most famous quilt
makers and weavers are men. To find out how to make a studio, go to an artist in that
medium that you know or take a beginners course anywhere. Again, your intent is to
heal, not make museum art so do not worry about being perfect. Just get started. The
fascination with your art- making process and your materials will take over and drive you
to learn more. The concentration and interest will take your mind off your illness and
you will be transported to a different world. The studio is the place where that world
lives. Your vehicle may be a pad and paints or a point and shoot, but when you pick it up
you are a healing artist in your own nonordinary world.
Sacred time and the visual arts
When you approach the canvas, each minute is full. This is different than rushing to
work or driving a carpool. When you make art, time vanishes. If we suspend our
distractions, we can go into a moment where we are deeply connected to the place our
visions come from, from the past, the present, and the future. You open the doorway for
it to come in. If you are totally present, you are in a moment that is connected to all of
time. Images deep in your spiritual consciousness emerge in a way that resonates with
other people. Somehow inside of yourself is a place like dreams, a void inside of time
where images begin. The slowing down of time occurs in between your consciousness
moments.. Seizing the moments and experiencing them fully. Go into a moment and
stretch it out. Within a sacred moment, go to the point where you are present in your
breathing. In that moment, is a moment that is so open, it is illuminated. All energy, all

44

images are there before you know it, before you speak, in the dream space within. That is
the place where you begin your healing.
Letting your healing images emerge.
When you paint, you start from the spiral of lived experience. You go to the place in
your life where you are living what needs to be healed. You go to the physical
experience of illness, despair, anger, rage. When you approach the process, you start
from place of pain or fear and paint it. The material you would work with is the
experience. You paint figures that reflect your own emotions. You use the painting as a
way to paint yourself, your lived experience, your world. That is your subject matter, the
subject is your life even if the image is symbolic.
When Mary saw the figure of herself facing forwards instead of hiding, she was healed,
she then didnt need to paint any other subjects. She could then paint other things.
When you paint your healing experience, you realize it. You realize how afraid and
broken you are. A painting stands still for a moment. You capture something you can be
with, a space you can go into, a place to share. A painting is honest. You look at yourself
and see what you need and then you give it to yourself. You see the need to take care of
you, you see yourself love yourself, you see your pain and see that you need to be loved.
It is an act of love that you give yourself. It is a act of self love, but as you paint you
move past self love to give to others. You cultivate a vision of looking at the world that is
deep, that is given to others. The paintings are offerings of an authentic vision of
yourself to the world. You almost cannot speak, it is deeper than words. The painting
captures an experience that allows others to be there, to look at themselves. You share a
way of seeing, you give of yourself as an artist and that becomes your gift. When you are
really healed is when you love yourself perfectly. Then, you can perfectly love the
world, then the only thing you can do is to give your art to the world for the sake of love.
Sharing your art is your act of love, that is how you heal yourself and others and the
world. This view of art is totally different from the view of galleries selling art to
collectors. It is about healing. Your art is a way to access yourself.
If you look at the process in slow motion, there are characteristics that emerge. It is
about watching the images appear and letting them grow naturally. It is about honoring
what emerges and being open to change. The most powerful images are those that come
from deep inside you, that are meaningful to you, that are part of your story or myth. It is
about you taking on your life, trusting your images, trusting them for your art. If you
cant think of anything, go with what you see. Take a place in the image your paint and
let it go forwards to the next one. Then the series grows.
Archetypal images emerge often as you make healing art. In visual portraiture, metaphor
emerges. In figurative painting, symbols appear in the landscapes and still lifes and in
the figures you paint. People respond to what they can see. Figures bring you in contact
with humanness, they show you yourself and the others around you. They show you
family members, relationships, your placement in your environment. You always want
resonance, but there are many different types of images that resonate with your life as

45

you live it now. Symbols often appear in healing art unconsciously. Birds, stars,
rainbows, houses, hands, trees, hearts, are typical of healing art. The images content in
not important in itself. It is meaningful to the person who paints it. What is more
important than the image, is the emotional experience of the image. The gesture of the
line and the emotional contents are more significant than the painting looking like the
person. Rendering accurately is not the point, rendering imagery that is meaningful is
what is important.
.
Surrealist artists portrayed moving into creative space and time as popping through the
membrane. They described their experience as going into the body of their lover, going
through her body, seeing it as transparent, and then moving inside. Many healing artists
say that the most significant thing they do is go through a membrane, go elsewhere to a
place of beauty inside themselves. They said that only then does she sing to them of the
birth of time and space By her beauty, they are drawn into her and through her, and then
they hear her voice. This journey is portrayed as three drops, each deeper and deeper.
The first is leaving ordinary experience, the second finding the energy of the physical
manifestation of forms, and finally the third, is something coming out of nothingness
effortlessly. This process sounds abstract and difficult but it takes place by itself when
you go elsewhere.
When Mary paints, she takes something from her lived experience that is interesting. She
says, "what comes out emerges without thought, what I hope comes out is a gestural
movement that I cant conceptualize. I allow the unseen to become seen, you get filled,
merge, the seed becomes born. It is like giving birth, your body takes control, you dont
do anything. In the kitchen your child brings you a flower, you see it is beautiful, you
want to paint it. Making a painting is like making a salad. It is really ordinary on the
surface. But in painting, you see the ordinary way of being, as the greatest joy. You
magnify the light in the simple to illuminate the sacred in a new way of seeing. The
ordinary mother within the extraordinary artist is. They exist at once. You look at it, you
stop time, you create time and space, you are with it and present, beautiful, peaceful, and
healing. You go into something visually. The spiral is a soft drop into the place where
images come to you like your breath".
Another way of working is to meditate and see the vision and then render it as art.
Visionary artists like the painter Alex Grey often work in this way. James Surls, a Texas
wood sculptor who inspired Michael to conceive his first vision of art and healing,
worked with images by seeing them in a relaxed visionary state. He would manipulate
the image in inner space, rotate it and look at it. And then he would bring it out from his
personal space of imagery to make art. Both ways of seeing involve an abstract
absorption of power. It is not important which way you use. For Mary, making healing art
is closer to making a salad than to intentionally creating a meditative visionary
experience. For James, it is an intentional meditative visionary experience. For you, it
can be either way. It can be a totally ordinary or consciously visionary. You start now
with the simplest act and move forwards. The most important thing is holding your
space, maintaining your relationship to creation.

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Giving birth to the earth, patient stories

When Michael works with cancer patients he is always amazed by the art they bring to
their sessions. A woman with bone cancer who had been experiencing only pain and
depression started to draw. She brought in drawings of herself which changed from week
to week. All Michael did was honor them and help her to look at them with love. If he
knew about a symbol, he might tell a story, but he did not interpret her art. At first she
drew herself as separated from everything, she was alone, in a box. The drawings were
crude, ugly, jarring. She was always trapped, always curled up in darkness. But even
then, she loved her drawings. They were surprisingly ugly to her but she felt right at
home in the imagery she drew. As she drew more, she took the walls away and she
became more beautiful. At this point in the process she became intensely interested in
her drawing and spent more and more time doing it at home between sessions for pure
enjoyment. The drawing became a preoccupation, it became the most important thing for
her to do. As she drew she almost became wild. She was so full of energy, she could
hardly sleep. She woke up and started drawing immediately and sometimes drew late
into the night. Suddenly the drawings changed. Imagery started to be surprising and
wonderful. She drew herself flying, in space, with crystals, with animals. She saw
herself surrounded by rainbow like colors, swirling around her painting her. She saw
herself merging with things, blending into light. Finally the drawings portrayed her
giving birth to the earth, an image of union and connectedness that showed who she had
become. The drawings were now in astonishing colors, they were shaded and three
dimensional, and they even became illuminated with gold ink. They were graphic
representations of the transformation that was occurring. They showed her as healing
even before she knew what was happening. They took her animals, her friends, her cat,
and most importantly the earth itself, and made them all hers. She was now connected to
them, part of them, one with them.
Out of her cocoon
Both as a patient and an artist, a young woman used her creative resources and empowered herself to become deeply involved in her own
recovery from chronic pain. Diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a chronically painful condition which had severely disabled her to the point that
she became wheelchair-bound and severely depressed, she began a series of seventy-two drawings which she refers to as The Journey. The
first painting was called simply "Pain." After she became engaged in the drawing process, the colors, patterns, and symbols took on
significance to her, and her drawings began to guide her in new directions.
She had become extremely sick. She had dropped to ninety eight pounds and could not work and she thought that she was dying.
She could not communicate with her doctors or nurses and was extremely depressed. She started meticulously drawing her images.
She began to draw the pain. She could not communicate it verbally to the staff. They did not seem to understand her constant
complaints. She would draw her pain purple and yellow, with spiked balls. She would show electric current jolts going though her.
Her art made her intimate with her pain and her sensations. She drew herself in a cocoon were she was wrapped and in pain. Then she
began to do landscapes. She would became a tiny woman in the landscape in the cocoon, you could not see her well. She began to
develop a visual way to deal with her pain, to deal with the hospital. Purple and orange colors represented her experience of pain, heart
flowers in the landscapes represented self-love, and a frequently recurring drawing of a path represented her journey. She began to see
people, to talk about the pictures rather than talk about her pain. She did this for several months. She would paint little flowers in
wild pink colors and then they would grow. Then she had insights of what they meant to her. She did this on her own, she talked
about her images but did this on her own. She realized that she had to love herself. She realized this from her flowers. The flowers
were self love. It was like something was talking to her, the images were telling her stories. She saw them evolving over time. Then
her intent was to make images to help her in the healing process. One day she burst out of her cocoon, the butterfly was free. She was
then an actively involved artist. She had become more deliberate, not just intuitive. She was now more empowered, she could
actually do this, and she drew herself well. From then on, the paintings were a monitor of her pain, and she was outside it enough to
be able to express it.

For her, the visual world had become a potent and direct form of communication: She talks
about the process, "My realization was that if I really wanted to help myself with the pain I
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would have to change my whole life. It was in my drawings that I began my search for the
person I was born to be." Her drawings reflected her experiences, her relationship with her
caregivers, and her relationship with her pain. She shares her drawings with her caregivers
as a vital part of her therapy and healing process. When they can see her pain, the believe it
and can treat it better. When they see her images of healing, they know medications are
effective. Finally, she has become involved with sharing her experience of art in her own
recovery process.
I take pictures so I can never forget
A series of pieces by a woman photographer documents her friend's experience of breast
cancer and its treatment. The photographs confront with creativity the experience of a
woman living with this disease. The patient shared her response to this documentation: "I
want to be able to remember what has happened to me the last few months. Unlike some
women I have read about who don't want to remember, I can never forget. The photographs
and my journal will always be a link for me. The words provide an immediate and urgent
release for what I'm feeling and the images document what I'm experiencing." She explains
that, while exploring the uncharted territory both of having breast cancer and of
documenting her healing journey, she feels she is coming out of the closet of social taboo
and fear. She shares her humanity and her personal experience boldly. This is a powerful
visual narrative through her friend who has photographed her throughout her treatment.
Mary Lisa tells how she started as a artist in residence
"My friend who was a nurse at the hospital called me to please come down to the hospital.
So I brought T-shirts with me and some paints and things. And she said, 'We have a little
girl here who has been waiting to see you. I told her you were coming.' She was 7 years
old and I had never been on a bone marrow transplant unit and I looked though the window
and she was so excited. This little girl was all tied up to her intravenous lines. She was
jumping up and down-straight up and down-that I was there, and clapping her hands when I
walked in. The nurse told me that she had been standing at the window and looking out and
waiting for me to come all day. And she was just like, are you gonna play with me, are you
gonna do this with me, are you gonna-can we paint? And she was the cutest little girl. I
created all these little characters for her like little friends. I drew little animals that she had
in mind. When she said draw her kitty I would do the kitty and I would put her pajamas on
the kitty that I drew for her. Then shed paint herself as a kitty with her little bunny slippers
on and with her little hair barrettes and with her little hats on. She would giggle and draw
poodles with little dresses on. This child, who had spent a long time here, at one point
would not speak with anybody. She had totally shut down and the only way that she would
communicate was by making animal noises and drawing with me. They would call me and
say 'can you please come and work with her because she wont talk.' Until I got there she
was having a horrible time with the bone marrow transplant. She would be vomiting and
then I would come and she would paint and she wouldnt want me to go, you know.
Theres such tremendous loneliness.
"As soon as I walked in the room I knew that this was where I belonged. It was a
knowledge that what I do, the person that I am, could provide a service that would be
important here. I knew that it was very important work. It was joy. I didnt get

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intimidated until I got home because then Id think about it. It really upsets you because of
the love you develop for your friends and your family there and their families and the pain
that they go through. But I knew that I could do this job; I knew that what I had to offer was
very important in this situation. I feel like Im life. I think I have a sense of their
abandonment and I want to listen to them. I want to hear what their story is and I wan to
make them feel better if I can."
Your artist in residence Mary Lisas advice about how to heal yourself with
visual arts:
"The first thing that I do when people tell me that they cant draw a straight line is tell
them, 'excellent, now I dont have to tell you not to do that.' Then one of the other things
that I like to do with them, is to throw a brush filled with paint onto the paper. I like to
work with water colors, I think water colors are very easy for people to start out with.
Water colors are water soluble paints. I use the ones in a tray, any brand will do. With
the water colors, I sometimes have them get a lot of paint on their brush and then I have
them throw the brush at the paper. I have them throw it far if they are resistant. It
depends on how resistant they are, They say , 'I cant do that, I cant do that' and then I
get paint all over the place and they dont care about not being able to do it anymore.
"Just the fact that people have to have perfection, that they have the sense that they need to
have a photographic image completed or otherwise its not considered artwork is something
I deal with. I start showing them things right away. Ill start showing them that flowers are
very simple. If we make a series of circles, then we have created a flower. Now we add a
stem. If we roll our brush with the pigment on it, maybe we put another color on the other
tip of it and we roll it, we start creating flowers. Ill teach them how to do scribbles with a
crayon and then put water color washes on there. This is good for all ages. We do
scribbling with the crayons and I tell kids they can send someone secret messages this way.
Then they can paint on it and then they can write with white crayons and I have the adults
paint a watercolor border around their letters. Maybe theyre writing poetry or maybe
theyre writing notes to their friends. They can draw all these little things in white and then
put washes and rainbows of color around it. Another way is to use T-shirts. The T-shirts
are very non-intimidating and so I offer my services as someone who will draw for them and
then usually their focus is right there on painting that T-shirt. I can get men to paint T-shirts
for their children, their grandchildren, their wives, their girlfriends. Theyll paint them for
somebody. I can get teen-age boys to paint T-shirts for their girlfriends. A T-shirt seems
very ordinary and not too emotional or spiritual but Ill tell you a story.
"One day I came into the unit and a man came up to me and said you are the one. I
immediately thought 'what have I done?,' I felt guilty. He told me that I had changed his
life and he thanked me and hugged me. I had worked with his wife who was very ill. She
wanted to paint a T-shirt for her young son. She knew her little boy loved vacuum cleaners
so she started to paint a vacuum cleaner. I helped her. As she worked she became more and
more absorbed in the process. As she painted, she could hear her son running up and down
in the hall outside her room making the sounds of a vacuum cleaner and it would make her
smile and cry at once. And she became sicker and sicker. She concentrated as hard as she
could on the colors, the shapes, the background. And one day I came to work and I heard

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she had died. The next day, her husband showed me what he had done. He had framed the
T -shirt so lovingly and beautifully. He told me it was the last thing she had done for her
little boy. It was her last gift to him and they would treasure it always. It was her love to
him expressed as art. It was only a T-shirt, only a vacuum cleaner but it was as deep as this
work gets."
In general, when painting on paper, start with water colors or acrylics because theyre both
water-based. Use pencils, crayons, and water-color pencils because you can re-mark them
and add wash and experiment with them with a little more control. You can change the
shape of the paper into a circle or other shape , you can make a mandala. Sometimes just
changing the shape of the area and adding colors will help. Experiment with paper wet or
dry, lots of paint, a little paint, a little dot, a big dot, experiment with where the colors fall
and how they blend together and just be fascinated with what happens. Later on you can
start putting things in, really focusing more and tuning in to your feelings. Just allow
yourself the opportunity to play with that a little and get to know your media. Let yourself
go and ask "what could happen here?" And then youd be surprised how quickly your
accidents and things you fell into, things you had no intention of displaying become art. You
get impressions from the way your colors have shown up on the page. The story you create
inside yourselves is very important, its your story.
Lee Ann tells about starting out as an artist in residence
Lee Ann Stacpoole is a multi-talented artist whose media changes with the changes in her
life. Lee Ann was the very first artist in residence at Shands Hospital, University of
Florida, who conquered her fear of going into an environment she was unsure of . She
was the first to work with people who were not artists. She taught us that everyone is an
artist. With her soft encouragement and empowerment she allowed each person to find
their own area of creativity. When you would paint with her she would say "That is the
most beautiful painting I have ever seen". And you would say, "Really?" and she would
say, "Yes, I wish I could paint like that, look at the way you make this mark". Instead of
you saying, "I wish I could paint like her" she said it first. As she sat next to you with
her long blond hair, her dress that flowed like silk of a bright wild green that shimmers
like light, her Native American earrings and necklace, she made you feel like an artist.
Her arms were always soft and gentle. In her voice you could sense she knew you could
make art. She would tell you that she was a self- taught artist and that she believed if she
could do it, you could do it too. Lee Ann was also the artist who set up the tile project to
have children with cancer and their families paint tiles to go up on a tile wall. Her son
Daniel was born with Downs syndrome, and she is working on a photography project to
empower people working with developmentally handicapped children to see these children
as beautiful.
Lee Ann Stacpoole tells this story about seeing the first patient ,Michelle, in the Arts In
Medicine Program. "When we started in AIM we bought tons of art supplies, we bought
crandache paints, black hardback journals, water paints, Fimo clay. Everything was
beautiful, brightly colored and rich. We walked into a patients room and we were
starting out on a journey so beautiful we could not imagine where it would lead. The first

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patient was fourteen years old. She was bald from chemotherapy, she had a bone
sarcoma, she had been an artist in school, it just seemed like a wonderful opening. And
as we walked in the room, we said to ourselves, 'we will be an artist and make art,' and
she was sweet and receptive. We left her materials to paint with and the next day we saw
that the art box we had left her was right where we left it.
Imagine it was you going into the room, picture yourself as the artist in residence just
starting out in unknown territory. Maybe poetry would work, you think, as you seek for
forms. And as the patient sits in a chair in the tiny dark room with the curtains drawn
around her, it seems somber and quiet and she looks at you with eyes so old they seem
ancient and quiet. She is always in different moods, she is consumed by sadness, by
anger, by frustration- like many teenagers but more so, here in this dark place. But she
doesnt engage you at all, although you are with her, you are confused. Then you realize
you cannot make her draw, you cannot make her write. You deal with who you are as a
person, with your big ideas and passion, you sit on the bed with her, you start to talk to
her mother, you do the best you can. Then you realize that the only thing you can do is
draw her. You draw her in all her changed moods, you see her as so beautiful. Now she
is open. As you are spend time with her , you realize that painting her brings you two
together. With these prolonged encounters where you sit and draw there is room for
conversation to come out of nothingness. Your agenda is dropped, you are doing what
you are doing as an artist. You are doing what you know how to do. You bring beauty
into the dark compressed space, where before there has only been sickness. You have a
relationship with her now that is significant and the relationship you have is deep and
intense. You have seen her, she has seen you. It is different from every other
relationship you have ever had. You want nothing other than to help her.
And then Michelle goes home. You get a letter from her mother that she is going back to
school. You get a letter from Michelle herself. Inside the letter is a small painting made
with the cotton swabs she used when she had the mouth sores. She had to use these
swabs three times a day during the most painful part of the bone marrow transplant to
care for her mouth which was eroding with the chemotherapy. You knew the mouth
swabs were the most painful part of her hospital stay. And she painted a bouquet of
flowers with these swabs for you. She painted this for you to have. It was like an
incredible gift. You dont know what effect you made, but you realize it was
monumental. It was so meaningful to her as her artist . And you take her little painting
and positioned it in the center of each of her portraits you had made as she changed her
moods and you see her as beautiful, and you create a piece called Michelles Flowers.
The piece takes form and is a monument to this first experience of art and healing. It is
about simply being with her. It is about having no expectations and simply having the
intention to heal. It is about art as a way of caring, a way of reaching out and being
connected to somebody in a more meaningful way than we have the opportunity to be in
our ordinary lives. It is an experience where you get goose bumps and are actually
touched as you touch someone else."
Lee Ann Stacpooles advice:

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"Keeping a journal and painting on a piece of paper or cutting out pictures and pasting them
on is a good way to begin. Listening to tapes of music while you paint works well to relax
you. There are lots of different materials and maybe one material isnt the right way for you
so try different media. I like gouache better than watercolors. Theyre both water based
mediums but gouache has more of a gutsiness to it, a richness and saturation to the color.
You can go from light to dark and dark to light with gouache. With watercolor you can
only work from light to dark. I think gouache is much more forgiving and easier for people.
I like the water-soluble sticks and pencils that they can draw with. Just make drawing marks
either with a stick or with a pointed pencil and then use a water brush to soften it or make it
all kind of blur. Well, I always encourage people to use the best kind of materials they can
afford to get. But other than that, use anything, typewriter paper, even the back of a grocery
sack.
"There is no right or wrong., theres no bad art. Everything, every mark that you make is a
potential part of a creative process that I believe helps you, helps your inner self. Its a
freeing, its opening a door for you. Just go ahead and make that mark, and give yourself
permission to make the next one. The more you do it, the more easily it will flow. When you
say, 'I never can learn how to draw', I say. 'can you write the ABCs', and you say, 'yeah, of
course', and I say, 'well then you can learn to draw, it just takes time'. You have to learn how
to see what youre looking at.
"Try to find out what it was in your past that had caused the limitations. Because usually
when people tell me that they want to be an artist, something had stopped them at some
point from doing it. Id say play with your materials. Just explore. Do you want to paint
flowers? landscapes? do you want to paint designs? Pick something out from a magazine, a
little something that you like and try to look at it. Do it, do it, and do it. Again and again.
In the doing of it, you will get better. You will feel better about your work the more you do
it. Do not to worry about criticism. This is about healing, not perfection.
"Well, the first major experience I have with healing art was working with Mary. Mary
came to me and was so interested and she wanted to watch me draw and to watch me in my
process. It wasnt that I minded her watching, and I was glad to have her there. But I really
sensed that she needed to be making art. She said, 'Oh, but I cant do it, Ive tried, Ive
taken classes, I just cant do it.' And I said, 'well, what kind of classes have you taken?'
And I found out she had taken classes from a woman who does very detailed, beautiful
watercolor paintings. Well, here was Mary. Anyone who knows Mary five minutes knows
she is not the kind of person who is going to sit there with a tiny little brush and do these
delicate little watercolor paintings. She just was using the wrong medium. So I gave her
these sticks, kind of like oil pastel or actually water soluble color sticks. They dont have
points or anything and I said, 'just go for it. Just start playing.' I said, 'just do it'. And I was
blown away. Not only did she just do it but she did it like it was a high speed train going by
the studio. I was really blown away. I thought this woman has so much art in her. She is
just bottled up. I think it was like a genie trying to get out of a bottle where theres only a
pinhole and he cant squeeze through. Mary needed a little bit more space. Mary always
was an artist. She just needed to know that for herself. She needed to give herself the
permission and recognition that her inner self was beautiful. She needed to know that what

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she made with her inner self in that process was wonderful and there was no right or wrong
attached to it. It was what it was and it was radiant. That was my first experience.
"I knew that it would be good for her. There was one day I made her cry because I kept
saying, 'Say I am an artist' and she said, 'I cant, I cant.' Ive been through therapy. It
wasnt that we were doing therapy with each other. But I did see Mary get better, healed,
we didnt use the word healed, but we thought it. There are no mistakes, only opportunities
to explore the infinite possibilities of painting."
Lee Ann tells stories about the tile wall
"I created a project that allowed children with cancer, their families, and the medical staff
who took care of them to paint ceramic tiles. They worked together in a studio set up in the
waiting room of the cancer center. One day, this family came in, a large extended family. It
seems like there were 6 or 7 people who came into the studio together. The child who was
ill in the family had on a mask, it was hard for him to hold a brush or a pencil because his
hand was shaking so much because he was so weak. I watched his father take the sons
hand, place it on the tile, and draw the outline around his sons fingers. He then assisted
his son in starting to paint his hand on the tile. He painted the dark brown color of his
skin, with the fathers assistance. The father was also painting his own tile as well as
helping his son. I remember watching this father hold his sons hand and observe his
sons fingernails so that he could draw fingernails on the hands on the tile. It was such a
beautiful act of love that I was privileged to see that day. This whole family surrounded
this boy with love and you really felt that this love and what they were going through
transcended his illness. That seemed real clear from all the tiles that each member of that
family did. It was a beautiful moment to watch and to see. In normal everyday life lots
of parents never have the chance or the time to sit down and do something like painting
together or doing a project together. What was real nice about the tile project was that it
gave the families a few moments to do that together, in the midst of all their scheduled
doctors appointments and treatments. This took them away for a while. I really think
thats what I saw that year with most of the people who walked through the door.
"We began, at a certain point, to ask the participants if they were willing to answer a
couple of questions and one was what does your tile mean to you? And the second one
was Did you feel any differently while you were painting your tile? The reason we
asked that second question was because of one woman. This woman came in and she
was happily painting this wonderful picture of a happy lady with an Egyptian hairdo and
these wild earrings and she just was just the most bubbly woman in the world. We asked
her if she was sick and she said, 'oh yes, Ive had so much pain-I've just had this really,
really horrible pain with this illness and its just been the worst thing.' We were sitting
there looking at her and she didnt look she was in pain at all at that moment and I said,' I
hope you dont mind my asking but do you notice when you are painting that maybe you
feel a little better?' She looked startled and she thought to herself and she said, 'well you
know, I didnt notice my pain. I did feel better while I was painting. While she was
verbalizing about all her terrible pain, she was happily painting away on her tile like shes
out on a picnic!

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"When I did the tile wall, I gave the people some very basic simple steps. We would show
them how to use the materials. We would explain to them that the colors would change
somewhat when they were fired, although most of them stayed the same. A blue would be a
blue and what you saw as green would be green. Some changed radically, but we had a
sample tile showing the fired colors. They could choose which colors they wanted to use,
they could choose what kind of brush they wanted to use, whether a big one or a little one.
We told them that they could draw their image first with a pencil or pen and that anything
they drew would burn off in the firing process so there was no way to make mistakes. We
had to constantly tell people, "Its OK, this isnt a mistake.". One of the things I did
frequently to help people loosen up was to say, 'see, you can have fun going like this' and I'd
paint a little swirl and dab on little blobs. Id say Dr. Graham-Pole, the pediatric oncologist
physician who co-founded the art in medicine program comes in here and puts all these little
blobs of color on the tile and theyre really pretty when theyre fired. Theyd see one of his
tiles figure that if a doctor could play with color they could too. Im sure they were saying
this to themselves and feeling better. "
Celelia Thorner on breast cancer and transcendence
Cecelia Thorner is a breast cancer survivor who makes sculpture warrior shields. Before she
started making her fabric art she had been a mother and run a clothing business. She had
never made art or been an artist.. Since she has had breast cancer her life has changed. She
is now an artist. She has made a series of shields over many years that are powerful and
transformative to her and others who see them. She is a wonderful example of a person who
started as an ordinary woman and became an artist healer. She made art to heal herself and
through the process became a powerful woman and an artist. When you see Cecelia you are
struck by both her beauty and her sense of self. She holds her head high like a warrior and
her eyes look directly at you. She looks at everything around her with intensity, she is so
alive. Her shields take your breath away. Women with breast cancer look at her shields and
their hair stands on end.
"I have to say that I didn't plan what the pieces were; they just came from my unconscious.
There were times when I would try to manipulate what I was going to do. It did not feel
right and I couldn't allow myself to do it. I discovered that if I just let go and let my
unconscious mind- the spiritual part of me- come out, these wonderful pieces were created.
I wasn't quite sure with each one what they really were about as I made them, but by the
time I finished the piece, it really became clear what it was--what aspect it represented. I
spent a lot of time walking by myself. Not going on the walk with the intention of coming
up with answers but just going on a walk and kind of freeing my mind of clutter. It was
amazing that these revelations would just come up, and I would write them down. I kept a
journal but it was very informal. At the end of 3 years I had made 11 pieces and after I had
finished the 11 pieces, another revelation occurred. I saw that in the beginning all my
pieces were very large and it was kind of looking at the whole philosophical aspect of breast
cancer and the parts that were really not very scary. But then as time went on, at the very
end, all my pieces became smaller and smaller and those were the pieces that were really
about the difficult part--that I might die--and all of these very, very scary things. It had

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been 18 years and I was just so emotionally drained. But it was at that point that I really felt
that I was healed. I had gotten over the trauma and I could just let go of that part that I had
dealt with for so long. It was kind of like starting all over again. I mean I felt really free.
The other way of looking at it is that in the beginning, the large pieces represented this huge
enormous hole in me and as I began to make the pieces, the hole kept getting smaller and
smaller and smaller until it finally just closed up and healed.
"My series was called Warrior Woman and it was about becoming a warrior to be able to
fight breast cancer. One of the last pieces that I did, I called Warrior Woman--Wings of
Transcendence. It was very wing-like and there was a body and it was very feminine. I
had completed the piece and I had sent the slide off to be included in an exhibit for women
who had had breast cancer. It was accepted but I was not happy with the piece--there was
something wrong with it so I completely took it apart. I was really frustrated and I thought
that I had really not transcended--it just had not happened. I tried a lot of different things
and a month or so went by, quite a long time, and I went on a walk and I just decided that I
was going to let go of it. When it came together, it would be together and it could be today
or it could be next year. So I came home from my walk and I had all the pieces
disassembled on my deck and I looked -and the answer was there.
"It was the most awesome experience. I'm not sure that I really believe in God but that day I
really felt like there really is something more. I was allowing myself to see that and I think
that was probably one of the most thrilling moments of my life. It was also about trusting
myself to listen to what my inner voice was telling me and maybe not understanding at the
moment but just following my instinct. I just kind of felt like I'm the vehicle and there is
something greater in me. I've tapped into that and I'm making these things that hopefully
other people will see and they will be transformed too.
"Well, even now when I speak of that experience, I have to take this deep breath. I grew up
as a Methodist and you go to church and you hear all these incredible stories about a Godlike experience. I have to say that that, for me, it was for me. The incident was about
discovering that there is something greater within your own self. You don't really need to
go outside of yourself to be whole.
" I think I just felt that if there is a God, that he was telling me that there was a message I
was supposed to be getting. I just remember feeling it was the most awesome kind of
experience. I think doing these pieces, all of them, has probably been one of the most
meaningful things that I've ever done in my life.
" To me, the piece is about a woman. She's transcending. She's going into a place where
she's never been before and it's symbolic of my allowing myself to go within. Inside here is
this vibrant, creative, passionate woman that I don't think I ever allowed myself to see. It's
very frightening and scary to see her, particularly after breast cancer. Breast cancer takes
away from the feeling of passion and creativity. There is another thing that occurred in
regards to this piece. I finished it and I knew it was perfect and fabulous and I put it
together in not a very long time, just a few hours. I have a wall set up with the correct
lighting and I hung it on the wall and I turned on the light and I looked at it and the inside
part of the shield was glowing red--I mean it was like the most frightening, exciting,

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exhilarating experience. That was absolutely unplanned. It was just wonderful because it
truly was alive--it represented life."
Cecelia's advice on starting to heal yourself with visual art
"I advise women who have breast cancer or anyone who wants to heal themselves with art
to start by tapping into the possibilities of what really is within you. I suggest writing, or
talking into a tape recorder, meditation, making sure that you spend some time alone. Try
not having music on, but really being quiet. It doesn't mean sitting in a lotus position
meditating, it could be walking, or just sitting. This allows you to hear all of these voices
inside you; it allows you to tap into your gut feelings, into your intuition. You start to
believe in your intuition, and realize that that really is your true life.
Releasing your inner critic
For most people one of the first things they face is a voice inside of them that says, "You
cant do this, you are not good enough, this is silly, you are not an artist". So one of the
first major goals is to tell yourself "It is all right." Release yourself from your inner
critic. Dont censor yourself, be free to make art in a state of exhilaration. Have no
judgment, tell your self critic to go into another room and rest a while. Make art like a
child would. Hopefully as a child your critic was not born yet. You created art for the
experience of doing it. You allowed it to happen.. Let go of "I cant do it." Think "yes I
can". This will take you from where you are inhibited to where you are free. When you
start to make art tell yourself you will make art no matter what. Tell yourself that your
life depends on this, this is one choice you will make to heal, this is one choice you will
make to save your life.
When you get ill or depressed or have a life crises, you adjust your priorities. When a
person gets a diagnosis of cancer or is so depressed they cant go on, everything changes
in one moment. The inner critic drops off suddenly and is replaced by "what I have to do
is primary, no matter what I think I need to do this now." "When I make art with an
intention to heal, no one can ever take it away from me". The feedback of success is so
powerful it takes over everything. You know you are an artist no matter what anyone
thinks, you are full inside, there is no longer room for criticism. It is also important in
releasing the inner critic to realize that healing art is not about success, aesthetics, or
making art that another person likes. It is about healing. No art you make is bad, or
wrong. It is what you are doing to heal yourself, others, or the earth. It is that simple.
Repeat this to yourself if your critic pipes up.
Gina talks about compassion, body feelings, and healing
Gina Halpern is a ceramic artist and painter who has been using art to heal for twenty five
years. She is one of the most innovative people in this field. She has made Mandalas
with cancer patients where she paints what the person sees. She worked with clay in
hospital lobbies, she danced and made music with children and she taught workshops on
art and healing at many conferences nationwide. She is the artist who made the mandala

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with Michael's wife Nancy when Nancy had breast cancer. She healed herself of a critical
illness with art and after that experience set up Healing Through Arts, one of the first
organizations in art and healing. Gina often dresses in bright colors like a figure in one
of her paintings. She sometimes dresses like a clown because she has been a clown with
children who were ill. She stretches out her hands while she talks like she is dancing.
Her eyes are bright and she cares deeply for the people she works with.
"I was in my mid-twenties and I had a major illness. I had had a Dalkon Shield and I
developed pelvic inflammatory disease and they didn't know what it was. I spent the first
months dealing with that in a little hospital in Maine, scared out of my mind. They put me
on medication and on my 25th birthday I had a drug reaction that almost killed me. I think I
was a lot closer to death than I realized. I was sick beyond belief and I remember for my
birthday somebody brought me a large Italian bowl. It was the only visual reference I had in
the whole room and so it became the focal point. When I was just afraid and in pain I would
find myself staring into this bowl. I realized later that it was my first experience of a
mandala--the use of an image as a focusing device-- and that became a really important
discovery for me. Then I began to photograph the objects on the bedside table. I had a
close friend bring my camera and I would photograph the shelves and the flowers. I realized
that when I was looking through the camera, I was not afraid, I was not in pain. I would go
into the beauty of an object and lose myself in it for a small period of time. That was an
extraordinary discovery and as long as I was involved in the art and the beauty, I was not in
the suffering and in the fear. I thought, 'what if I could consciously make art with that
intention for other people?' The illness became the doorway for me into the spiritual. I got
so close to death that I had to start asking some big questions. I knew that for me the way to
understand this whole phenomenon of illness was through art. The art was the only way
that I could articulate what I was experiencing, what my fear was, what my longing was,
what the spiritual encounters that I was having that I didn't have words for--what they were;
I could express that all through the art.
When working to heal others, I would first say, there is a window--you know there's
this place where you leave the ego outside. There is this window of clarity that
happens, a presence that happens. When I was studying psychology, we used to talk
about the power of presence, a healing presence. When I started studying Buddhism,
there was a meditation which I found, The Buddha of Compassion. The meditation
starts off with --he or she- however you want to look at this deity, gazing at you with
compassionate eyes and seeing you completely with love. They see you inside and
outside. Just letting yourself be seen compassionately is an enormous thing.
"The three main components of working with others for me are: attention, intention,
and compassion. You have to start the practice with yourself which is the hardest thing.
The first time I tried it, I couldn't sit and be gazed upon with those compassionate eyes.
If I was going to teach any doctor, any nurse, this would be the meditation I would start
with because it's like the quintessential piece of healing, whether it's healing with
medicine or healing with art or healing as a chaplain. In the visualization you let
yourself be seen compassionately by the Buddha, the compassionate one and then you
imagine them entering your body and filling you up to the very capacity, the very edges

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of your skin and you see the world through their eyes. You see through the eyes of
compassion. You are yourself but you're also seeing through the eyes of compassion so
if you are basically a judgmental person, or you have expectations, you need to give
yourself over to the one who fills you and gives you the ability to have compassion.
When you are present with another person and see them without judgment, but only
with love and acceptance, what you see is their beauty and their uniqueness. When I go
to work with someone, that's what happens. I'm still there but that presence is more
there than I am.
"This morning when I was working with a man with cancer I could feel it happening.
It has a physiological feeling to me. Things start to hum and I feel a sense of energy
which is very palpable. I feel it most when I'm working with others. When I sing, the
singing is vibration, right? When I sing the goal is to get a kind of resonance. When
you sing and you start to resonate, the body feels like it is humming. It's in the front of
your nose but it goes up into your head and it also goes down into the whole chest
cavity and the abdomen and everything starts to hum. You're also breathing differently
and that is a very traditional kind of yoga quality. When I get going into this state its
almost as if the quality of light were shifting.
"It brightens and you know, it's very interesting. I had one vision in which I could see that
everything is really energy. What we think of as solid, your body, my body, the table, the
chairs, is really just molecules of atoms vibrating at different frequencies and densities and
what we see as the illusion of reality, is really just all vibration of energy. The other night I
actually dreamt of going to make art on an ice cap, like a polar ice cap, and it was all
translucent but when the light came through it, I saw the fractile crystalline patterns
illuminated in turquoise and magenta and I could almost again see the molecular structure
vibrating.
"This morning I worked with a man who's dealing with metastasized prostate cancer. In this
work, I'm a scribe and I set my ego aside and I become the eyes and the hands of the person
I'm working for. I make an empty space for their visions to come in and fill me and be
translated through my talent or gift or whatever you want to call it. It's actually sometimes
easier to do it for others than it is to do it for myself. When I was sitting with this man this
morning talking, and he was telling me his dreams and visions, everything started to vibrate
and I realized it was happening and I had to put my feet on the ground and kind of bring
myself back because it's almost like too easy to get into an altered state. Its especially
necessary to be centered when I'm working with someone else because the whole goal is to
be present for them."
Gina's advice on letting go of judgment and making healing art
"The first thing I would say is that you have to make a space of not judging yourself as
an artist or a non artist. I think that the practice of the Buddha of compassion is helpful.
You can call it Christ or Christ consciousness but be with someone who is
compassionate. If your grandmother is the most compassionate person that you have
ever known imagine that you are sitting across from your grandmother, and she is

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looking at you with total love and acceptance. Just sit there and be with them and
allow yourself to be seen and ask them to help you not be judgmental of yourself as you
enter into the process. That to me is a really big starting place. Because the first thing
that stops anyone from doing anything creative is 'I can't draw, I can't paint, I can't sing,
I am too fat to move' and all the negative judgment. And then you can't go anywhere.
But if you feel you can let yourself be seen compassionately, that is a place to begin. If
you can't do the meditation, say or write on the first page of your sketchbook 'I give
myself permission to enter this creative experience for my own healing and my own joy
and my own peace of mind.' Say it, state it, as a beginning statement. That is where I
would begin. I might even begin by writing it and coloring around it over and over
again with all my favorite colors and just see what happens.
The questions I ask my students are: What is your wound? What is your suffering ?
What is your joy? What do you need in this minute? What is your healing? And
when you think of these questions create a symbol. I think it is important for people to
make the invisible, visible. So I think that developing a symbolic language that speaks
to you of your experience is very important. Symbols are very powerful and whether it
is a religious icon or a 'no smoking' sign or a stop sign, they convey much more than
words will. So you want to create a symbol for yourself of your healing. Sit and close
your eyes and see yourself being seen with love and compassion and non judgment.
Give yourself the permission to make art, to make a symbol. It can be very simple.
Picture there is a blank movie screen behind your eyes and onto that project a symbol of
your illness, or what you need right now. For example, I need to be held, so I ask
myself, 'what do I need.' I might take my hand and put it on the paper and color inside
of it with all my favorite colors. When you begin to sit, check in with your body, ask
yourself what is hurting right now? Then as you are drawing hold the awareness of
how you feel now, or if you disappear into it, when you are finished drawing say how
do you feel now. A tool is to take your own pulse, count how many beats as you count
to ten. As you draw check it and see if their is any change. As you give attention to
who you are working with also give attention to yourself.
"When I work with symbols, I ask people to define it as a shape or movement in the air
in front of them so that you get it in their body. And they hold that in their body. Now
that I work with music I have people write down phrases for the symbol that they can
sing. If you are by yourself practice a chant or a mantra. Experience it with your body
and your mind and see how many modalities as you discover.
"For materials I suggest using whatever you are not going to feel intimidated by. Give
yourself permission to have an extraordinary experience. So if you are afraid, go for
whatever is least scary. It can mean using Xerox paper and a box of crayons or felt
tipped -markers from the five and ten.. I used to say get yourself the big box of 64
colors and tell people to try them, see what you like, what you hate. Watercolors are
very evocative as a material but they are hard to control. People get frustrated by them.
Lots of people love felt -tipped markers because the colors are more primary and very
direct."

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What are healing paintings, going to museums, viewing art to heal yourself
It is very beautiful and meaningful to hang the art you make on the walls so you can live
with it. You can do this in your studio, your bedroom, your hospital room or even your
kitchen. There is an important process that goes on when you live with your images as
they tell a healing story in time. Sometimes your images dont speak to you as you are
making them, because they come from a place that is far below where words are formed.
Your healing art comes from a place where images are formed and that is pre-verbal.
There is no criticism, you have let the forms or shapes begin to emerge without thinking
or even making up a story about them. There may exist in the unconscious, in
unknowingness. Then there is an opportunity to allow you to let your images be in your
life, to let them tell you stories. As time goes on, you can keep the images as a personal
diary. You can hang them around you, put them in a place you can go back to. You can
put them away, and bring them back out six months or a year later. Then you may see
that they tell a story. You can understand yourself in time, sometimes in the future. It is
an expressive mode. The healing is the pure mode, the healing is in the release, it is not
definable. When you go back and look at it, there is distance, a space. You can tell a
story about yesterday better than about the life you are living now. Create space for that
kind of dialogue to emerge. When you look at the art you have made, eventually you see
who you are. As you look at the images that have emerged, you see what you have been
doing, you hear the story of what happened as you healed yourself.
The art that you hang to heal you does not have to be art that you made. You can collect
art and buy art that is alive. The art you put up around you can be filled with power or
peace. You can choose art you recognize, that speaks to you. When Mary was an art
collector, she would find powerful pieces to help her heal. Hanging those paintings that
have special significance to you makes your home a healing environment. Whenever you
look at the paintings, they are refection of where you are. They tell your story. You are
able to evoke a personal experience when you look at a painting. Mary describes this:
"When I bought a painting of a horse flying over a rainbow, my innate imagery space
expanded. I could understand myself better when I bought a painting. When I looked at
a painting, I could go between worlds. I could share the images with the artist. I could
integrate my life without doing the painting myself. It was about going elsewhere. By
going into the painting there is an opportunity to create new spaces in my world."
You can make a healing art collection for yourself and surround yourself with the images.
You can find goddess art and make the goddess live with you. You can find art of
animals you love, flowers you love, places you love. You do not need to know why you
buy it, but you will know how it effects your life. You can surround yourself with art that
embellishes your world. You can populate your world with imagery that is meaningful to
your life. Viewing art itself is without distraction. It takes you deeper inside yourself to a
place that is meditative and healing.
Going to a museum or to art galleries gives you the opportunity to have an array of
experiences. The art can be wild, exuberant, exciting. It depends on what type of
imagery you view. If you need energy, you can look at wild painting, if you need to

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relax, you can look at soft imagery. A wide variety of art can heal- images of the beach,
of animals, of nature, of seeds, of water lilies. Anything that resonates with you in the
center of your body, that stimulates your imagination, creates movement can be healing.
Viewing visual art creates healing by moving you, by making shifts, awakening meaning,
deepening understanding, relaxing you and taking you elsewhere.

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Chapter Seven

Healing yourself with the word: Writing, Poetry, Storytelling and theater as
healing

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Introducing your writer in residence

Her red hair flows in the wind as she runs. Her cape and scarves blow in a spiral. When
she comes into the room her energy is wild, she speaks in a whirlwind of words. Her
enthusiasm and energy overflows. She is always the first to share with other artists and
staff in clinical artists rounds at the hospital, she says "Hi there. I had an exciting week.
Listen to my poem, look at my journal with its brightly colored pictures of beautiful
songs. I will bring you astonishing life and surprises. I will write you a story you will
love, I will put it in a journal for you with wonderful pictures. I am Jan, the writer in
residence and I fly in with the wind". And as her books fly open, her pages of pictures
show what her patients have been thinking. She makes handouts of their printed poems
and passes them around like the spring flowers.
Jan Swanson was the first writer in residence in the Arts In Medicine Program at
University Of Florida Gainesville. She established the accidental poets society there and
Zine magazine, a journal for children in the hospital who had cancer, giving them a place
to have own writing published.
How words heal
When you write to heal, let the words flow out from within you. Let the words resonate
with your spirit. They will bring with them deep memories of words you have heard. It
is like letter writing from your heart. Allow the letters to be received. Allow yourself to
have the spaciousness so that whatever you write is received as an offering. Words are
created from deep within and released into the world. We can shift and change and
transfer to a reality that is healing. The words take us deep into our visions or memories,
away from worry or pain. They show us new ways of seeing. When you write the story
emerges in front of your eyes. The beauty of poetry cloaks your life in beauty. The
poetry takes you to the essence of what you are looking at. The words are a dialogue
reflected back to us. We hear ourselves think. We look at ourselves differently. We
create characters that personify aspects of ourselves we do not otherwise face or see,
bright and dark sides. We create aspects of ourselves as guides and converse with them.
When we tell a story, figures emerge who speak to us from deep within us or from far
away. But it is not the voice of our personality. It is the voice of our soul. We have
simple instructions that are easy to follow. It is easy to create stories in your life that are
like living myths. It is important to create meaning in your own life with your own story.
You can bring in your own symbols and discover your own places of magic.
Writing fills the need to be alone, the need to take time to be with yourself. Let the words flow out of you. Dont edit or censor them,
let them flow out of your body. Tap into your own soul's most powerful imagery. You translate you own imagery and put it to words.
Create a space to write. Place a value on your time to write. It is a lifelong process. So make it easy. You can use a laptop, a
computer in a room, a spiral notebook, a journal, anything. You can do it in the evening before going to bed to shed yourself of
worries and thoughts of the day. Or you can write early in morning as you rise to ready yourself for the day. Writing organizes you, it
helps you put down thoughts that can change your way of looking at the world. The words can help you make things happen. The
writing is a bridge, the first step is seeing and taking action.
From our experience with patients who create healing writing we can tell you not to be afraid of poetry. Poetry is easy, short, intense.
It does not have to rhyme or have any form. It can be like a free form journal entry. Patients with cancer in the Commonweal Cancer
Retreats in Bolinas California, write poetry on one of the evenings of the five day retreat and it is always deeply moving for them and
the staff. If you find you like poetry you can write down lines as you think of them in a notebook you carry in your pocket or on
scraps of paper. First lines are precious and often will make the rest of the poem. They come to you as you drive, as you walk, as you

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think of chores, or are triggered by emotions. You can give yourself assignments, like writing about the most beautiful vision you
have ever had or the saddest. Or you can write about what is happening to you that day, what you are afraid of, what you find totally
beautiful. I always have my patients look for the light in their life and write about it. I have them write about visions, transcendent
experiences, religious emotions, and peace. You can always write about body feelings, pain, buzzing, energy, expansion, or about
what you see in guided imagery. As the Buddhists say, literature is the way to the mind, the way to see visions of beauty on earth.

A story of a man with cancer learning guided imagery

The stories patients tell are so beautiful that they become alive. Stories like this almost
eclipse novels or even myths in their power and extraordinarily unique ability to touch us
and heal. Michael tells this story: "One day an oncologist who I had worked with for
years called me. He told me he had referred a patient to me and he thought we would be
a good match. The man was about sixty and he was a successful physician in the
community. He had a good marriage and grown children and a beautiful home. He had
had cancer of the colon several years before, had undergone surgery and in the past week
he had liver metastasis diagnosed. When I visited him at home he and his wife were both
there. He was recovering from a biopsy and was beginning to get his energy back. He
wanted me to teach him how to use guided imagery. He had heard of it but he had never
done any inner work.
"I asked him to tell me his story, and when he was telling me about finding out that the
cancer had returned, his wife turned towards me and told me this story. She said that
when he told her that he was sick again, she had a vision. She saw herself in heaven or in
a place that was not here. It was gray and had its own light coming from everywhere.
She was there with her husband. She knew then that they would be together forever, that
they would not be apart no matter what happened. As she told me this she started to cry
and his eyes become wet. I asked him if he felt some of this feeling too. He told me that
he saw himself with her forever, that they were like stars that were next to each other or
like stars merging into one light. I asked him if he had had any other images like this and
he told me that at the beach that weekend he had seen his wife as a dolphin shining at him
from the ocean. I told them that the experiences each of them had was imagery and that
all they had to do was explore the places from which these thoughts came and to look at
them afterwards.
"The next week he told me a wonderful story. He was at the beach again and he gave
himself permission to daydream since I had told him that this was imagery. He saw his
wife again as a dolphin above the ocean and this time he called to her. She turned from a
dolphin spirit into a spinning disc of many colors and spun to him. As this happened he
felt himself kissing her and merging and then the disc came into his liver and spun around
and cleaned him out. I was amazed. They were sixty years old and were such beautiful
lovers. Their imagery and story was of themselves as lovers together forever, and being
able to merge into each other and heal each other. It was so magnificent a vision that I
felt privileged to be allowed to share it with them. In his imagery he called her to him,
she came as a spirit and they merged and became one and then she became his healing
forces. Seeing this vision made them both feel so much better. It gave them something
to do that was deeply creative and stimulating. It took their minds off their problems and
focused them on their deep love and on healing. He asked me why people had me teach
them imagery when it was this easy. I told him that he was really good at it, that some

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people needed help. I told him he was my teacher, that every time he told me his imagery
I learned from him."
Do you daydream, do you have images of yourself that are peaceful or radiant? If you
do, we invite you to have more of them, as a way to get in touch with the part of you that
gets ideas to write. Go to the places where this kind of imagery comes from. This is
where your writing comes from, this is where your healing comes from. Remember that
art, prayer, and healing, all come from the same source. The imagery comes from where
your make art. When you write or tell a story about light, animals, and healing, you
become the story and it heals you like guided imagery. It changes your physiology to
help white blood cells eat cancer cells by stimulating your brain to release
neurotransmitters which activate the immune system.
Michaels story of a healing journal
When Michaels wife Nancy was in the hospital having a bone marrow transplant for
breast cancer, Michael wrote a journal. This is his story of healing himself by writing
with the journal.
"When Nancy was having her bone marrow transplant, I lived in her room for five weeks.
She did not want me to leave her. Just the thought of me leaving, triggered deep fears of
being abandoned that came from her childhood when she had broken her arm and had
been left in the hospital by her parents for days. I slept on a cot at her side. I called it a
doggie bed and I saw myself as a watchdog, a fierce protector and loyal constant
companion. Without knowing why I brought a borrowed laptop into the room and set up
a writing studio. I knew I was going to be there for over a month and I did this as
something to keep me occupied. I had no healing intent, after all she was the patient, and
it did not occur to me that I was writing to heal myself. But I knew somehow I had to
bring in the laptop and I did it.
"After we moved in the room, which was unbelievably surreal in itself because they had
told us she had a real chance of not living through the procedure, I took a table and
moved it to the window and made it a desk. I put things on it that were special to me and
arranged it so it felt just right. At first I could only borrow a huge portable computer, this
was before the new small laptops, so I was confined at first to this desk studio. Each time
I would sit there it was like a sacred space, it was mine, it was where I could go by
myself and be inside my work. I could look out of the window and see the Eucalyptus
forest and the sky and the blowing San Francisco fog. I was an author, I had written
fourteen books, so I was used to writing. But this was completely different. In all my
previous books, I talked the material to Nancy, and did the research, but Nancy did the
writing, on the computer. Now I would be the one who wrote. Also, the books we had
written were about imagery, babies, pregnancy, or disease and were always sold to a
publisher in advance and written to be published. Now I was going to write only for
myself. I had no goals of publishing whatever I wrote and did not censor it or criticize it
at all. It was for my eyes only and I did not care about perfection or appearing silly or
happy or sad to another person.

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"The first day I woke up before dawn and looked around me and at first did not know
where I was. I saw the room and Nancy sleeping there and I remembered what was
happening and that she could die any day and the first thing I did was start to write. And
what came out completely surprised me. I described the wild strangeness of coming into
a hospital room with my wife of twenty five years, and the happenings of the day in the
strange world of medicine but then I started to dream. I saw the fog comforting me, the
morning light as beautiful, the sunrise as astonishing. And I saw her in bed as a woman
deep in a rebirth ritual.
"That shocked me but it continued each day . I would see the room and the iv. pumps but
I would also see Nancy as a spirit. I would see the nurses coming in the night as spirits. I
would see the ritual- like way the procedure was moving on, and the most surprising
thing is that I would pray and give thanks. For me this was something new. I had done
guided imagery with patients for years but I had never prayed intentionally every day for
healing. And in the journal on the first day after I described what was happening, I gave
thanks. I gave thanks for the beauty of the day, for the beauty of my wife, lying asleep
next to me. I gave thanks for the care she was getting, and later for the journal itself,
which would become my lifeline. And I prayed for my new way of seeing into sacred
space.
"Each time I would start to describe what was going on, and it would take on the form of
a shamanic story by itself. For example, the man who came to clean her room at first did
not want to clean each of her frog sculptures on her altar. One day, she played reggae
tapes for him and he stopped. He looked around and saw the twenty feet of art on the
wall, and the altar, and looked at her. He picked up each froggie and cleaned it so softly,
like a prayer. Each day from then on his cleaning of her altar became a crucial part of her
healthcare to me. And as I wrote about it I saw him as a protector, a cleansing force, a
gentle spirit from a foreign land. In my writing he seemed to drift in almost not touching
the earth. And Nancy would play Bob Marleys Three Little Birds, and the refrain of,
"every little ting, is gonna be all right" would roll over all of us like the early morning
fog, and the room would fill with light and we would all just be in it moving in slow
motion as if in a dream. And he would look directly into her eyes and time would stop
and it would be so peaceful and we were gone.
"And it was the writing that let me see this illuminated reality rather than just focusing on
the incredible difficulty of what was happening and its immediate real danger and
darkness. That came out too in the journal, but it was always the brightness and the
prayers of thanks that came out and transported me out of the room into a place a
brilliance and vision that still amazes me even thinking about it now. I think if I did not
write, I would only have seen the darkness. With the writing, I was able to cross a bridge
into the light.
From Only Things of Beauty Persist, Michaels bone marrow journal
"April 1993. The Human spirit is like the dawn. It comes up from the darkness, from
nothingness, and floods the world with hope and joy. It dazzles us and blinds us with its

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first rays and reminds us that it is a new day. At dawn I opened the drapes and let in the
joyful morning sun. The sky was light blue and the Eucalyptus trees shimmered in the
breeze. They shone with light and flashed their light green of new life back at the sun as
a greeting. I put a Taize chant (sacred music sung) on the tape deck and read Julian of
Norwich to Nancy. I may make all things well, and I can make all things well, and I
shall make all things well, and I will make all things well, and you will see yourself that
every kind of thing will be well. You have restored my life, O, God, and I wish to be in
your presence. We lay together like two children waiting for their parents on Christmas
morning, excited and expectant, nervous and afraid. Our love tied us together, we were
as one in God awaiting the coming.
"At eight in the morning a woman pushed a cart into the room and happily greeted
Nancy. She said she was Joy and was 'here to give you back your bone marrow'. She
pushed the cart across the room and started to arrange the trays and water and syringes.
She poured water into the bath on top which would defrost the marrow. I plugged the
heater and motor in to warm and gently shake the water. She called a nurse and took
Nancy's marrow from a small ice chest and checked each of the five small flat bags to
make sure that the name and number matched Nancy's wristband. She smiled and told
Nancy not to worry. She said that although it was a day filled with significance, the
procedure did not hurt and was no more than putting something into her IV. She said that
some people videotaped it or had family there. I had showered and combed my newly
cut hair and put on a dress shirt for the occasion. The sun rose and shined into the family
room where I got ready. It was like suiting up for an event, preparing for a wedding or
bar mitzvah. The excitement filled the air like energy or electrons and made us both
nervous. my body was shaking inside with tiny vibrations like a taught rubber band. Joy
said that this was the long awaited day but the procedure was not much, it was just
sucking the defrosted marrow into large syringes and pushing it into Nancy's central line.
...Thank you Great Spirit for your world. Thank you for this dawn and this new day.
thank you for Nancy and her life. Thank you for the doctors and nurses who care for her
and their love. Help this woman Nancy, Great Spirit, help her to live and get rid of her
cancer. Give her a good life, let her be born again and be your child and be one with your
world. "
In this story you can see how writing heals and see the way you can easily do it yourself.
All it takes is writing daily and a routine. You need a place and a habit. You need the
determination and decision to write. You need to let go of judgment and self criticism.
And you just need to clear time for it and do it. The process of writing lets you see who
you really are and what is important to you. All you need to do is write and the healing
happens. And it grabs you and it becomes so interesting and important that you do not
have to do it with effort after a while. You do it as the first choice. It does not take much
time, just a half hour or so, and you do not need much equipment or space. You just
needs to make the decision to go into your writing place and write for a time and then
live.
For the past several years Michael has been writing poetry each day. These poems
started from the kinds of prayers and visions he first saw in his bone marrow journal.

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The poems bring him into a space of transcendence which helps him deal with patients
who are very ill and lets him share luminosity with them. He describes how it feels to
write poetry for him now: "First I say a blessing or prayer to "Her". I close my eyes and
I try to see her in her most magnificent aspect as she is in this moment. Then I write
down whatever comes to me without censorship. It does not have to be pretty or even
poetic. It just is what comes to me clearest and is totally true. I am always surprised by
what comes. It can be funny, sad, wild, astonishing. And then I start to tell the story of
what is happening in the outer world to ground me, to take myself from where I am now,
from my lived experience. And as I write She talks me, and then She sings to me. She
tells me who I am and She tells me how much She loves me. And as She sends me her
visions, I go deeper into the ordinary moment, the event, the actual experience that
started the poem and it turns into wonder. I fall into the moment between time and space.
I can see Her dancing, I can see Her life force, I can see myself loving Her. If the poem
is about shamanism, I can hear the stories of the ancient ones and the hear the voices of
the spirit animals. I can see through the eyes of the ancient ones and out of the eyes of
the spirit animals. And the poem circles, spirals, whirls me deeper into Her heart, into
my heart. And I see even deeper and She sings to me louder. So for me, writing is a
falling. A falling into. And before I write I quiet myself and say a prayer and ask for the
truth to be told, and for my love to live forever. I do.
A studio for writing.
Writing requires a studio that is more in your heart than in the outer world. You can
write on a pad with a pen in a break from work in one minute. The first line of a poem
can come to you anywhere and you can jot it down in a notebook wherever you are.
Your studio becomes that notebook. Or you can make a whole room or even a rented
space that is just yours to write healing stories in. Many writers talk about cues or habits
that help them write. Writing at the same time each day, writing after a walk, in the same
notebook, with the same pen are all techniques that writers use to help the words flow.
Michael writes on a laptop with a painting on its case. Some writers like desks with
animal fetishes, art or music around them.
Most writers agree that it is useful to write each day for a certain period of time. This is
necessary if you are trying to finish a piece but less necessary if you are writing to heal.
In writing to heal all you need to do is let the words flow onto the paper and not censor
or stop them. Let the subject be your own life as you are living it now and move from
there. Don't worry about making sense or the rules of grammar or spelling, or how
someone else will react to it. Write like you're making entries in a journal or composing
a personal letter and let it go from there. If it turns into something you want to share or
publish, great- but writing for healing is about letting your inner images be seen by you
more that it is about writing a literary masterpiece.
The most basic studio is a notebook or a computer. For notebooks you can choose ones
that are elaborate with beautiful covers or choose the simplest pocket pad. You can put
pictures on the cover and create collages inside with colored pens. On a computer you
can put graphics on the wallpaper backgrounds from the internet or from purchased
software that make the computer personal. Some writers make the journal or computer

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deeply personal and even sacred. They have a place for it in their home, they put altar
figures around it, they care for it like a living thing. Whatever you do with your writing
studio is fine. As you use it you will develop a relationship to it so that it becomes like a
friend or safe place. It is the place you seek to write letters and pour out your heart. It
becomes your refuge, your therapist, your lifeline.
Once upon a time
Story time has always been outside of ordinary time and space. In fact as any child will
tell you, listening to stories takes them to a place where they lose track of time and where
they seem to be somewhere else. Healing artists often say that writing takes them and
their patients "elsewhere". Elsewhere means that the person's mind is off the illness, their
pain decreases, their symptoms decrease, their attitude changes from fear to
concentration. Stories occur in the break between moments of time and in the break
between points of space. They occur in the opening into nonordinary reality. Stories
often start with "once upon a time" which of course is not in ordinary time at all, and "in
a far off land" which of course is not in any place we have ever been to in the outer
world. When a story gets ancient enough it turns into a myth or legend which means it
has no known author who anyone remembers, it has been around for ever, it almost
seems like it comes from the earth. So one of the main advantages of story time is that it
takes us out of ordinary time and space, into the space of myth and legend, and that is
precisely where we need to go to heal. They actually slip in between moments of time,
and are in no time and there they can live forever and they slip in between places of
space, and are in no space, and there they can move things like cancer cells away from
the rules that exist in ordinary space.
Guided imagery, like story time, takes place in your imagination. Clock time does not
apply in guided imagery. In fact one hypnotic technique involves saying that " one
minute of imagery time will be an hour of clock time." This would make a person feel
deeply rested after only a few moments That is how time feels to the person who is
living in their imagination. But in story time two more things happen that are crucial to
healing. First a person can be loved from before the beginning of time to after the end of
time, for time disappears in the story. Second, anyone who has a life- threatening illness
is not subject in their imagination to the clinical statistics that may relate to their illness.
Children live in a world that is experienced in a much different time and space, and tribal
peoples live in a world where time and space are measured much differently than we
measure them. The story takes us to that world and as long as we are within its boundless
realms, we can create a place that is safe where we are free. The healing artist as a
storyteller takes us "elsewhere" to the nonordinary world and puts us in the realm of the
miracle. Healing stories take ancient myths and make them yours. They take heroes and
animal spirits and make them real to you in your life now.
Jans advice and experiences
"A crowd of people in a hospital waiting room is a difficult audience", she said. She
comes up to them and says, "let's tell stories, lets make art". What she invented as a
storyteller was squish art. Anyone could do it. She took a little tube of paint and handed
it to someone to make a painting. She would tell them to make a dot, a squirt, anything.
Everyone would do it. She passed the tube of paint around. Then she would fold the

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paper and squish the color and she would ask, "what is it"? And then each person would
answer with a story. They would see trees, landscapes, animals. There would be sudden
emotion in the waiting room. Each person would tell a story about their own lives.
Suddenly the TV was background. Jan was so brave, she was fearless.
That is how she began as a storyteller. It was her entrance. She would get people to tell
stories right in the waiting room. Then Jan would pick up her journal and sit with them
in their rooms. She would transcribe their stories. As they were dying, she let them tell
oral stories, when they were too ill to write themselves. They would talk, and she would
transcribe it for them and their families. They could call her at home. She would get
involved with their lives, try to resolve their conflicts. She would be a silent witness to
the stories in whatever form they would take. She followed them all the time in the
hospital, from their room to their home, from admissions to discharge. For three years
she actively put this healing art in practice. She would transcribe the stories of children
in the hospital. The children would write, "They said it wouldnt hurt, and it did. " She
got them to tell their stories and she would publish them in an underground hospital
newspaper. She would bring stories of other children back to them even though they did
not meet each other. It was like they wrote to each other. Zine came out every six weeks
networking children with their own voices.
Jan formed the Accidental Poets Society. Everyone sat and told poems on the hospital
lawn, they would read their own poems often for the first time. Many different types of
artists would come and practice using poetry. Jan advocated journal writing for all
artists as healing. She saw "art as a way of living, art as a way of healing". This writing
to heal was her life. As an artist she got all the artists to write poetry and tell stories.
She created community symposiums, she invited everyone to read the poetry, to dance,
and play music. She created audiences for people to read to, there was always poetry in
a performance or concert. The poetry was never judged. It was just what people needed
to say. She made poetry flow into the hospital like it was natural.
The most beautiful thing Jan created was herself. She created herself as a character in a
novel. When she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer she would do visualizations
bringing her friends and artists she worked with together to ride a wave in their
imagination. She would tell them, "You are on the beach with the raison guys, the lemon
guys." She had all her friends singing Beach Boy songs and doing visualizations for
her. It was imagery medicine with humor, with a twist.
She always said, "Listen to what they say, let them direct you, honor the writer in
everyone." Her bag was filled with notebook paper and colors to make visual journals,
books for the kids she took care of. Jan said, "You know Mary, I went to the doctor the
other day, he shuffled in, he sat there and put his hands together, he said, 'the situation is
very grave', you see he chose the word 'grave' carefully". She made her life into a story
and it was hard to tell what was true and not true. She was persnickety, she was posed,
she was dramatic. After she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, she stopped writing
in her journal. She surrounded herself with artists who would read to her, with dancers
who would dance for her, with her painter who would paint for her. All while she was

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dying in bed at home. She created a group of people who became characters in her life.
She was the author of her life. It was rich and full with music, dance, visual imagery and
most of all, her own emerging story.
She constructed this alternative reality herself like she would construct a story. Her
husband wrote a book of poetry after she died about it. She was a living being who was
the personification of a writer using writing to intentionally heal. Yet she was who she
was always, she was down to earth, funny, spontaneous, wild. Her journal was full of
her drawings, her work, her playful songs, her sensuality. The ways she used words for
their sounds, their flip meanings, were never ending. She would take the truth and
embellish it with imaginative details. Her descriptions made it come alive.
She had people write in a journal, in a regular notebook. In hers, she made three columns
because she said it was easier to write small narrow paragraphs than larger ones. "You
need only two sentences for a paragraph" she said. She wrote little pieces, she drew
pictures all around the poems, she wrote in the journal every day. Sometimes she wrote
paragraphs, sometimes pages. She wrote all the time. Her focus in life was to get people
to write to heal.
As she died, she wrote a story of a princess who lived in a castle. She had an artist who drew the story. She told the story as a fairy
tale. She would tell the story over and over again: There was a princess who lived in a castle and was sick. Jan, of course, was the
princess. The castle's gardener would pick the flowers that were beautiful, purple and wild. The gardener picked them and brought
them to the princess- they never could pick them all. It was bittersweet. Jan never said the flowers were her cancer, and she did not
interpret the story at all.

Ellies advice on storytelling

Ellie Sommer is the storyteller in residence at University of Florida, Gainesville. She

followed in the steps of Jan Swanson and has continued her programs including the
Accidental Poets and Zine magazine. She now has interns from the college English
programs, and other artists who go around with her and tell stories, draw, play music, and
dance.
Ellie says: "Being a storyteller in residence is about getting people to tell stories. When I
work with them, they can do any type of art, but storytelling is our focus. First you create
a structure, then you throw away your structure. Stories are tied to all the other art
forms. The visual arts or music leads to stories, the dance leads to stories. Sometimes I
start out with a good clich and keep going. You try to get on a roll, have the story come
out so it tumbles out. An exercise I use is to make a story from a simile, for example, 'a
mountain is like a ----.'
"I find it useful to remove myself from belief. You need to stop worrying about what
makes sense. Sounding silly is all right. Let yourself sound silly, sad, whatever. When
you go into a room the parents are there and are often worried or depressed, the child is
scared, sick, and away from home. I make contact with the staff, they point out the
patients who need us. The staff is overworked, they appreciate you coming. They are
glad when you can make a patient feel more at ease .

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Much of this work is about developing relationships with patients and staff, but
sometimes it takes a while. When I enter a kids room I often use a doll or a puppet.
Kids have the imagination we have lost. We make fools of ourselves to get it back.
Props, dolls, puppets, all help break the ice and are subjects for stories. Some patients
will do anything, some are so ill you do everything.
"You tell the story based on cues from them. Sometimes you do it all, sometimes
nothing. With most of us, when we use verbal tools for our art, it is hard. There is a lot of
censorship from your childhood, the teaching you have had about writing papers and
grades makes you shy. Stories for healing do not need to make sense. Go into the world
of the child, go away in four words. Make the story fun, let the healing power of the
story come from its laughter too. The interactive story is fun. You start or they start and
then the other person continues. You tell, they tell, you weave the story together or in a
group. Make a story in rounds, go in a circle. Each person can make up parts of it
quickly. The story takes spirals, it circles, you can see it. You can make an animal out of
clay, you can then tell the story of that animal. Try to remember there are no grades in
healing stories. They are healing because we allow them to be free.
The mystical path: healing stories about springs and animals
For each of us, the healing journey starts in our realization of the mystical path. There is
an Indian legend, that as we go through life, there are always two paths that run along
side each other. This is like two paths running parallel across a meadow. One is the
smooth or rocky path of our outer lives, and the other is the mystical inner path of the
artist or healer. Before our creativity, before our healing, the mystical path emerges from
the darkness across the blowing grasses us and calls to us. Even before the lived
experience of an illness, there is the lived experience of the glimpse of the mystical path.
It is the path where we glimpse the images that will become our art, and where we will
find our way to our inner artist which in turn will lead us to our inner healer. For some of
us this mystical path may have been an interest in religion, meditation, or travel. It may
have been a retreat, a journey, or even a love. It often was deep in our past, and it made
us who we are.
As you start to write to heal, the first thing that you realize is that an ancient song is being
told. This is the realization of your mystical path, your remembering. Your story will
come as the story of your muse, of your inspiration, of your ancestors. The sacred spring
itself, from the heart of the earth, is singing to you in the language of the healer within, in
the language of the earth. In the ancient stories of artists and healers there is the basic
story of an ancient mother who has never forgotten us. This is the story that we have
given you as guided imagery throughout this book. Although we have forgotten her, all
she wants is to be loved, to be heard. She is the mother of us all. In the first days of the
dreamtime she wove the threads of art and healing together. At the head spring, her spirit
is seen, and this is where her spirit is strongest.
In legend, all springs on earth are connected, the waters that flow from each of them
comes from the source of all the waters of the earth. The ancient woman of the springs
speaks to us from each spring and- more important for writing- she speaks to us from

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where all springs emerge in the center of our heart. The poet, the writer, are aspects of
our dreaming the world. She dreams the world as she weaves. She dreams the world in
spirals of ethereal beauty. The spirals rise out of her forehead as her creation. As we
heal ourselves with writing we recreate her path by telling stories on her sacred spiral.
We go inside and go deeper and deeper within ourselves in a spiral movement. The
spirals grow and take us further and we see, we change, we grow and we heal. The
spirals are her spirals of creation and now become our spirals of art and healing. The
sacred spiral becomes a creative spiral that is all of our energies spun together to heal the
earth. Part of this work is to remember the creative ways of being, to remember our own
wildness, the untamed part of ourselves that we have evolved away from, the spirit of the
ancient woman in the spring. She sings, do you hear her song?
For this chapter on writing and storytelling , we will tell a story from legends that talk
about the springs in Native American terms. This story is about the old woman of the
springs as a medicine woman. In this story she was the woman who gave birth to the
spirit animals. In art and healing, almost all artist healers use animals as subjects of art.
The dancer Anna Halprin has all of the people she dances with dance as an animal
because she believes it brings out memories of power and strength that cancer patients
need in order to heal. Patients have animals at their bedside, stuffed animals, sculptures,
Zuni fetishes. Animals have a primal energy that empowers us in our healing. Here is an
old story of the ancient woman of the springs creating the spirit animals.
I will tell you a story, it is the story of the old woman of the springs and the creation of
the medicine wheel. One day she was deep in her dream, she was painting the earth into
being, she was dreaming your joy into your soul. And she sings to you, she sings of the
creation, she does. Now we are listening for the voices to be heard in the beauty of the
day, in the dark of the night, in the crystal of the dawn, The oldest story of creation, of
the medicine wheel itself, comes from her . It comes from the ancient culture that rests as
a dream outside of us and inside of us at once. It comes out of who we are as the people
of this land. It comes from the springs itself, it comes from the voices of the spirit animal
sprits. They all tell us of an ancient old women who is dreaming us all, who sits on the
side of a spring. She still in this moment in this very moment of this very breath weaves
the threads of art and healing and they are connected to us. The silver and golden
threads go right to our hearts. They are our remembrance, our dreams, our heritage.
They tell that in the beginning, in the void of silence where everything is about to be
born, is the place in all of us, that is eternal spaciousness. The place where the ancient
ones recede to. In our inner world it is empty, it lies in nothingness. It is the home of the
lost stories, of the intangible. It is there that she is dreaming, she sits on the edge of the
river right within the very source of things, before the beginning of the cycles, with the
ancient turtle, the snake, the water animals, with water itself. She is a mystery, she is
unending, she is connected to all things. She is the place from which we all were born,
from which we were dreamed, where we were even from before the lovers. The place
where they were one, where they were everything and nothing, before they were
separated.

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She is an eternal guardian of our dreams, our creativity, and our lives. She had been
weaving the dream of art and healing as one from before eternity. She is the mother of
all mothers born from that place coming to us as a silver thread in a spiral spinning
forever. Somewhere along the spiral there is matter. Somehow along the spiral there is
you. We are born into collective community, the medicine wheel is the earths voice, the
voice of the earth from ancient tradition where there was no separation of humans from
animals. It was before separateness. It was within oneness, before you could look at
another and know you are not her. We forget this separate place when illness occurs.
We fall back into place, into oneness to heal. On the side of the sacred river she dreams
us and connects us back to the other vision.
She weaves the two energies of art and healing, of man and woman, of light and
darkness, of thinking and feeling. And the ancient woman of the medicine wheel dreams
the spirit animals into being. She has woven the opposites together forever. She tells us
the story of the medicine wheel . She tells us the story through the animals. The
animals tell it, the art tells it, the visions tell it. The Spirit animals are the story. The owl
of the East tells you of the dawn. The owl tells you about the air and about change. The
lion of the south sings of the fire, of healing, about water, about where images come
from. The turtle of the north tells us about grounding, about your family, job, about the
earth. The ancient woman weaves the medicine wheel in silence. We are being dreamed
by her as a dreamer. We bring art and healing together as one. We go towards this
dream in our love spiral. Together we weave it, and spiral it out. We go into the
meadow and fall into the vortex for a hundred years. The owl calls, the lions roar, the
bear growls, the turtle swims, we hear it and tell its story. In her world of the deep
dream, she created the spirit animals first. She gave them voices and she let them sing.
They created the directions and time and space and then finally the earth.
The story of how art and healing came apart
The oldest stories and songs of the ancient healers tell us that in the beginning of time art
and healing were one. They were one being, one energy, one ancient living creature.
They were one way before space and time, way before matter. And then, they came apart
four times. Each time they came apart they were more and more separate. First they
were just not one, later they were two, later they didnt even touch, and even later
couldnt see each other, but that is our story, that is what we will tell you. It comes from
an ancient tribal song whose author was long ago forgotten. It has been told and retold in
many traditions. It appears in folk tales, Judaism, Sufi tales, and songs.
Once deep in the before, art and healing were one. They were one like the sea of milk,
they were one like God, they were one like her breath. When art and healing were one,
there was nothing else, there was no time and space, no directions, no past, present, or
future, no large or small, no creator or created, no nothing. There was only the one, the
everything, the incomparable, the always, the rest. Some say that the one never sleeps
but was meditating forever on pure love, and some say that the one has no characteristics
at all and cannot even be seen, felt, or spoken about. But in any case the one was also art
and healing as one, for it was everything as one. And when the one became two, art and
healing also became two, for everything was the same in the first breath, and when one
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became two, everything became two. So the first time art and healing came apart they
separated only to see each other and make the four directions. Then time and space were
born and matter was formed and the stars themselves were born. At that moment art and
healing came apart again too. Then many years went by, and the animals were born and
then the people were born. And the people saw art and healing as one, they saw spirits all
around them and they were at one with their world. Then people started to work and
started to grow crops and stopped seeing the spirits and stopped making art. And art and
healing separated for the third time as the peoples stopped seeing the spirits. Then
thousands of years went by and time was moving fast and space was larger and science
was born and modern medicine was born and hospitals were born and we are in the
present time. Now the body is seen as only molecules and art is for sale and collected
and hung on walls and in museums. And art and healing separated for the fourth time as
medicine stopped believing in the mind or spirit and in meditation or prayer as healing.
Now art and healing could not even see each other across the room. But many people
knew that there was a prophesy which told that now is the time on earth for art and
healing to come together again. It had been long told that now is the time this
conjunction needs to be made for each of us.. People knew that they needed to do this
now. They knew that it was imperative to do this now for the healing of the health care
system and their own personal lives. Now is the time for the artist and healer to rejoin as
one. Now is the time for the rejoining of the two energies. And art and healing saw each
other across the room. They came together as if they had been apart for a million years.
They merged and vibrated as one. The one that separated into two had come back
together as one again. Time and space were here and not here at once and the earth was
healed.
In this story, art and healing are like incarnations of two energies. Male and female
energy, light and dark, positive and negative, yin and yang, active and passive,
penetrating and receiving, wisdom and compassion, the creative and the receptive, two
energies that balance each other, by their very existence hold the universe together and
keep it alive. Whenever we talk about art and healing becoming one we also talk about
the male and the female energies and all the other energies joining and coming together
to be one. So in this story art and healing find each other and live happily forever. It is a
happy ending. As you use art to heal yourself, you bring the two side together inside you
and you are one. That is how you change, that is how we heal, that is how the earth is
healing herself.
John Graham-Pole M.D. talks about poetry, laughter, and healing.
John Graham-Pole is a pediatric oncologist, a poet, and a clown. He co-founded the Art In Medicine Program at University Of
Florida, Gainesville, with Mary Rockwood Lane. Poetry helps him be himself and helps him deal with the serious illnesses of
children he takes care of. It calms him, helps him see the children as beautiful and helps him continue his work without burning out.
Being a clown helps him bring laughter to the kids and staff. He teaches laughter and play workshops to show nurses and physicians
how to make patients laugh and how to bring laughter into their own lives. Here is a poem he wrote about a patient he was taking care
of.
Cell Shed
Our cells
mingle, shed in
spindrift of waterair between our

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mouths. Each
the other's tissue. You
dying, take my
part to rest.
I, living,
let, imbibe,
scatter your
see
This is a way of looking at a patient that is profoundly different. It brings the physician into a way of seeing and relating that is the
way of the artist. The physician poet sees beauty and merges with the patient. His care is changed and his way of being as a healer
changed forever. John write poems anywhere. He pauses in the hospital to write after he sees a patient. He writes in a small
notebook, he jots down first lines of poems in the hall. John says that the poems help him see differently and take care of patients in a
more intimate Perceiving each person as uniquely human and not just as a case. He sees beauty in very dark situations and can handle
it much better because of his poetry.

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Chapter Eight

Healing yourself with movement: dance as healing

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Introducing your dancer in residence

The dancer walks gracefully into the patients room. She is how you imagined a dancer
would be: ethereal. She enters the cool, sterile, mechanical world of an intensive care
unit. On the white-sheeted bed the child stirs. He is isolated, weak, and sick; facing
death, fighting for his life. She glides over to him, asks him if he would like to choose a
favorite music; shell dance with him. He pauses, hesitant about this unusual request, but
he is curious, yearns for life, for lightness, for healing. He looks up at her, maybe she
will dance. And she does, amidst the I.V. poles and monitors and multiple vials and
tubes filled with his many medications. Within this tiny sterile hospital room, cluttered
with the hospital machinery of our times, she dances. And gradually she brings the child
into the movement; at first he follows her just with his eyes. Then he reaches up, his
outstretched arms grasp her hands, responds to her invitation. They hold each other,
begin to sway . . . begin to dance together. Welcome, she says to you, as she moves so
softly, like the mists. I am Jill, I am a dancer, I will dance for you.
Jill Sonke Henderson is the dancer in residence at Shands Hospital at The University of
Florida, Arts In Medicine program and is the founder and director of the Dance For Life
Program at University of Florida. She is one of the premier dance healers and just
watching her work is a great gift.
How dance heals
Dance for healing is about moving. With every movement you embody the creative fire.
There within the dance, your body has a life of its own. Within every one of us is a
dancer. The dancer within us is the seducer, the seductress, the one creates a healing
spiral around us. If we are seduced enough, we move into the dance and are part of the
movement of healing. If you are a nurse, a mother, a person who is ill, you start to dance
from room to room. You are in the midst of tasks, and if within all of this, you close
your eyes and see yourself as a dancer, you see that you live in the dance of your own
life. Instead of rushing from place to place, you shift your bodys perspective. All of a
sudden, you see yourself dancing through your own life. You become graceful and
beautiful by a deliberate conscious act, an intention.
Through this possibility of dancing at any moment in our lives, dancing in any moment,
we can see ourselves in total grace and beauty. In the dancing moment there is level of
spontaneity and fun. You can move in any way you want to, you dance and twirl, allow
yourself to stretch, to open. Embody movement that is natural and flowing like a river.
Your movements become art, they become a dance.
Dance heals by spiraling us down inside ourselves to a center where tensions are released
and there is a freedom and spaciousness. To dance is to harness the fire inside your belly
that moves you. You are always in movement, you go inside where you are held in

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place, and then move outward. You thrill to the momentum and the movement that frees
you. You feel the wind as you move, it alivens your senses. You twirl, you move, you
feel your spirit's rhythm.
Dance is vehicle for emotional expression, an opportunity to embody emotion. When she
teaches, Jill has people dance an image of a scene, become a forest, an animal. Each
person chooses their image and dances it to another person. Then they dance together.
Then Jill has people dance a moment of pain or illness. She uses the dance as a way to
connect to someone. You can become sensitive to how you move, and how another
person moves. You move with them and let them push on your hand. You connect with
the essential energy each person has inside themselves. Each person has a specific
energy, a way of moving. You connect with it and harness it for healing. You start to
move, you get into your energy, you get tingly, alive. Your cells vibrate, you tap into
your own energy source. As you move you feel the imagery within you become real,
you feel it become alive. If you imagine you are a tree, you move your arms as branches
and you feel like a tree. When you dance with someone who is ill, your very movements
flow to them, lift them or caress them and send them your healing energy.
All the imagery does is take you into the dance. What is healing is the actual dance. You
body and spirit become one and really free. The energy of the experience becomes
palpable. Writing, painting, song, and dance are like a continuum that goes from thought
to movement embodying the creative process. In dance you are truly embodied,
translating thought and emotion into movement. When you get cells moving there are
neurotransmitters flowing, there are endorphins flowing. You express any fluidity that
you are capable of. Whatever is tense, is let go. The body itself leads you where it wants
to be naturally.
How does it feel to experience creative healing, to be within the creative fire? This is one
dancer's experience of being an artist healer working with patients. "As I go deep into the
sacred spiral, as I fall deeply into the center of the spiral of art and healing, through my
love and through my dreams of creation itself, I fall into the center of the spiral nebula
and this is what I see: There is a moment where the artist and healer are one, it may
simply be the moment when they are one with their own inner artist or with the artist in
the room with them. In that moment magic happens. The creative process, the same
process that fuels the universe, that causes stars to be born, spiral nebula to come,
babies to be born, also heals cells and changes a person forever. I get a feeling of deep
peace. My body is calm and electric at once. I see everywhere. I am connected to
everything. The release of the inner imagery from the creative source changes the
persons life and body, it heals them."
But what actually happens in this moment of dance as magic? What is the actual process
by which prayer or mind-body connections or creativity heals? We believe it is the same
process in which the universe is formed from the dream, that matter is formed from
thought. Just as the universe is creative by making stars you are creative by dancing. We
believe the process is the same. As you explore the artist within you'll connect to the

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deepest moments in your life. It is this deeper place of being where you'll find inner
peace.
Jill's advice about using dance to heal yourself: Making a dance studio
You need to create an environment that is supportive of the kind of work that you want to
do. It is important that the world around you supports you and recognizes you. Making a
studio creates a tangible way for you to be seen as an artist- both in your own eyes and in
the eyes of others. It focuses your mind on who you are and what you are trying to
become. You may be blocked now by your fear of not doing it right, but if you do it
every day you will be the artist you want to be. Create the space and your form will
follow you. Jill started out not knowing what to do. She rented a place where she could
dance and she stood in the middle of the dance floor not knowing what she was going to
do to start. First she danced a few steps then a few more, then she did workshops, then
she realized that she believed the proeces was healing. Now she dances every day in the
hospital and runs the Dance For Life program in Art in Medicine. It all started with her
renting a new studio.
Jill says: "You can dance in any space. If you make a space your own, it becomes your
sacred studio and the place that triggers your shift in consciousness. In the space put
materials that are useful for dancing. I use silk scarves which can be bought from
suppliers, second hand shops, discount stores, or found in your own attic or closet. I also
use fabric of all colors and shapes. The scarves and fabric are the costumes or props.
They transform you into what you are dancing. For example if you dance the waters of
the spring, flowing blue scarves make you the water swirling. I also use magic feathers
from craft shops and magic wands made from dowels wrapped in ribbon. The wands can
have streamers and glitter on them or anything you like. Like the scarves they add to the
costume and make you embody what you are dancing.
"I carry a selection of music tapes of classical, piano, new age instrumental, and
childrens instrumental music. I also have tapes of the environment such as ocean, rain
forest, etc. I also have musical instruments such as drums, shakers, a lap harp, sticks, and
bells. In addition, I carry art supplies such as crayons, paper, paints, markers, glue,
scissors, ribbon, glitter, and jewelry making supplies. These are the same types of
supplies used for visual arts. In the dance I use them to enhance the costume and the
setting. You can make sets that become the world that the dancer dances in. Socks can
be used for making puppets; face paint and jewels can also help a person be what they
are dancing."
Choosing your dance: Your first steps
"To start to dance we first must find a starting place. I ask the patients about what
activities they enjoy. What is their favorite thing to do? What are they experts in, what is
important in their lives? What are they proud of? For patients who are ill it is very
useful to ask what they would like to be doing instead of being in the hospital. What are
their fondest dreams. or what images keep coming up in dreams that they remember?

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What do they love or miss about home or some place special? What do you want to do
when you are well?
"If the person has already been involved in art, I ask them about the process in detail. If
the person in not forthcoming, I try to get them to talk while we paint. I can often tell
where to start by just looking around the persons room and seeing what is hung there,
what were they sent. Sometimes just moving or doing imagery helps us find significant
images to dance too.
"You also can start to dance with pure movement explorations. Move as if you are in an
environment, as if you are something, an animal, flower, water. Move as if you were
made of clay of wax. Pretend you are doing something like catching a ball. Imagine you
are in a space like a bubble. Move to define the space. Move to fill an imaginary empty
vessel. Move your body to get in touch with your breath, your blood, your heart beat.
"Imagery is an important part of the healing dance process. Moving from images is an
important part of dancing to heal. You can find personal images through any of the
processes above or you can do guided imagery exercises to find healing images to
dance."
Jill says that for her, dancing takes her into herself. There she spirals into her spirit and can
use the energy to pick up a child with cancer and lift him upwards. Jills story illustrates
many of the points of healing yourself with dance. As a dancer in residence for four years,
she has learned much about healing dance that is useful to us so we will tell her story in
detail.
An interview with Jill Sonke Henderson
"I started dancing at seventeen. Once I discovered dancing, I danced every day. I knew I
had to do it. At twenty one, I went to Interlochen Arts Academy and Florida State
University, where I majored in dance, then to New York to dance professionally. Then I got
sick. I came down initially with herpes and was really sick in bed for 3 weeks. I was in too
much pain to move. I found myself turning on the classical radio station and just letting it
play all day. I would just lay on my back and visualize myself dancing to the music. I
would get way inside the music and inside my body, visualize, and dance all day. I was
energetically alive, even though my body just wanted to die. I was in a lot of pain, I had
about fifty lesions, and was throwing up. I didn't want to be in that body at all, but deeper
inside it was really light and I could do anything I wanted with my body in imagery. I could
feel the energy stirring inside me. I still see energy this way. Like when you're sleeping,
your cells are moving really slowly and you wake up and your cells move a little quicker
and something excites you and they move faster and faster and when you get your own
physical movement in it everything just swirls and swirls and swirls. I could feel that when
I was just laying there. I could feel that energy swirling and it felt really alive and
wonderful. It was just a tremendous experience. It was like being out of my body and even
though I was just laying there still. I was aware that the pain and the discomfort were there,
but I was so far inside my body. I could feel my body in the movement and I could do

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anything I wanted with it. I could bend it in ways I normally couldn't bend it. I had
complete freedom. It was like feeling great inside this body that felt like shit. I loved that
experience, even though I didn't think much of it in terms of its value at that time. I
remember how incredibly helpful it was. I think it helped the healing in that the energy was
moving inside me causing flow instead of me just feeling that nothing was moving.
" I couldn't dance for a while. It took a while for me to get my energy back- about a month
and a half. That was the first experience I had of leaving dance, having an intense life
experience, and then coming back to it. Every time that's happened in my life I come back
and I feel like it just enhances my dance so much. I come back and I don't feel like 'Oh, my
God, I'm out of shape and it's going to take me months to get back to the level I was.' I feel
like I come back a better dancer every time. My structure and my value system concerning
dance might be different from a ballet dancer's. If my leg only goes up to here instead of
here I don't feel like I'm a worse dancer. If my emotional connection to my dance and my
accessibility to my inner self is clearer and more available I feel like I'm a better dancer. It
might be a little different for me than for other dancers.
"I have always had an attraction to being a health caregiver, and my whole process with
dance was deepening. When I dance sometimes and I'm just riding on the music, the stuff
that doesn't need to be there flies off, flings off, and it gets clearer and lighter and cleaner
and you get inside and then whoosh! You find that place that is just free. Freedom, just
space--no time--it's just space and it's just energy and then you ride it, just spiraling colors
and lights. I knew that if I could facilitate a process like this for patients, it could be very
helpful and healing.
"It was never there until I walked from the art studio into the first patients room, there by
myself. As I walked down that hall, I had no idea what to do, and somewhere between here
and there I thought OK, I'm going to fly paper airplanes. So that's what we did and it
worked. It bridged us beautifully into movement and of course he was wide open and he
was just a perfect, perfect person to be that first patient. It was on the Bone Marrow
Transplant Unit, he was five years old. Each patient on this unit is in isolation, living in a
confined space, with multiple I.V. medications on poles. This process takes place in an
intensive care unit usually in the hospital bed or on a blanket spread on the small floor
space. He was there with his mom and dad who were wonderfully supportive. They were
ready to do anything he wanted to do. His room, like all the rooms there, was very small.
There's the bed, the chair, the stool, and the poles, and there's just room to maneuver around
those things. If you push the furniture to the sides, which we did, and tape a blanket to the
floor, it gives you maybe a 4 to 5 by 6 foot area to move in, which for him was plenty. So
that first day we made paper airplanes and we decorated them and started flying. I had been
oriented to the intensive care unit so I knew most of the safety things that you have to know.
But I didn't know that he couldn't touch the floor, things couldn't touch the floor so his
parents very kindly cued me in to that as I was guiding him to the floor at one point. We
had our airplanes decorated to fly and I just said, where do you want to go? He said to the
mountains. So we flew to the mountains in our airplane, going up and down. Knowing that
he had been in his bed for quite a long time, I was trying to give him a range of physical
movement. So we were flying over the mountains and spiraling down.

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"He had just had his transplant. He was probably half a week beyond it. So as we flew, he'd
start crushing the mountains and knocking them down and then suddenly he'd go and he'd
run and hide. We'd just have to hide and wait quietly for a few minutes, then he'd go crush
the mountains again. Then we pretended to fly to New York and we smashed buildings and
knocked them down. It was real determined, aggressive stuff but we'd always stop and hide
for a while. He'd be moving with me. We'd be going together. We'd be squatting down,
walking in a squat across the room and then reaching up to the ceiling and then dropping
down quickly and he'd be stomping on the mountains and smashing them with his hands and
jumping and screaming and being really verbal. He liked drumming music so I'd bring in
tapes to give us a beat. I'd just name movement elements like running, jumping, turning,
shaking, stretching, reaching, whatever. There was only one rule that you couldn't do any of
those like you normally do. You had to do them different. You could be crazy, you could
be silly, you could be anything, but if you were going to walk you had to walk with an
elbow in the air, with your head dropped over, or some different way with everything. So, it
was like a stop-freeze game. I'd say freeze and make a funny shape and then we'd see how
many different ways we could shake different parts of our bodies and this was all to the
music. He'd connect nicely to the music. We'd walk and run and jump and turn, and
although he could only turn three-quarters at a time because of his I.V. lines, his parents and
I would try to give him as much physical freedom as possible, grabbing the lines around so
he could move.
"The next day, I asked if he'd like to play a game, he could be anything he wanted to be, a
creature, an alien, an animal, or anything real or imagined and right away he knew he
wanted to be a dragon. So, I brought in a T-shirt and a hat and we started making his dragon
costume and I was amazed at how clear he was. He knew his dragon had purple paws with
gold toes and it had a purple diamond on its chest. Everything was really specific--he knew
exactly what he wanted. We took this hat, you know one of those foldup sailor hats, and
dropped the front down and cut eye holes so he could make a mask and this was like a full
dragon costume. He was this dragon, again crushing mountains and fighting battles and then
his mom and I became his footmen to help him. He'd show us how to hit, how to do
everything and we started helping him. We all wore masks. He totally directed the story at
this point. He was directing almost from the beginning. Starting with the battle stuff, he'd
give us our instruments. Mine was like this, two fingers sticking out, my arm straight. His
mom was holding a sword. We'd each have to punch a certain way and he'd say "OK, there
are thirty seven warriors, we have to get them." He'd be the main dude, we'd get to kill a
few. So we just fought battle after battle after battle.
For anybody interested in dance, we advise that you stretch, warm up, but then do
improvisational things where you just move. If you are working with others, have a lot of
contact. Use a lot of images, sacred images, start with a simple sequence of movements,
say youre going to enter this space holding an object or holding something in your hands
thats symbolic to you-it can be a golden sphere of light. It can represent something that you
want to give up-something that you want to give to the universe, it can represent what you
have to offer the world, it can be anything, just let it represent something for you. Take it

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into this space, offer it up, and then release it. Then come down to the earth in some way
just to receive the energy of the earth.
"I think theres a space that palpable. Being on this unit, I do my best to create sacred space
and to be really intentional about walking a the room. You can walk into a room and the
energy will feel different, you know, it just feels different. Its a different plane, a different
level of being. The person in the room and their support people-theyre living differently.
Theyre not dressing, theyre not doing, theyre not in the world in that way at all-theyre
just focused on their process for the most part. Of course, sometimes you get people who
dont really go there even in this situation. But this space changes. When a patient is
embracing or engaging in a creative process the room changes. If I had to describe in words
the quality of the space, it would be almost like the air is thicker, more like fluid. Theres
more vibration in my body. Im more in the moment definitely. Theres not much mind
chatter-Im more in my body. And I can feel it when I leave the room and feel the space
change-I can still feel my body vibrating differently."
The story of Anna Halprin: healing her own cancer with dance
Anna Halprin is the grandmother of healing dance and one of the most stellar pioneers in
the field of art and healing. At the time of this interview she was seventy- five years old
and had just won a lifetime dance career award. She is a small woman with a body that
looks like it can move in every way. Her pelvis is as flexible as a young dancer is and
she laughs, cries, smiles, and engages you with her eyes and personality. When she talks
about dance and healing you feel like you are hearing someone whose depth of
knowledge is ancient and profound. Here she tells her story of how she healed herself of
cancer with dance.
" As a dancer working from a holistic approach, I have always been concerned with the
relationship between the mind and the body. Understanding the connection of movements
with feelings is easy enough, but understanding how the mind works in relation to the
body isnt that simple. I was exploring the use of imagery as a way of making that link. I
found it wasnt enough to create images in the minds eye; I wanted people to draw their
own images, reflect upon them, and learn physically the language of these images. The
process of connection with our internal imagery involved "dancing" the images that
welled up from this unconscious as another way of connecting the mind and the body. In
learning this imagistic language, it became clear I was receiving messages from an
intelligence within the body, an intelligence deeper and more unpredictable than anything
I could understand through rational thought.
"While I was participating in this PsychoKinetic Visualization Process, I drew an image
of myself that I was unable to dance. This was a signal to me. Why couldnt I dance?
What was blocking me? I had drawn a round ball in my pelvic area, and I intellectualized
that it was pointing a way to new beginnings. But some part of me was sure that this
approach to my drawing was nonsense, because I wouldnt be able to put the drawing
into motion. That night when my mind was quiet, I had intimations that the image I had
drawn had something to tell me, and that I was not listening.

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"The next day I made an appointment with my doctor. I asked him to examine me
precisely where I had drawn this round ball. He diagnosed cancer. I went though the
traditional operation procedures, and radical ones at that, which altered my body for life,
leaving me with a colostomy and feelings of real uncertainty about my future. Would I
ever dance again? The doctor assured me I was just fine, which was funny because I
didnt feel fine. He also added that if I didnt have a recurrence within five years, I
would be totally out of the woods. Three years after my operation I had a recurrence. I
knew then that I was going to have to make some very drastic changes in my life.
"After my recovery from the operation, I began intensive research. I wanted to
understand how it was possible to receive an unconscious message about something in
the body through a drawing. For a period of three years, I collected slides of drawings
done by students in my classes, and I studied them, trying to find a coherent visual
language I could understand. I thought perhaps certain colors or shapes meant
something, or that certain symbols had a particular meaning. But if there was a system
in this, I could not find it. What I did find was that none of these questions could be
answered in a rational, logical, or systematic manner. It just didnt work that way. What
seemed to work was the process; when people danced their images and moved back and
forth between dancing and drawing, the messages would be made clear through the
movement and drawings. The visual images couldnt be codified in rigid terms because
each person had their own unique story, expressed in their own personal way.
"At the same time, certain symbols and principles seemed to repeat themselves. For
example, in a whole classroom of self portraits, you might notice that almost everyone
had a snake or a tree or a water image in their drawing. Or that the drawings indicated
polarities or opposites- a dark and a light side. In conjunction with the intense
individuality of the drawings, I saw certain common themes repeated over and over
again. I also learned that until these images were personally experienced through dance
and movement, their messages remained mysterious. I began to suspect that some of the
repeating images and polarities had to do with the ways we are all connected to our
common environment, the natural world, and the elements that make all our lives similar
to one another.
"Let me give an example of how I was able to learn something about my own life
story , the mystery of my own personal imagery and my connection to the natural
world by dancing a self portrait I did at the time of my illness. When I first drew
myself, I made myself look "perfect. I was young and brightly colored. My hair
was blowing in the wind. I was the picture of health and vitality. When I looked at
the picture after drawing it , I knew I couldnt even begin to dance it; it just didnt
feel like me. I turned the paper over and furiously began to draw another image of
myself. It was black and angular and angry and violent. I knew that this back-side
image of me was the dance I had to do.
"I stand there and I look at it. To get started, I take the position that I've drawn. The
position that I had drawn was this person with a knife in their hand and the hand was up

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like this so I stood in that position with my hand poised like this. Immediately my
muscles had to tighten to hold onto the knife and as my hand tightened to hold onto the
knife it became a fist and that fist and that muscular contraction immediately set off a
response of anger. I mean if you were holding a knife in your hand and it was pointing
towards your body, it would set off anger, and it also set off rage and hysteria because it
was aimed at myself so it was as if I was stabbing and killing myself. It was the worst
kind of demon image that was coming into me and the moment I started, it just took
over.
"Now when I danced it physically I went into a rage. I started talking in what people
call "tongues". It was incoherent but I was just screaming these words. I had no idea
what they meant and I was stabbing at myself and I was so angry that I don't even know
what I was doing. When I looked at the video tape, I could just feel this anger bottle
up. You know, usually when I dance, I know what I'm doing. I can shape my
movement and I know how I can develop the movement. I'm very much of a skilled
technician developing my material as it comes out, like a painter would see their
painting in front of them and then develop it. Well, I can do that with movement
because that's what my skill is. But when I was doing this there was no such
connection, there was no ability to impose an aesthetic shape. Whatever came out was
just explosive--kind of out of control. This was unusual for me so in a sense, I think of
it as an exorcism rather than any kind of aesthetic dance. The sounds too just came.
" That was the starting point. The moment I took that first "explosion of sound, I
embodied my own demon. Once it started, it was thoughtless, it was movement,
straight movement. And that's when the release happened. I was exhausted, I was just
physically exhausted. I got to a point where I didn't have any more energy. I was just
exhausted. And if you see the tape, it's not an aesthetic. If I were to do this as a dance,
I would have developed the material very differently.
"Oh yeah, that's what I felt. Well, you can see in the dance I just fall onto my knees. I
didn't just collapse. I felt the kind of tears that were connected to a very very deep
sadness. But at the same time, it was a release and that's when I fell, and that's when I
felt my diaphragm just breaking. The tears were just the inner sensation of this dam of
water, and the breath was like water. It started in my diaphragm and it just burst forth,
and my whole body, you could see, just melted, just softened and I just sobbed and
sobbed and cried. And it was a very strong physical sensation. The demon within me
certainly had a long history. I felt that it came from a very ancient place. It felt very
ancient. The way I drew myself, I felt like a female warrior.
"Do you know what I think happened, in retrospect? I think that when this diaphragm
felt like it was a dam and it had broken and the water started rushing, I think that in
retrospect that was the turning point. I think that something was released. I don't know
if it was on an herb-assisted level, a chemical level, or an electrical level but I suspect
something because of the intensity of the sensation--I mean, I could not have stood up
at that point. It was just flowing, I could not feel anything at that moment. It was its

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own movement, you couldn't see it but if you look at the video, you could just see my
back.
" I felt when this thing opened up here and started flowing down I just felt that I was on
earth and that it was flowing into the earth, the water that was coming through me was
just flowing through me into the earth. I felt so connected to the earth. I was this
demon. It was very real but it wasn't me in this world. It may have been just this
intense fantasy that came from the drawing but when I let go I was no longer the human
form. This water just took over and I was part of the earth and when I stood up and
they turned around and I started dancing I was just dancing my breath because I had
just let it out. I was just breathing and my breath was water. I felt like I was washing
myself, just cleansing myself with this water and the movements were watermovements--very fluid water movements. That image of the breath and water is
something that I use to this day. If something's wrong--I remember I had a lecture to
give and I had laryngitis and I spent the whole day just imagining that there was this
waterfall and it had mossy green stuff on it and clean water was just going through my
throat and that night I was able to give the lecture but the next day it came back. So in
the second dance, where it turned around, I was a human form.
" I had to have witnesses because I knew unless I did, I would never be able to go though
this ordeal. My witnesses were my family, colleagues, and my students, and they kept
me honest, urging me to go deeper, reinforcing my sounds, calling out parts of the picture
I was to dance. I danced until I was spent, and I collapsed and I began to sob with great
relief. Now I was ready to turn the picture over and dance the healing image of myself.
"As I danced this image, I imagined that my breath was water and that my movements
flowed though my body just as water would flow. I imagined the water was cleansing
me. I had an image of water cascading over the mountains near my home, and that water
flowed though me and out to the endless vastness of the sea, taking with it my illness. I
believe I was experiencing the forces of nature as they are imprinted into my body, which
gave me a deep sense of the real connection between my body and the world around me.
The movements of this dance started soft and small and as I continued to dance, I added
sound. My witnesses again reinforced these sounds, as the movements grew and grew,
until my whole body was engaged in the image of cascading waters. When I finished, I
invited the witnesses to join me in a circle; I felt ready to return to my friends and family.
"Something happened to me in this dance that I cant explain. I felt I had been on a
mysterious journey to an ancient world. Time and place were suspended and I was in a
timeless blue void. The experience left me trembling and purified. Later, as I gained
distance from the experience of my dance, I began to notice a pattern within it that
seemed relevant to other healing processes. I have mapped out the touchstones of that
journey.
"The first was to simple look and identify the issue, the polarity between the dark side
and the light side. The second point in my journey was the actual confrontation, which
was followed by a release. After the release, the third task was finding some way to

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integrate the new changes in my body. Thats what I did when I did the water dance.
The last step in the journey was assimilation, a coming back to my community and my
family and my life.
"Much later, when I was developing a theory and methods to apply to my teaching, I saw
how this experience was the source of a healing process I had begun to identify. This
experience gave me a new way of looking at healing, which I have used ever since as a
guide to working with others. I call this process the Five-Stages of Healing, and have
adapted it to working with other people with life threatening conditions, and larger
community contexts, in the form of ritual and group healings. In 1981, I began to apply
this process to a whole community of people. I began to create large-scale rituals that
addressed the different needs of the communities with which I worked, and I always
applied this process of drawing and dancing as a way to generate what I call resources.
"I am so captivated by the discoveries that happen in the visualization process and in this
road map for the healing journey that I often forget to tell my friends and readers that
after this dance my cancer went into a spontaneous remission. It is the healing process
implicit in this journey that interests me as much as the cure, because healing is a whole
process available to all of us, all the time. A cure is an event, neither predictable, nor
always available. The process of healing rests within dance, an ancient practice with
wonderful possibilities for us today. "
An interview with Anna Halprin about healing dance
"I have people start out with something very simple and basic and then I usually have
them work with their eyes closed. I just empathize and watch and see where they take
that material. I might draw out an image or I might get an idea for an image from
empathizing with somebody. I trust the process so thoroughly that I really give people
whatever time they need, and I trust that if they stay with their eyes closed and they stay
with the sensation of the movement that it will take them somewhere. I just see where
it's going by feeling it myself with them and then very often, I find that when the group
can connect with other people or even one or two people that this will bring them to
another level of the depth of their experience. I like to just keep making the
connections broader and broader until if possible the whole group will come together in
the connection. Every time a new connection is made it seems like it intensifies their
own experience. Sometimes they'll dance, sometimes somebody will make a sound in
one corner and somebody will echo it and in the other corner, and then even though
their movements are separate, they feel the voices. Sometimes someone's movement
will swirl around them and that will catapult them to another level.
"One woman had never danced before and she had been telling us how she had been
struggling with cervix cancer and how it had metastasized and she just felt so hopeless
and so depressed. When I saw her doing her movement, she just got swept into it, I
empathized with her and I said oh, this is good, I want to support her. I said to myself,
I'm going to get these cancer cells together--I'm going to get them out and I'm mad and
I'm angry. You can't be depressed and do a movement like that. The anger will give
you some motivation--some life force. If you get into angry feelings, just think about

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the pure energy of your feelings. I just give them permission to do anything. Anything
they do is going to be OK. That if they're doing it, it's because they need to do it or
them wouldn't be doing it. So there's a lot of permission.
"I am so open and accepting and I'm so totally nonjudgmental. Last night when this
woman was telling us about how depressed she was, everybody was trying to fix it, you
know, and I let them do that and then I just started dancing it. I said you really feel
shitty, yeah I feel shitty, I said what the hell , how would you, if you couldn't say it in
words, how would you say it in movement? She went yeach, and we all did the same
and before you know it the whole class was doing that and because she was able to
express it, she started laughing, she started smiling. So I think that what happens is that
the group feels that they can trust me, that I'm not going to take over, that I'm not going
to fix things for them but that I'm really there to have them express how they feel in
movement. Because of that, they are able to be very open to me. There's no criticism,
there's no expectation.
"It is a mystery. It's as simplistic as you think that there's just red paint, blue paint, and
yellow paint, but when you start mixing them together, wow, you can get all these
different shades and different colors. And that's what happens in healing art. You mix
them, the three primary things all together and the possibilities are endless. We do a lot
of writing, poetic writing where we just use single words and then try to put them
together and then all these stories come out. Unbelievable. Energy is something you
can see. You can't touch it, you can just call it part of that mystery. But there is
something that doesn't make any logical sense that is happening in that room-impacting on everybody. And it is going beyond the physical boundaries. It's some sort
of energetic force, like a current in the environment. If you can measure it and can't see
it, it's like trying to imagine a color you've never seen.
"Every part of the body speaks a different language, every part of the body has a particular
song. If I'm working with the chest, it's very heart-rending. It will bring up sadness, it will
bring up joy. If I work with the feet, it will bring up grounding and strength and hanging on.
If I work with the arms it brings up reaching and drawing in. If I work with the spine it
brings out support. So I know that every part of the body has its own mythology and within
that mythology there's a basic emotion and image within that body part. So I can use that as
a guide without imposing any personal judgments or any guessing. So I can just plunge into
the creative process right along with them. But there is that knowledge that if I'm going to
work with the head it's going to bring up letting go of burdens and if I'm going to use the
hands to guide the head, I know that the hands are going to give that burden some
compassion."
Advice from Anna Halprin on healing yourself with dance
"My advice to a person who wants to heal herself with dance is to do whatever matches
her calling. If she loves reading poetry, if that's something that she loves to do, read the
poem, then find a way to put that poem into a dance, memorize the poem and move as
you're narrating the poem. If you love music, pick out 10 different qualities of musicsomething that is based on a very soft sustained, something very rhythmic, something

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very strong, and go to the store and get a selection of these different pieces of music.
Play the music and just dance to the music--whatever the music says to you. Another
thing is take a walk in nature and as you walk, touch, smell, feel, caress, hug, --just do it
by yourself or with a friend who is on the same path that you're on. Walk or if you're in
better condition, run.
"I also advise everyone to draw. At the beginning your drawings may seem like
nothing and you may think that you can't draw but everybody can. I advise you to draw
a body picture of yourself, and then you can do drawings of whatever images come up
for you when you are moving. You can also do drawings of animals and things. At the
end of every session, the second week before the end, I always have people find an
animal ally through a meditation. I always have them draw it and dance it. It really is
crucial to do the animal dance. Animals are totally spontaneous in terms of their
responses to things. If a dog is happy, it wags its tail. Birds fly. We all have dreams of
flying, so birds represent liberation and freedom. I always do animal allies and they
always have something important to say. You know we have four kinds of animals, we
connect with movement. We have an animal under the ground, an animal on the
ground, a hoofed animal and an aerial animal. If people stay with me long enough, they
get four animals and I tell them they can also call on someone else's animal. Animals
are totally spontaneous with their feelings and moving like them is another way for us
to get at our own healing images. The other thing that is also important is to identify
with a mineral and find that stillness, that unmovable strength of minerals, identifying
with plants, finding this vertical growing, especially."

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Chapter Nine

Healing yourself with Sound: music as healing

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Introducing our musician in residence

Pure excitement and joy come into your room with Dr. Peter Halrpin. He says, "I will
play you a song. Listen. I am a doctor who heals with music. This is what my whole life
is about. It is where I have been. My name is Peter. I am a doctor, but I was a musician.
I had to leave music to become a physician. For years there was a time when I did
medicine without music. Now finally I realize I cant do that anymore. Now I am a
doctor who plays music with my patients. I play music to relax them, to help them
remember who they are, to remind them of the past, to help them deal with emotions.
Music is the most powerful healing force. Look, music has vibrations that change every
cell in your body. Look, music heals babies in hospitals. I have known that all my life
and now I can live it at last. This is the future of healing. Let me play you a song about
healing, close your eyes and listen."
As he plays his guitar, you can see Peter being himself at last, finding out who he is at
last, bringing both sides of himself together at last. You can see his power rising, his
spirit soaring, and his healer emerging. This physician is practicing the music healing of
the future. This physician has awakened to the expanding and innovative possibilities of
healthcare.
Peter Halprin is a physician who practices in Cape Cod Massachusetts. He was a singer
and guitarist before he went to medical school. Now in addition to his medical practice,
he lectures to caregivers on the value of healing music and performs his beautiful music
in front of patients and caregivers to help them heal.
How sound heals
Sounds creates vibrational shifts in the body. Sound is what our ears pick up from
vibrations moving through air. There are actually air molecules moving in space. There
is a motion with a rhythm and a frequency moving in space and time. Our bodies pick up
the sound with our ears, and the rest of our body picks up the vibrations in every
molecule of every cell. For example, sound brings the vibrations of your voice into your
chest. The voice is powerful, it can shift your whole emotional state from anger to love.
You can use your voice to express love and healing intention. Sound is a way to create
vibrational healing and bring love into your own body. You can use your voice as the
vehicle for loving yourself. Any sound can be used, humming, or chanting, singing or
repeating words to rhythm. Affirmations such as "I am one with my song" are very
effective when put to a melody. You can use your voice to sing lullaby to a baby, to sing
to your lover, to sing childhood songs to an very old person. It transcends time, it brings
us to places of feeling. It is the most physically accessible form of art. It is deeply
embodied. It uses your own body as the vehicle for healing. The music is inside you
vibrating and changing the patterns of molecules in your cells. The snake uncoils in your
body, singing to the bones, singing from your heart.
Ancient healers used chanting and singing to evoke the spirit. They called to the spirits
in chants, stories, and song. We praise God and evoke our lovers with music. We use

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song to relax, feel ecstasy, raise our energy, and have fun. We listen to gospel songs to
elevate our soul, love songs to put us in the mood for love. Music effects our mood
instantly, it uplifts, lowers, it can facilitate emotional energy shifts powerfully and
quickly. We can use music as a tool to affect change. We can use it with intent to heal
and relax.
Anyone can use chanting with the intent of making music to heal. We can chant into our
bodies. We can sing to each other. We can sing lullabies to our children, friends, lovers
and family. We can sing to our grandmothers, we can sing to them of their childhood,
and they will get up and become young again. Music can take someone into a timeless
place where they can be somewhere else again. It can take someone to an ancient past. It
can take them into the place where they know God. How fast do you feel joy and open
your heart when you hear certain songs on the radio? You go from being depressed to
being as happy as you can be in one moment. You dont do anything, you are taken there
by the music.
Music is going to be one of the most powerful tools of healing in the twenty-first century.
There is much literature to validate and support this belief. The practice of music
healing has not caught up to the research and does not reflect the enormous amount of
literature which proves the richness of this media in healing. This medium has already
been applied successfully in nursing homes, hospitals, intensive care units, and even in
peoples own homes. Creative ways of applying the medium will be part of the future of
healing.
Becoming one with tones
Edie Hartshorne is a therapist who uses music to heal. A woman she worked with was
having problems in her marriage and felt alienated from her husband. Edie worked with
her to choose sounds and tones that made her feel at one with herself. First the woman
picked her instruments. She chose Tibetan bowls of different sizes and tones. First she
would simply play them and meditate and listen to the sounds. She would close her eyes
and daydream as the tones went though her body. Next she put the bowls on her body
and toned the sounds that seemed to make her feel most at peace. She then thought of
doing this with her husband and he spent time with her as she played her bowls. The
tones carried them away in a meditative state that brought them closer together and made
them feel one with each other. As her music deepened, so did their relationship. She felt
she knew herself intimately as she went into her tones, and as she knew who she was she
let herself love her husband for who he was. Art and healing is the most basic mind-body
therapy.
Edie's advice on how to use music to heal yourself
"I suggest that people get a tape. You can use all sorts of music. Now there is a whole
genre of healing music. There is also music that is done live, that is acoustical, that has
only pure sounds. There are some tapes of Tibetan bells and our tapes have flutes and
bells.

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"When my son died, I could not listen to anything except Rosa Mystica played by Terese
Shreder Shaker. I think that people know what is healing for them. I suggest that people
listen to music with nothing else going on. Lie down on a sofa or a bed for ten minutes,
not much more than that, put the music on, turn the phones off. Say 'This is the time
that I am healing my body', say 'I am giving my dear body attentive, faithful, healing.' It
is amazing how refreshing that can be. And I suggest that it be music that is quite slow,
and that you breathe with the music. The music that we record is all done with breath, so
it is extremely easy to breathe with it. You begin to feel the beat of the music, and in
that way what happens is that your heart slows down, your breath goes into your belly,
and you feel refreshed. It is cheap, easy, quick. Anybody can do it anytime, anyplace.
"Playing music yourself is not necessary. But I also believe that anybody can play music,
and that you can start at any age. I think that it is a wonderful thing to begin to play an
instrument as an older person. And from my experience of starting to play Japanese
music in my middle forties, what I found is that you have to have "beginners" mind.
Japanese music is not at all like western music. When I started it was like I was a baby. I
thought that a cute little five year old could play this music that I can't. It is a fabulous
way to experience what it is really like to start learning like a child. You can experience
what it is like to really start from the beginning. And you realize how absurd it is that we
criticize ourselves. So it is a fabulous experience in self awareness. And if you do
without becoming attached to the idea of being a great performer, but rather to just see
what this experience is like, then you can enjoy the simplest tune. You just play a few
notes and experience what it is like to make the sound. And there are people you can find
who will teach you in this way. You can buy moveable xylophones where you strike the
bells that sound gorgeous, and if you set it up in a pentatonic scale it is beautiful. You
can't make any mistakes. You can buy a little harp that is pentatonic. I have done this
with two or three- year- olds and with adults. They take a single note, and I say to them
that that is your note and the person sings only that note. You can really become as
interested in one singe note as you can in a whole piece.
"There are lots of ways that people can experience music as an adult. And of course the
human voice is wonderful. You can tone and chant with a little bell so that you are
accompanying yourself. Start in the shower. You can also begin to match the sounds
that you hear in the environment. For example, when a train goes by, it makes a certain
pitch. You can listen to that sound and you can slide your voice so that you match that
sound. You feel it in your body. In that moment you are entrained. You can use this
when there is an annoying sound. When you match the sound it does not bother you.
You can do this with every sound. If you turn on the hair dryer it gives a note. If you are
with a friend and you put the dryer on low and then high, each sound is a note you can
tone together. Toning in the bathroom is great. If you turn on the shower you don't feel
as embarrassed. It is very good for your body and it feels great. You can also learn
sacred chants. I chant the Buddhist lovingkindness meditation every morning with my
husband. I start first myself, then we say the names of anyone who needs prayer, and we
chant that person's name and at the end of the five minutes of chanting we feel refreshed.
It is a different way of saying a prayer. Whenever someone is in need or ill or in danger
we change their name. And people will call us to do it for them.

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"I want to say something about the music of nature. I experience the sounds of nature to
be as powerful as music, especially if I am away from the freeway or electricity. When I
come back to the city, my body vibrates in a higher frequency, so I think that for me what
is almost more powerful than music is the silence in the sound of the wind. The wind in
the cottonwood trees is different, different trees have a different sound. I love no sound
or the sound of fog. There is a quality of sound in fog that wraps you . I was in fog in a
rain forest three years after my son died and I felt an incredible intensity. I was very hot.
I heard a voice, and I felt his presence all around me. In the fog I heard 'Haven't you
noticed I have been here all the time? I have been with you always.' And that moment
was the moment when I was able to begin to heal.
"I think music was the golden thread that led me back to my true self. 'Listen, listen, this
wonderful sound takes me back to my true self.' And that is what made the difference.
For years and years I had no voice. When I was growing up, I could barely speak in
class. I would shake. I could never say what I meant. I had these powerful feelings that
felt so incoherent. I was a child of the fifties, I grew up standing behind the man. I
looked extroverted, but it wasn't until I started playing Japanese music that I was freed.
The virulent superego critics were not so noisy, and then I began to come out of myself. I
came to the music as a way to find myself, of finding my voice. And having been
through the journey myself, I know what it is like to feel like I have something to say, but
not to know how. I know how you feel inside when you know you have the jewel and
you don't know how to express it. I want to open the way so everyone can experience
what it is like when you allow the jewel to be seen. It takes study and craft to give the
jewel its shape but study of an art is simply doing it each day. You do it. It is nothing
magical. People separate it from themselves. That is a split that is totally wrong.
Everyone can sing, make art. We split our creativity and call artists something other than
themselves. People feel they can't do it. That is a great sadness inside themselves
because it is our nature to want to reveal this beauty that we all experience. And it is in
the nature of the human species to want to share that. It is our nature to create art and to
witness creative healing. That is why it is as if you are listening to the divine in me,
and you let me know it. The one who listens is giving the artist the great gift. And as a
musician how can I not be ecstatic when someone says, 'I see the divine joy coming from
you.' It is a wonderful experience everyone should have. We witness each other, we
encourage each other to speak.
Music heals in an instant
Music simply can change a situation immediately. Picture a room in a bone marrow
transplant ward. It is arid, nothing is there to raise your spirits. There are machines,
pumps, tubes. The child is lying there so sick, he does not even move. His eyes are
fixed and half open in pain and in fear. The experience is a lot more than you can bear.
The child is sick and tired of suffering, his mother is there almost on the edge of collapse.
All of a sudden a young man with a guitar comes in. He shuffles in awkwardly. He is
uncomfortable at first. It is a strange surrounding. His guitar is on his back, and he is
always uncomfortable in these kinds of hospital rooms. He wants to say something.

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The child looks at the young man not sure what he wants. He looks like he will make a
request. Then the young man offers to play the child a song.
Suddenly, the man's awkwardness transforms into joy. He transforms into the musician
that he is. He brings out his guitar from the case. "Hi my name is Dan, I am a musician,
and I work in the hospital program." Suddenly his energy shifts. He is exuberant. The
child is still not sure what he means. "I dont want a song", the child says. The young
man says, " I'll play you a song, what is your favorite song? I think I know that". He sits
on the edge the bed, he holds his guitar and sings the song, Suddenly there is a smile, the
child is too weak to sing, but he smiles gently. The young man sings to the child every
day, serenading him as he went deep into his dreams.
In another moment, a mother is with a baby who is screaming. The baby cries, arches his
back. Everyone is having a hard time. The mother pats him on the back, the baby is so
difficult, he is in pain, he is so uncomfortable. The mother sits down in a rocking chair
and the sings the baby a lullaby. She begins to hum from her belly. She feels the sound,
the vibrations from her chest. The baby is still crying. She feels the energy rising in
her, her love rising in her chest with the sound. The baby starts to whimper instead of
cry. The mother sways back and forth like a dancer, singing a sweet lullaby as ancient as
the stars. The baby quiets, he looks up at her so softly. He drifts off the sleep, he is calm
and suddenly peaceful. This is how music heals. Feel the beauty of the moment, feel the
ancient piety of the moment. That is how music heals.
The Recycled Trash Queens was formed by a group of woman who were drummers.
They came into the hospital and used recycled trash to make music. They used all kinds
of cans, milk cartons, orange juice containers, anything that was trash and could make a
sound. In the hospital, they would put all the trash on a table. Then the kids would make
drums. They took pots and pans and anything that would make sounds. The kids would
start drumming,. The women were drummers, after all, so they could make drumming
sounds from anything. You can be as creative and have as much fun as this. This was a
simple project that brought music into a pediatric ward in a large hospital. It worked. It
was easy and effective. They would put on concerts in the atrium with recycled trash and
have everyone play. It demystified the music making of healing music. It showed that
healing music can be done by anyone with anything. The diversity and variety of
musicians -from drummers to guitar players - capture the imagination like the Minstrels
of the old world. These wandering musicians bring in songs and stories from another
world and travel into these places of darkness where healing light must occur.
Lewis played guitar for Nancy as she died
Michael tell us this story of his younger son Lewis: "When my wife Nancy was dying of
breast cancer, our younger son Lewis would serenade her for hours. She was in a liver
coma from liver metastasis and was starting to lose consciousness. It was slow and
gentle but totally real. Lewis was sixteen years old, and Nancy had been sick since he
was twelve. One month before, her metastases in her liver and lungs had grown rapidly.
Her two physicians had set up a special meeting to tell her. They met in an office across

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from the hospital, so neither would be alone with this woman whom they had learned to
love over the four years they had taken care of her. When she heard the news she did not
cry. She looked right at them and her only reaction was to ask if she could still go to
England to visit English gardens. She had planned the trip for the whole spring and it
was one thing she looked forward to deeply. I could see them both roll their eyes and
look away, and then her medical oncologist Sam Spivak paused. "Of course you can,
Nancy," he said, so gently. Later I heard that he told a friend that if he were to die, he
would just as soon die in an English garden. But she not only survived the trip but almost
was not impaired on it. She ran through the gardens, sometimes two or three a day, her
bald head covered with a hat, a raincoat protecting her from the damp English spring, her
face radiant and at peace. In a strange way, she was deeply at home, her spirit was free.
Once I saw her sitting on a bench at the end of a long path of hedges. You could see the
light around her rising. It was so beautiful.
"When she returned home her body became rapidly more ill. Her liver function tests
were very high and she started to fall asleep and wake up alternatively. Like usual she
did not want to know how long she had to live, but she wanted to make plans so her
children could be with her. She did not want Rudy, our older son, to travel from home as
he was planning, so she asked me to call Sam and ask him if Rudy could go on a trip.
The night before she had told me that her relationship with Lewis needed to be healed for
her. He was a teenager and she had had trouble talking closely to him as she was dying
and now she needed some resolution without her wanting to discus death. Lewis was in
the living room when I called Sam. He understood what I was asking Sam and why. He
had been through this kind of call before. On the phone Sam told me that Rudy should
not leave even for a week. I hung up and told Nancy that Sam had said that Rudy could
not travel. Tears came to her eyes which was exceedingly rare. She paused and Lewis
came up to her and kissed her and said, "I love you mother." That was unusual for him
too. I could see her body loosen up and open and her spirit rise. It was like a weight had
been taken off of her. She had her resolution.
"The next day she went upstairs into our loft overlooking the ocean and the mountains
never to come down again alive. She went into our bed where both boys had been
conceived, nursed with love, and read to, and sung to as babies, and started to hold a
sacred beingness. Rachel Remen in her book Kitchen Table Wisdom called Nancy's state
before her death 'sitting Dashan', the state where a guru gives gifts to her followers.
When Nancys best friend Elizabeth came she said that Nancy had turned into pure love.
She had. Her personality had departed and in its place was her eternal soul. She would
only say to each person who visited her, "I love you so much, you are so beautiful, I am
so happy to see you." She gave each person the gift of love as they would come and pay
their last respects and good byes.
Meanwhile Lewis and Rudy, both her boys, made healing art, each in their own ways.
Rudy dug an enormous fish pond next to Nancys English garden. He made her "garden
art." It took his whole body and all his physical energy. It was digging in the earth, it
was like a huge grave. He would dig and come upstairs and sit and tell stories and go
down and dig when she was asleep. Lewis had his own rhythm. He would go downtown

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and surf and then would come home and sit next to her bed whether she was asleep or
awake and play his guitar. He was writing a soft slow piece for her death that was so
beautiful. I think it came right from his heart or from somewhere else far deeper. He
would work on the song and play to her throughout the days as she looked at him, as she
had visitors, as she slept in her coma, as she dreamed. His guitar piece grew and was like
a endless round; it circled and it caressed you like the wind. It came around your body
like her love and carried you and made you feel taken care of, blessed, and in the hands
of a greater force. He just sat and played it for hours, it seemed endless. It was acoustic
guitar, soft and caring. And as she dreamt, she drifted with him, and he carried her. She
floated on the music, and he cared for her perfectly in her last days on earth as his
mother."
The sounds of nature heal
There is healing music in the natural sounds of the earth. There is healing in the sound of
the gentle wind, there is healing in the sound of the stream, in the sound of the ocean.
There is healing is the owls call, there is healing in the sound of the waves, in the sound
of the waterfall. Go to the music of the ocean, and listen to the sound of the natural
world. Sit on the edge of a brook next to a waterfall and go to the place where you can
hear the music of the earth's body. This sound is what we hear. It is the sound of the air,
water, fire, and earth moving. It is what we hear in the vibrations going deep into every
cell in our body. These are great places of healing energy. The energy vibrates and
shifts into patterns and changes us. By just being inside the sound you can soothe your
body. These sounds are the earths songs. She is singing to you. This is part of healing
music. And listening to the changes of the earths body, as she moves is healing. Listen
to the change as she moves in storms, listen to the change as she moves in thunder, in the
strong wind blowing, these are all musical songs of the earth. They are faded in our
culture. They are dimmed by television and even radio. The earth herself will heal you
with sound. Places that still have the sounds of the earth are places on our planet that are
greatly healing. Listen to the earths body dance as a healing song. Sit on the edge of a
stream that comes from a redwood forest and hear the earth sing to you and tell you that
she loves you.
As you sit by a waterfall on the rocks, know that she has brought you to a mountain
stream and put you in the center of her song. She wanted you to hear her sound. "This is
the sound of the earths body", she said. "You could listen to it forever, move to a
bigger waterfall she said, that will turn up the volume." We walk past this kind of sound
every day and dont realize that this is music healing.
Turn up the volume on natures healing music in your life. Healing with music is going to
the ocean every week. These natural sounds are the music of the earth. You can listen to
them on tape in a hospital room but they are even more wonderful to listen to in nature.
Go to these sounds with the intention to balance and become one with the sound. Allow
the sound to go into your body. Feel the harmony of the sound. Let it go into you body
to where you need it .

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Singing to others as healing

Singing to heal can be as simple as making up songs, for yourself, if you are ill, for your
children if they are sick or for your loved ones if they need you. Or it can be bringing
music to Alzheimer's patients, singing them songs from their childhood. For them, the
music resonates sparking the embodied memories of the time they were lucid and free.
Often just singing a familiar song for an Alzheimer's patient makes them completely
lucid for a moment and they can sing along and be happy. This is a perfect example of
the healing power of sound in music. You do it and you can see it is powerful. Just
singing brings a person out of a demented state and makes them animated and engaged
and feel young again.
Music and healing is the most researched area of art and healing. There are more studies
of music and healing than of any other art form. There are hundreds of studies of music
as a Healthcare intervention (see references). There are studies of music and pain relief,
music and attitude, music and relaxation. The question now is, how can we implement
music in patient care. Why is it not a reality in each of our lives when we are ill? People
are looking for easy ways to use music so it will be used now on a persons healing
journey. How can it be used in the hospital room, at home, in nursing homes? The
easiest way is though CD and cassette tapes and through singing to each other. It is
especially important to bring music to the children who are ill. Also bringing back music
into institutions such as hospitals and schools that are not healthy in themselves is crucial.
Healing music needs to be in our environment. Open the windows to hear natural sounds.
Protect the resources of natural healing sounds around us like trees and streams.
Michael tells this story, "One time I was at Esalen teaching a workshop, I had a massage
and the woman who did it sang to me. She picked me up as she did the massage and
gently rocked me in her arms. She sang a song that sounded like a lullaby, it was so soft
and caring. I was amazed. I closed my eyes and drifted off with the music, I opened my
eyes and looked at her above me rocking me. It was so primal. It obviously brought me
back to the times I had been rocked and sung to by my mother when I was a little baby.
Music is deeply healing, in the most primal ways. Using it with healing intent combined
with massage is very powerful..
The community of making music
It is extremely valuable to join with others in a community making music with the intent
to heal. If you are ill, put yourself in the center of a circle of chanting, or singing. In
western medicine, we are just beginning to find out how sound can be used in group
healing experiences, how the sound of others making music with intent to heal can be
used best. Healing musicians make music to heal with people who are ill. Feel the
vibrations pulsate in your own body.
We can form singing circles from our own community. We can bring people together
who will sing and make music with intent to heal. Make a singing circle in your living
room, bring it to a sick childs hospital bed. Bring a singing circle to nursing home.

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Bring a singing circle to your aging parents. This is a way we can come together. It is a
way that is very ancient, a way that we as humans have always used to touch each other's
souls.
Vicki Noble is a woman healer who uses music, chanting, and drumming in large group
healing circles. Her work is innovative and ground -breaking in music healing. She works
with individuals with many illnesses, including brain tumors and cancers of all kinds. It
is a primal ancient healing practice. In her work she gets together at least thirty and as
many as one hundred women to form an intentional group healing circle. She also uses a
community circle of drummers to keep a rhythm. The drumming maintains a rhythm that
is constant and takes people deeper and deeper into their bodies. She has the singers sing
a simple chant, such as "Purify us and heal us, heal us and free us". Everyone sings the
chant with the drumming. The people who need to be healed are put in the center of the
circle. The chanters chant until all thoughts and even all words are gone. Everyone then
can be totally focused on healing. They then employ the technique of laying on of
hands. She believes that her technique uses the body of the earth to heal. She believes it
takes going into the rhythm of the earth to change the rhythm of an illness. As the
rhythm changes, the person who is ill opens herself up to the energies of the earth and to
the other healers. The process is very physical and Vicki believes that energetically it
takes at least an hour of chanting to make the break through. She believes that the fire of
the earth in your own body comes out. Huge circles of intentional healing are intense and
powerful. We believe that this kind of work is futuristic and creative and exciting. It
challenges us to create innovative ways to use music and art to heal. Presently she is
attempting to do research to demonstrate that her group music healing can cure cancer.
She has anecdotal evidence that patients have had remissions from cancer after her
process. The point is that everyone is an artist. Everyone can do this kind of work. You
are a healer and an artist. You can heal yourself by just bringing out the artist that you
are. This work is simple and can be done by anyone.
Toning and sound as vibration.
Music and sound has a vibratory quality that actually changes the physical body. One
way of looking at sound healing is that vibration affects the molecules and cells in the
body. The vibration itself causes the body's fluid and particles to move and rearrange.
This way of looking at sound is new for medical science and as ancient as healing.
Sound healers have always believed that the vibration changed the body structure.
Sacred music healing was always based on the sacred music having pure and ancient
vibrations that would make a person heal by putting them into perfect harmony.
In this way of looking at music, it is the vibrational energy that actually changes
physiology. Sound waves set up patterns in matter. The complexity of the sound
vibrations are observable and have been demonstrated in research films. The human body
as a vibrational form is always moving toward regeneration and increasing complexity.
The sound vibrations break up blockages and set up new patterns. With cancer you use
the sound to create harmony and balance. You use it as a conduit to find the place inside
you that has innate wisdom. You use sound vibration to dislodge any rigid pattern that

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has formed and needs to be transformed into something to be healed. In this model illness
is seen as a dysfunctional pattern. Music is a way to deal with shifting rhythms of the
body on a cellular level.
Sound healing has always been done along with intent, prayer, and affirmations. It is a
type of inner transpersonal imagery healing where you use a sound instead of a visual
image. What is important here is the inner chanting. Repeating the rosary is an example
of this type of healing. You use the inner chant and sound rhythm to get into the place of
healing. Prayer, mantras, and affirmations are all vehicles to put yourself in the healing
state where your intent can come out unfettered. Inner chanting is a simple way to use
sound in a repetitive method that take you out of thought and emotion and put you deep
into your body. It creates a sound pattern that is removed from thought. It places the
individual into a spatial vibrating form of their own consciousness or into a place of
oneness with God or spirit. It is like reuniting with the sound of your own heartbeat or
breathing.. You are returning to the source of life by going into its pure sound. You are
returning to the place where the life-force is strongest. Sound has always been combined
with the rhythm of prayer and the power of the word. This kind of healing can be used in
every culture. It is understood and can be learned in every language. It is as ancient in
its origins as any spiritual practice or belief. We need to return to it. Its simplicity makes
it an easy way for any of us to heal ourselves or others with music.
Silence as sound healing
Inside of sound there is also an experience of silence. Silence is the sound of no sound.
It is the purest form of sound. You are listening with your ears as acutely as you listen to
music but there is no sound heard. Silence is the pause between beats, the space between
vibrations. Silence is no vibration. Silence is something we can cultivate in our lives.
This is essential in a time where you are working on your own personal healing. There
are many strategies to cultivate the spaciousness of silence. Different types of meditation
focus your attention on your breath. Even if you dont have a time commitment to do this
you can go into the place of silence within yourself. Even in the busy moments of your
life, within a moment, you can find the silence that is eternally spacious, that can connect
you to your own soul.
There are moments in your life where you can remember the experience of silence. In
silence there is a fullness and spaciousness of being intensely alive. It is being truly
present. In the silence, you find your deepest wisdom and greatest sense of being in your
body. In the silence you can see the richness of how life is alive, vibrant and colorful. In
the moment of slipping into the silence, it is as if you have opened the spaces between the
breath. It is like going inside of the moments. It is a way of getting in between the
moments of time. This can be as simple as gong into the woods and taking a walk and
listening to the silence. And as simple as being with the fullness of the silence inside of
yourself. In silence is a place of peace of stillness and of completion. In silence, you are
perfect the way you are. Within the striving to get well, there is an experience of already
being well. Inside of you is a place of balance already. You can get there with the
silence. Allow your thoughts to flow. Let them go. Cultivate the experience of allowing

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yourself to be in a flow. It can be as simple as focusing on the breath. Go deeper into the
inner world of silence or into the pause. It may be about being with God, or one with
love. It is about emerging out of the experience of compassion. There are silences inside
of each and every art form. It is the pause in any process. The pause before your next
breath where nothing is moving and there is only the life force manifest as desire. It is
within the fluidity of movement. It is within the flow that is natural. When you are in
pain, stress, or conflict, fall into silence and dont feel like you have to do anything. It is
music healing without music.
The strolling musician as a healer
As an artist in residence, the musician is sometimes like a gypsy artist, a wanderer. His
name is Dan and one day he was asked to see a young girl. She was sixteen and very
sick. She was close to his age, just a teenager. She was unresponsive at first, very
bloated, and slipping into a coma. The staff would just sit with her, and did not know
what to do to help her. The musician went into her dark room, whose shades were drawn.
It was a room filled with sadness. He asked her if she would like a song to be sung to
her. She was much too sick to even speak back to him but she looked up with her eyes.
He choose Brown Eyed Girl. He sang the song to her softly, he sat on her bed, and as he
played tears ran down her face. She could not speak, but she mouthed the words. The
art reached her on a level that was so deep, it connected her with a precious moment in
her past of just living. Deep in the process of her illness she went far below her thoughts.
Music created a palpable full emotional experience. There is nothing more beautiful than
being serenaded at the foot of the bed. We take it for granted in the ways that it can
connect people, but it is more powerful than anything else we have. The event was a little
miracle that was filled with life and love.
The strolling musician has always been a romantic image. In our dreams, it was always
just a handsome young man who played a guitar, serenading his lover under a window.
The musician in residence at Shands Hospital would go from room to room serenading
each patient . He would serenade young girls who were very ill, mothers and babies after
delivery, old people who were alone. The simple act of his coming into the room and
singing songs is the most beautiful art and healing form. It was, after all, as simple as a
musician or lover coming in with his sensitivity and care. He is bringing love into each
person's room. These young guitarists are amongst the most powerful healing artists.
We invite everyone who can play the guitar and sing, to come into patients rooms and
serenade them . It is a romantic image of the young man with the guitar that can come
alive again. Honor this obscure musician. Like a strolling minstrel he is unattached, he is
filled with incredible beauty. We cant have a world without him. We are asking him to
return.
Listening to music to heal yourself: Tapes as healing tools
Tapes of favorite music are deeply healing for anyone who is facing illness or medical
procedures. A cancer patient can play music while having procedures done and while
waiting. Playing tapes in the hospital room changes the whole room and the patient's

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whole experience of being ill. The cassette player or CD player is a basic healing tool
and a necessity for anyone who is ill or in a hospital. We believe that no one should go
into a hospital without a way to listen to their favorite music. Many hospitals have
cassette players available to patients who do not have their own. The boom box type
players are now so inexpensive that they are wonderful gifts for anyone who is ill who
does not have one. Buy one instead of flowers for someone you are going to visit, bring
them you favorite healing music, whether it be the theme from Chariots of Fire or a
Gregorian chant.
Any tape you love is what is right. Pick any tape that resonates with you, go with your
favorite music, whether it is jazz, classical, or popular. Pick anything that puts you in a
mood that will center you and balance you in your life. You are striving for harmony.
You need to start to respond to your bodys rhythms. Remember music can change your
emotions to anything, so choose where you want to go You can use it to meditate, to be
calm and serene. You can use it to get energized, brave, confident, powerful. Find a time
in your day that you use it consistently. You can do it easier if there is consistency. You
can use music to move you towards happiness if you are depressed. Use music as a tool
in your life to evoke change in the moment. Music is a tool that is accessible to you all
the time. Make choices that are healthy. Have confidence in your choices. Use music to
center you when you exercise, cook dinner, drive your car. Make choices about the sound
and song of what you put into your body. If you are sick, turn off anything hostile and
abusive. Say no to those sounds. Say no to anything in the world that will make you
sicker. The sounds go into your body on a vibrational level. They go into your
consciousness and can be harmful. You know what they are. Listen to sounds that make
you feel healthy and healing.
What makes someone happy, energized, relaxed, spiritually uplifted, is different for each
person. A teenager has a completely different way of reacting to music than an adult or a
child. Obviously loud fast music does not relax most people but it may relax a teenager
used to doing homework to this kind of sound. Recordings of relaxation instructions
combined with music are also valuable. You can make your own recordings of friends or
loved ones wishing you well or just speaking to you. You can record your family sitting
around the dinner table with music in the background. So make your own list of music
for the types of healing you need. Put together a tape or CD library that is relaxing, sleep
producing, energizing, uplifting, humorous, prayerful, memory evoking. You can use
tapes during dental work, outpatient surgery, or in situations that could be uncomfortable.
They distract your attention and relax you and deminish pain and anxiety.
Michaels wife Nancy mastered the use of music to help her deal with breast cancer. She
would use cassette tapes to deal with procedures, scans, surgery, getting news, relaxation,
and going to sleep. She would go to concerts to raise her spirits when things were very
bad. Whenever she had a procedure, whether a bone marrow aspiration, or a scan, she
would bring her Walkman and extra batteries. She would carry two or three tapes with
her and decide which to play when she was there and felt the energy. If she needed
relaxation she would play Don Campbells bells, if she needed joy she would play Van

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Morrison, if she needed uplifting she would play her chants. Now this was not thought
out rationally, it was just felt and done. No words or labels were put on the process, not
even 'healing with music', it was just the natural thing to do. It worked. She used her
tapes to go into surgery, come out in the recovery room, and recover in her hospital room.
In her hospital room and in her bedroom at home, she had a cassette player that played
the tapes out loud. She had a whole tape library of healing music that she had bought and
that friends had given her as gifts. Friends would bring her music they loved, they would
put tapes together of all their favorite pieces, they would give her spoken word prayers
and chants. In her hospital room she would play music twenty- four hours a day. Friends
and nurses would ask her what she wanted to hear and would change the tapes for her all
night if she was awake.
Michael tells this story, "on the day Nancy got the news that her breast cancer had
metastasized to her lungs, she decided to go to a Van Morrison concert. It was difficult,
it was in an inaccessible area of the city, parking was hard, it was like a pilgrimage.
When you get the first news of the spread of breast cancer, it is very upsetting. This is
the big news you dont want to get, it changes your life. It is deeply shocking and
destabilizing and depressing. It is something huge to deal with. We sat in the back row
of the huge concert hall and listened to the loud music. She wanted to be alone and there
at once. Van Morrison was far away , he looked as small as a play figure our children had
had as babies. He was lit up in the brightest light. He was dancing, moving, jumping,
opening up. He was singing her favorite songs, songs she had listened to after surgery
and as she recovered at home. Songs she had listened to as she dealt with her first
diagnosis and as she had put her life back together in her garden. She closed her eyes and
flew with the music. She was so happy there, I could see her dropping into herself and
becoming at home, and actually restructuring her world view. I was in tears and barely
holding it together. She was concentrating on the music in the moment, completely
involved, elsewhere, in the place where music comes from, in her heart. She was in her
place of joy, healing, and being able to be fully alive even in this time. This music was
her cue, her vehicle, and she knew it and that is why we were there."
Making songs as the stories of our lives, with rhythm and momentum, is deeply healing.
To do this, you make up your own songs, and play music with them. We need to gather
up the invaluable resource of musicians into our ordinary lives to make healing music.
The time has come to look at the musician as a living person, not only as a stage reality.
It transcends the concept of music as only for performance. Building bridges of music
that is more personal will let everyone make music again. There are musicians that sing
in church or school choruses. If we can extend this valuable resource into hospitals,
retirement homes, into people's lives, music can return to the world. If you are a
musician simply sing to the world. The world needs you now.

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Section Three
How professional artists are using art to heal

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Chapter Ten

The wellspring: How to become a healing artist, an artist healer

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We invite you to become a healing artist

As a healing artist, you become renewed. You have a chance to live your life over again.
In your rebirth, you have gone though the fire, and have emerged. It can take days,
months, or years. It can take your whole life to learn how to express yourself in your
creative work. It is about listening to the voice of the earth to heal; it is about listening to
the voice of the earth to heal "Her".
As you change, you go to a place where you are the one who has wisdom, who is steadied
by experience and has something important to share with others. Even if you have not
been making healing art for long, your previous creative experiences and give you
something to share with others. Being who you are in your creative form is the person
who the world needs. The healing artist says to you in the depth of your despair, "You
can do this. I see the artist in there. I know you are creative. I can see you will get to the
other side. It is right, it is your path. you will grow and you will change." That is what
you have to share, it is your knowledge of this voice.
The healing artist honors themselves and the person they work with
As a healing artist you have to be committed to be an advocate to support another
person's freedom of self expression and autonomy. Support another person's vision.
You can become part of another persons life. You become part of their illness
experience, part of their grief, their place, even their room. You help them experience
their own world in a more creative way. You support their desire to be honored and
served in the moment. It is simply about being truly present. It is simply about art as a
way of caring. We care by going deeper into the other individuals desire for freedom,
life, and self expression. The patient as the artist owns their own art, they are free in their
expression. You can engage them and make art with them. You can help them express
themselves without any judgment or criticism. The person can then tap into their own
healer.
At this moment in time, healing artists must provide the leadership and commitment to
integrate the arts into the healing models that exist in our culture today. The healing
artist is in a unique position to offer partnerships between artists and healers to
incorporate the arts into care. Art offers us a new way of seeing and being. The healing
artist crystallizes the beauty that is always present seeing the moment as it occurs,
recognizing each healing encounter as important. It is a way of seeing, a way of making
the invisible visible, hearing the unsung song, and listening to the unsung stories. We are
artists holding hands, listening to spirit. In this new partnership, art is a way of caring.
Changing the world of art
Some artists find that when they become studio artists and are involved in the art world, it
is not enough. What is available to you as an artist in the art world may be too restrictive.
The traditional art world is about galleries, exhibitions, openings, agents, museums,
selling art, promotion. That life is about art that is collected and sold. It is frustrating for
many artists today, they feel alone. Their life is difficult, and limited in its social
interactions to "Will you buy my paintings?, What was the review?" Many artists find

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that this is not the life work for them. So there needs to be a way as a healing artist, or an
artist healer, to change this. Healing art creates meaningfulness, richness, and
environmental beauty.
Art is a spiritual path but to actualize that vision, the artist needs to go out and recreate
meaning. So for the healing artist, there is a mission to change the world of art. There is
more to art than the art gallery. Art belongs in everyones life. Like Susie Gablik, in her
book The Re-enchantment of Art, we ask artists to move out of their studios into the
community, into hospitals, businesses, and schools. But you have to do this yourself.
You cannot expect the world to come to you and get you and tell you it needs art.
Healing art is an activist movement. We are asking you to go into the hospitals and the
schools as artists so the world informs your work. Stop living in isolation. Healing art is
about responsibility and responsiveness. A healing artist in our culture means being a
facilitator to make art accessible to everyone. Just making your art accessible does that.
A call to artists
As a healing artist, the world needs you. You can go into patients rooms when they are
very ill and you will be awed by the difference you will make in someones day. You
need to do this. This is what the world needs now to be healed. The healing wall at
Shands Hospital, Gainesville, Florida, is a small glimmer of what is possible. The artists
thought they were only making tiles with patients and families. They almost did not
know why they were there. It turned out to be a memorial, reflecting the precious
moments in the lives of the people who made the tiles. A man with lung cancer put his
son's hand on his own and painted them as one. He looked into his boys eyes deeply and
saw him and his flow of generations and the little hand within the big one made him cry.
The artist shared in this moment. Each tile was a moment of illumination, each was so
much more than the artist imagined. You need to do this kind of healing even if it is
only one time in your life. This chapter is a call to artists. What is your vision, what is
your dream?. If you could do anything you wanted to, without failing, what would you
do? If you could change the whole world with your art, what would you do? We want
to empower you to do this. You can do anything you want to do. You are not alone, you
are connected to a network of artists all over the world who are doing the same thing.
All it takes is crossing the threshold of the place where you will make it happen and
doing it.
A guided imagery to become a healing artist
This guided imagery is about meeting your healing artist. It is similar to imagery used to
meet an inner guide or spirit animal. It is based on listening to the voice of an inner
figure, seeing an inner figure who emerges as a helper in your life. The artist within
comes from deep within your imagination, and is tied to images of the earth and of
interconnectedness. When your artist is connected to nature- to an ancient tree, for
example- the imagery that you make as art is deeply healing to yourself, others, and the
earth.
Close your eyes, take a couple of deep breaths, let your abdomen rise and fall. Get into
your imagery space as you have many times before. Now put yourself on a path. Feel
your feet touch the earth, smell the fresh air, feel the warm breeze on your face. Walk

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down the path. It goes downhill slightly. The ground is hard and has small stones in the
soil. It is solid and secure. Feel the ground and the grass that is on each side of the path.
Walk down the path. It crosses a wooden bridge across a rushing stream. The bridge has
stout railings. You can hear your feet echo on the bridge like a drumbeat as you walk
across. If you need to drop something in the water that you want to get rid of you can do
that now.
The path now goes upwards slightly and comes over a rise. Below you is a large
meadow. In the center of the meadow is a grassy circle. Sit in the circle and wait. Now
ask for your inner artist to come to you. It is like a spirit figure, coming out of the air or
the light. Let the figure appear and walk up to you. It can come from a distance or
appear from nowhere. The figure that appears to you is your artist spirit. It is your inner
artist. Let the figure come towards you. Let your artist begin to speak and move. The
figure is filled with light, it is free and expansive. It can fly, dance, move, twirl, the artist
is there illuminated in pure light and you recognize yourself. The artist invites you to
stay in the meadow and feel connected to the earth. Your artist reaches out and touches
the earth. It has tendrils that reach deep into the earth, the sky, and you, and connect it
all together.
Feel one with the trees, the wind, the earth, the stars. Feel your body as the earth. Feel
your own body as her body. Feel your bones as her rocks, your flesh as her soil, your
muscles as her hillsides, your blood as her rivers. Now feel your blood pulse like she
pulses. Feel your breath flow as she breathes, your heart beat as she beats. You are one
with the elements. You pulsate inside your own life. You are the earth's body and in the
body there is an awareness of time, of history, of the stories of life in this body. You are
connected to the stories of the earth, to the stories of your families, your ancestors. You
are part of a living flow. There is a wisdom, a capacity to age and die, to be born and
live at once. There is an innate wisdom capacity that comes out from the earth. The
power to be formed, to heal, to give birth, to regenerate cells. You are the constant
regeneration of healing cells flowing from the earth. You become aware of it.
If you feel comfortable with it now let your artist move into your body. The artist is
yours, they live within you , let them in if it feels right. Let the artist move into your body.
There is a moment of elation, levity, empowerment. Now you have the power to generate
energy in forms in creative ways. To take it deeper, let the artist merge with the innate
healer within your bodys, let it blend with your bodys healing capacity. Then the
artist becomes the voice for your body to speak, to teach itself. The artist takes your
body to become the poet, the dancer, the painter. As your body moves into the dance, as
you take yourself into the flow, the spirit and the body merge and a transformation
occurs. You know who you are. You know what you need to do. You wake up and see
out of your own eyes. You are a witness to your own life. You create your own life as a
healing piece of work.
Now stand up and leave the meadow. The path goes out of the far side and you can walk
down the path further. It leads to the edge of an ancient forest of old growth trees. Stand
at the edge of the forest by a great ancient tree. Find a tree that speaks to you and tells

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you to come to it. Now put your hand on the tree touch its rough back. Feel its warmth,
it life. Now imagine that when you put your hand on the tree, you spiral deep into the
spiral of your own being. You spiral deep inside yourself, into your heart. And inside
your body, your heart opens with wings. A spirit eye opens within you and sees this
experience. It witnesses you as becoming the healing artist. Now lift up your hand.
Take it off the tree. As you lift up your hand you see that out of your hand come gifts.
There are gifts of poems, of paintings, of dances. And you raise your hand and the gifts
fly out like birds. You give the gifts away. These are your gifts of love that make you a
healing artist. When you touch the tree, become the tree, you are within the body of the
tree. You have roots in earth, you reach for sun, you take water from the earth,
nourishment from the earth and you nourish the earth with your gifts. In the tree there
are concentric circles, spirals, the essence of the beingness. It is being with life itself.
When you go into this space you are deep. You are deep into the space where you fly,
you grow wings you are like a Buddha opening his eyes for the first time. You see, you
become aware of yourself. You see that as the tree grows it is perfect, as it reaches up
into the sun and blossoms with flowers and leaves, they are the creative manifestation of
the tree. Each leaf is a gift that drops to the earth like your art. These are gifts we share,
they blow away from us like leaves in the wind, we let go of our art, it is a detachment.
Now walk back the way you came. Your body is now different, it is lighter, more
powerful. Walk back to the meadow, then to the bridge, then to where you are now.
Bring your inner artist with you. Let it still be in touch with your inner healer. Bring the
connectedness with you. Bring the spirit of the tree with you. Now move your feet. Look
around you. You are now a healing artist. You can make art and give it away. You can
make art to heal the earth.

Art programs in hospitals: how healers use art, music, and dance to heal their
patients

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Physicians and nurses are discovering that art, music, dance and poetry have profound
healing effects on their patients. Hospitals all over the world are incorporating music and
art into patient care. The most sophisticated university medical centers are now creating
art in medicine programs which invite artists and musicians to work with patients and
literally change the hospital environment. These programs bring artists and musicians
into the patients rooms to make art, or have the artists perform in lobbies or atrium
spaces. The patients experience the exhilaration of music or the beauty of an exhibition.
They paint, play music, and dance with the artists. Art and music crack the sterile space
of fear that surrounds the patients. Art opens the hospital to the joys of the human spirit.
The spirit freed helps the body heal. Replacing fear with hope, darkness with light, is the
essence of modern body- mind- spirit medicine.
There are hundreds of art programs in nursing homes, hospices, and community
hospitals, and university medical centers, on large and small scales. There are
recreational therapy programs in drug treatment centers that use art, child life programs
that use art, community programs that use art everywhere. These grass roots programs
are happening all over the world. All these programs are invaluable and are transforming
medicine . Our intention is to illuminate these programs so that they can be recognized
as the jewels that they are. It is our hope that they will be integrated as part of the
primary healthcare model, and not segregated to the side as recreation or entertainment
We also want to acknowledge the caregivers that use art or music as part of their practice.
If a nurse or other caregiver is singing to a patient as part of a bath, we want the singing
to be seen as important as the bathing, as a primary part of health care. We invite all the
people associated with such programs to see themselves as critical to healthcare and to
take the making of art in a healthcare setting seriously. The artist brings spirit and hope
to their hospital environment.
How hospital art programs started: art on the walls and performances
Initially hospital art programs dealt with hanging art on the hospital walls and were based
on the traditional model of an art gallery. When art is hung in a long sterile hallway, or
sculpture displayed in a bare lobby, the hospital is a much healthier place for everyone.
These rich art programs helped transform the medical center or hospital into a place of
beauty and helped relax the patients and staff. Walking down the halls past paintings of
beautiful landscapes or dancing figures makes you feel completely different. You
concentrate on beauty, color, and movement, you read the artists statements, and you are
taken elsewhere. Large medical centers began to have major art exhibitions, sometimes
many at once- which greatly helped to humanize the center and made it feel more caring
and comfortable for both patients and staff. This work was significant because it created
an awareness of the hospital as an appropriate environment for art, an environment where
beauty promoted healing.
Next, art was brought into the hospital more intentionally for its healing or meditative
properties. Art was brought into some of the hospitals to be intentionally relaxing and
healing as well as aesthetically pleasing. At the same time, the programs which had

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brought in art to humanize the medical center realized that the architecture of the
buildings could be healing in themselves. The centers started to incorporate gardens that
included such natural elements such as water, and rocks. They also built meditation
rooms, chapels, and altars. Whole centers were built to commucate a sense of beauty and
healing. For example, the Bailey Boushay House in Seattle for AIDS patients had art on
almost every wall and altars in each patients room.
Exhibitions in art museums like the Bolinas Museum exhibition curated by Linda
Samuels of the Art As A Healing Force program and the Body and Soul exhibition in the
Decordaba Museum, also made people aware of the power of art to heal . As art
programs grew in hospitals, the Society of Arts in Healthcare was formed to link the
programs together and help the work grow. Currently its membership includes artists,
hospital art administrators, designers, physicians, nurses, and others interested in healing
art. The Society of Arts in Healthcare does annual conferences, sponsors art exhibitions,
and networks people in the field.
This movement of art in hospitals has been a significant doorway to change the way art is
thought about by healthcare professionals. Programs which had been started to humanize
the hospital environments by hanging art on the walls, evolved to sponsoring
performances or concerts in atrium spaces. Here, performers would play music or dance
in the hospital lobby as they would in a concert hall. The hospital community was still the
viewer in these situations rather than a participant, but performances ha a deep impact on
the hospital environment. When you walk through a lobby and there is a grand piano
being played, your entrance to the hospital has been completely changed. The music
produces a soft relaxed place where people are more meditative and open to healing.
Increasingly, artists who have experienced art as a way of healing are participating in the
programs. The art hanging in the hospital setting is now more likely to be consciously
related to healing than to aesthetics. Hollis Sigler, a painter who lives with breast cancer,
has put together an exhibition of art dealing with breast cancer. The Society of Arts in
Healthcare has sent her exhibition to hundreds of hospitals nationwide. Her work is
profoundly moving to cancer patients and their families and to the staffs of the hospitals.
People who have seen the show have said they the hospital seemed more sensitive to their
feelings and more caring. Art makes the medical center a place with a heart.
The artists participating in these programs are now much more likely to be people with
health problems or people who have an understanding and passion for art as a way of
healing. For the artists are were using art to heal themselves, art becomes a way of
knowing about their illness. But instead of defining thmselves in terms of their illness,
they define themselves in terms of their creativity.
Art at the bedside
Concurrent with programs in hospitals that focused on art on the walls and artists in
performance, there were also programs that were started to focus on art at the bedside.
Arts In Medicine at University Of Florida, Gainesville, co-founded by co-author Mary
Rockwood Lane, has had over 200 artists working in 15 units and puts on over 100 art
and healing events a month. We will tell its story in detail below. In another program,

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Art For Recovery , a painter, Cindy Perliss was asked by an oncologist to work with
cancer and AIDS patients. She established Art For Recovery at University of California,
San Francisco and has been a bedside artist since 1988. Her program now also involves
school children, a breast cancer quilt project, local exhibitions of patient art, and an
internship program. Initially she was alone but now she has a musician and other artists
who have joined in her work. Her program has changed the experience of many very ill
patients in a magnificent way. For many years she has worked intimately with patients
who are often near death. Her art is deeply spiritual and she often forms a close
relationship to her patient . The patient's art work is often the one of the most important
thing in their lives. It expresses both pain and hope, and it is often their last memorial.
One of her patients with AIDS became such a skilled artist while in the hospital that he
had a exhibition in a gallery before he died. As he created more and more paintings, he
became well known in the AIDS ward as an artist and his image was forever changed- in
his eyes and in the eys of the staff. He went from being depressed and passive to being
involved in life and a good- will ambassador representing all AIDS patients by sharing
his images of the AIDS experience. His artwork was deeply moving to everyone, he
attended the show and although he was close to death, he was empowered and at peace.
As he died, he went from hostility and loneliness to extraordinary creativity. Such an
attitude change affects quality of life dramatically and also may lengthen life.
Therese Schroeder-Shaker in Montana has a group of harpists that visit patients of all
ages who are dying. They are called by the patient's families and it has become one of
the most requested medical services in the area. She has attended over five hundred
deaths and there are now thirty harpists playing seven days a week in Missoula.. She
reports that her patients have less pain and are deeply in peace, the families are relaxed,
and the entire experience of dying is transformed. Her project is currently being
implemented on a larger scale, to reach families nationwide. In the Cleveland Rainbow
Babies hospital Deforia Lane has set up a program to work with music and children.
There are many programs across the nation that are not publicized past their own
community that are very beautiful and we honor these programs too.
This movement to integrate art in hospital settings was paralleled in the art world.
Feminist artists and African American artists increasingly made art about the womans
experience and celebrating the power of the goddess to heal and nourish women. Writers
come together to read poetry and journals to heal, dancers would do performances about
AIDS and illness. The theater world mounted plays about AIDS and healing. A
common theme in all the arts was a recognition of how artists could use art to heal
themselves. Keith Smith, a painter, did a magnificent book about his wifes death from
cancer called Mourning Sickness which showed all of us how poetry and art were related
to healing. So an awareness of art as healing spread in the art world as well as in the
hospital programs,
Networking in this area became a cultural phenomenon. In Vermont, a State Arts
Initiative brought together all the people in the community who were interested in art and
healing. People came out from isolation and joined in the community to set up healing
art as a state wide program and to help it flourish in health facilities all over northern

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New England. The people who joined together were as varied as the field. The regional
meeting included an artist dealing with child abuse, artists running programs in nursing
homes, Virginia Soffa, a woman who had had breast cancer and had set up a Breast
Cancer Action slide library, Naj Wycoff, a teacher at Dartmouth working with art and
medicine with medical students. They all joined together to implement arts and healing in
their area. When a call went out, this diverse group came together and art became an
intentional healing force.
A second conference in Vermont encouraged the local university hospital to look at ways
to integrate these valuable community resources into mainstream medicine. And it
encouraged the community at large to look for innovative ways to integrate the arts in
healing. Among conference attendees were government officials, including the state
senator. It brought together leaders from volunteer agencies, funding agencies, and
health organizations. A state wide arts initiative validates what people are doing on a
grass roots level and helps implement projects. At the meeting, one artist suggested
painting the tiles on the ceiling, so patients lying on their backs on gurneys could see art
above them as they were taken to be X-rayed or back to their rooms, The healing ceiling
at Shands Hospital, Gainesville, which now has thousands of square feet of painted tiles,
came out of that meeting. In Rhode Island, artists gathered together to see how programs
could grow in their state. They held a conference, several exhibitions of healing art, and
lectures. The mayor of Providence even declared a healing art week and opened the
exhibition with a speech on art and healing, including refernces to shamanism and art.
Artists are joining together, manifesting their passion for art and healing, in programs all
over the country. This work is just beginning.
International programs
There are wonderful "art in medicine" programs all over the world. There are rich
programs in England and Australia, in Japan and France. In Australia one artist did a
mural painting with aborigine dreamtime themes in a local childrens hospital. The
children and their families from the hospital and the local community participated,
painting local animals down a long corridor. The mural was so successful that they did a
second mural. It completely changed the childrens wards into a place of play and
connection with nature.
In England there are numerous wonderful programs of art and healing. Many of the
artists in England are salaried and the programs are deeply integrated into British
Healthcare. The programs include beautiful hospital buildings filled with sculpture and
art and "art at the bedside" programs. Queen Elizabeth Hospital has a huge stained glass
window in the entry. Bristol hospital has a local clay touchable wall.
In Vancouver, they held an initiative to get the artists together and introduce them to
healthcare providers including the therapists from their wonderful art therapy program.
A pediatrician there has hung art around the beds of premature babies. The photographs
of the baby's homes humanize the neonatal unit eencouraging the staff treat the baboes
more like individuals. It is a good example of how art can change the care given by
physicians and nurses by making the staff see the patients as more three- dimensional.

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When a premature baby is seen as a member of a family the institutions whole level of
care changes.
Major programs with national visibility
There are hundreds of "art and medicine" programs across the United States, in hospitals,
nursing homes, and other healthcare facilities. Several of these programs have developed
and grown and are now well- known in the field of art and healing. An example of a
successful program can be found at Boston childrens hospital which is filled with color
and art to help the children feel at home. A program there funded by Very Special Arts
makes it possible for Harvard Medical School students to participate in making art with
children. The medical students work with in- patients and out-patients as an elective in
their junior year. They make fun name tags in the waiting areas, and the children wear
them and even give them to their doctors. Cumberland Memorial Hospital in Ohio has a
entrance way where people enter under a star called Astra, which is a symbol of hope and
endurance. The next thing patients see is a healing quilt made by a fiber artist in
collaboration with the hospital staff. Poems are hung on pillars in the lobby and there is a
healing garden that is an oasis for everyone in the hospital.
Hospital Audiences Incorporated, (HAI) in New York city concentrates on bringing
together patients from hospital residences, nursing homes, and day programs into
community arts perfomances and activities. The arts workshop program of HAI brings
professional artists to work with mentally ill adults in residences and treatment programs
throughout New York City. Talented artists have been discovered though this program
and are currently represented by Louise Ross Gallery. They have a special bus designed
to carry patients in beds and wheelchairs to art performances all over the city. Theaters
with empty seats call HAI and invite patients to perfomances. Lombardi Cancer Center
in Georgetown, Maryland, has commissioned area artists to create a painting of the
Potomac River called the River of Healing. The painting was enlarged to two stories
high, cut up, and made into waves. At National Institutes of Health Hospital, there is a
changing gallery in the waiting room that shows local area artists. It features a bronze
sculpture called Healing Waters that symbolizes the care of the medical center for its
patients. At Mid Columbia Medical Center in Dales, Oregon an artist has created
kaleidoscopes that are made from MRI images. This hospital has a magnificent three
story high waterfall with rocks that fills the lobby and extends up into each floor. The
sound of water is always heard in the whole hospital. The hospital in on the Columbia
River so that the water sound makes the patients feel deeply at home.
San Diego Childrens Hospital is full of wonderful art for children, their families, and
staff. There is so much art in San Diego Childrens that it feels more like a childrens
museum. It has interactive works which engage the children and their families in waiting
rooms. The art contains messages of hope, wholeness and wellness. St Josephs Hospital
in Phoenix, Arizona has display cases that show the pride the community has taken in the
hospital and how it was made by the community. At Paradise Medical Center in San
Diego, there are art works made by local artists that celebrate multicultural holidays,
family, multicultural healing rituals, and our relationship to nature. Local artists were

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brought in to make art that was sacred and that would help link the patients to the
traditional healing patterns of their culture. Hasbro Childrens Hospital in Providence
Rhode, Island, has a "museum on rounds" program where pieces of art from the Rhode
Island School of Design Museum are shown to children. The children then make their
own art based on the pieces from the collection working in groups in family rooms or
one- on- one at the bedside. This hospital is filled with art, murals, fountains, gardens,
sculpture, and even has a zoo. Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae, California, has a
healing garden by Topher Delaney that has healing plants used for treating cancer. It is
part of a meditation garden. The hospital also has photo transparencies above the x-ray
machines so patients lying down can see scenes of nature.
The rich program at Duke University started twenty years ago with performances in the
atrium. Now performers come to the patients room and play music in the rooms. The
program is run by Janice Palmer who has pioneered this work and has been a major force
in art and healing for twenty years. Duke also has a play- reading group that meets every
Friday. Called the Osler Literary Round Table, it encourages staff and patients to read
poetry and short stories. At Duke, artwork was put in the patient's rooms before it was
put anywhere else in the hospital. In the obstetrics ward there are ninety -eight quilts
done by local quilt makers. The artwork in the pediatric unit is all at child eye- level. In
the eye center there is touchable art for sight- impaired people. There is a touchable
gallery in the entry of the eye center open all day. At Duke, there is a fragrance garden
designed as a sun dial to follow the seasonal lines of the sun. There are birdhouse
villages made by local craftsman that the children can see and feel at home with. These
programs give you some idea of the scope of "art in healing" programs in hospitals. We
hope they encourage you to form your own ideas and programs as you become a healing
artist.
Mary tells us the story of the Arts in Medicine Program, (AIM), at the University of
Florida
"Every program starts with someones individual story and personal initiative. I believe
that everyone who has passion to create something, can do it. There are always obstacles
and hurdles to overcome, but they are just part of the process. My story starts with my
own personal experience of art as healing, it is grounded in my experience of how
profoundly art transformed my life. It's the truth that art healed my life. This connection
to art became my life work. I felt deeply committed to the crative process. Wherever it
took me I would go. I followed my passion to be an artist. I realized that being a studio
artist was not enough for me. I loved it, but I needed to find a way for my art to be in
service to people.
"Since I was a nurse and art had healed me, I hoped to bring art into the healthcare
system. This was my opportunity to help others help themselves. No one had ever told
me I could take my illness and use it constructively to help myself. Everywhere I looked
it seemed like I had been in relationship with a form of healing that was disjointed from
my life. It did not support me in the way I needed it to. It wasn't until I threw myself
into my creative work, that I felt a powerful healing effect. I needed to throw my whole

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life into something powerful. I needed my whole life immeshed in it because that was
how I was involved with my sickness. Creative healing transformed my life. I pulled it
out of myself and healed myself. It was not fragmented one hour twice a week. My
illness was so overwhelming I needed to live my healing all the time, not just in visits to
a therapist. What was going to heal me was a relationship with myself that was
fundamentally different than any I had had before. I could always be there for myself.
"I remember the day that Lee Ann Stacpoole and I were in the studio, painting. I told her
I had found this book the Re-enchantment of Art by Susie Gablik and read about artists
healing themselves, others, and the earth. It challenged me as an artist. It said, make
your art meaningful in the world. You will have to make art meaningful again, you will
have to make it part of service yourself. I knew that no one would suggest I bring art into
the hospital, I needed to do it on my own. We live in a world where we are in touch with
others. We live in community, and so we have to go to others to get things done. I
believed that we could reach out and help others.
"I heard The Re-enchantment of Art as a call to artists who were willing to integrate their
art in new uncharted territories, to make it different than before. I came to it from an
artists perspective. I waited. I had to be patient. I had to wait and be awake for an
opportunity to present itself. I could see that. Then one day, I got a newsletter from a
physician in a local hospital about his ideas about arts in medicine and about how to
bring art into the medical school. I saw that this was someone with a ideas similar to
mine. I realized at that this point in the process, I needed to form a partnership. I had
visions of artists coming in to the hospital to work with patients, he had visions of artists
in the medical school working with students. We could bring a combination of both
visions to life. I met with him. We talked. I thought about how it could happen. I talked
to other people , to other physicians, and I began to sense what I could do. I decided I
wanted to start an artist- in- residence program. I would find an artist who would bring
the art into the hospital in a creative and innovative way. I would bring the artist to
where there was the most illness, create a window of opportunity where people could
integrate the arts and become involved in their own creativity. The assumption was
everyone was an artist.
"We got a small grant from the Children's Miracle Network and the first artist- inresidence was my best friend Lee Ann Stacpoole, the woman who had helped me to paint
when I was ill. I asked her to come into the hospital as a volunteer. We started in the
bone marrow transplant unit because the physician who I formed the partnership with,
Dr. John Graham-Pole, was a pediatric oncologist in charge of that unit. I thought I
would do this for years, five at least. I then went to the college of nursing to earn a
Ph.D. so I could get involved in a medical program that would be the backbone for my art
and healing and to create an educational process that would ground me and keep me
focused. I was committed to do it, and I knew it was my life work. Lee Ann and I started
as two 'ordinary housewives', two artists in the studio, and we created another
partnership. I realized that the commitment was something we would do for a long tome.
Our logo 'passion with patience' was born in the midst of the beginning fires of energy
and passion, the velocity of the universe being born. We had to stay grounded so that we

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would do it, and so it would mature. We needed patience because otherwise it would
burn itself out. You need to maintain passion and let things grow naturally and you also
need enough time for a doorway to open and allow people space to become who they are.
"The second artist in residence was Mary Lisa Katakis, a painter who also was a T- shirt
artist. She was asked to come into the program by one of the nurses we worked with. As
the program grew, we were overwhelmed by peoples interest. I told Mary Lisa that we
would be here for the long run. Knowing that you are committed to the program in spite
of the low salary, and being able to stay focused and grounded in what you can
accomplish, is essential. When you stay focused, you accomplish an incredible amount.
When you start a program you realize that artists are filled with generosity, abundance,
and creativity. They are exploding with possibilities. Their capability for expression is
immense. A critical mass of artists is like a wellspring from the earth. I said that we
would find an appropriate venue for each artist who comes to us, whether it would be
performing in the atrium, working with patients on a unit, making puppets, being a
student volunteer, or implementing a two- year tile project. We can find endless
opportunities. The most essential component is someone who is willing to harness the
creative energy, the chaos, to keep people focused on their own creativity, to honor them
and see them- a person who can let each artist articulate their own vision and dream.
When you believe in the artists they believe in themselves and in the inherent creativity
of the patients and staff. We had a passionate intention to heal.
"It began with completely with volunteers. With our grant we bought art supplies and
set up a studio space in the bone marrow transplant ward where artists could meet. Then
we started networking . For the first two years we did nothing but network. Everybody
was invited to the meetings then. We were networking monthly. We would present our
vision to others in the medical school, the veterinary school, to art educators, to social
workers, to nursing supervisors. We talked with everyone. We told everyone what our
vision was.
"AIM now has had over two hundred artists in fifteen units. It has evolved to become a
part of the hospital structure. AIM right currentlly consists of artists- in- residence who
do a variety of creative projects. There is now a musician, a visual artist, a dancer, and a
storyteller in residence. There are also many artists who come in one or two days a week
and work in the program for months or years. The artists play music, dance, draw and
sculpt. They write poetry, tell stories and even dress as clowns. Patients watch, tell the
artists what they want them to do, or make art alongside the artists. Performances of
music, dance, poetry, or theater, are put on in the hospital lobby . Patients are brought
from their rooms, families and staff stop as they go to lunch, the music drifts through the
sterile corridors and draws more people towards its transformational power. Patients and
staff alike leave relaxed and uplifted, they are changed and healed.
"The musician in residence, Kathy Dewit, plays her piano in the atrium in a weekly
series. She also works one- to- one with patients. The musicians serenade like strolling
musicians or they play personally for a patient in his or her own room. Kathy and the
other musicians have an active music program and it has had a profound and enriching

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effect on the hospital environment. The musician has become an important part of the
process of healing. Musicians can most easily become integrated in a variety of settings.
The musician can perform or they serenade families in support groups on individual
units. They bring in their own music, as well as bringing in instruments so that the
process can become interactive. For example, they encourage a young patient who plays
the guitar to play, they jam, they create situations to jam on wards. Family and staff can
join in. They also create songs and sing- alongs. Kathy also plays and brings
community musicians who are friends into the atrium for concerts. People who walk into
the lobby to come to be treated or to visit, can hear live music. It reaches patients, staff,
and the entire hospital community. We also have a harpist and flutists. They have found
that drumming is hard for very sick patients who are often over- sensitized, so they
concentrate more on softer music. There is also a musician who plays the accordion, and
a strolling barbershop quartet has been a tremendous success. We have found the
strolling musicians are ancient healers.
"The dancer in residence, Jill Henderson, created a dance for life program. Jill works
one-on- one and does support groups primarily on the pediatric bone marrow transplant
ward. She forms long- term relationships with the children. She follows the child and
begins to create a dance for their life. She introduces herself as a dancer and invites the
child to dance with her or asks if she can dance for them. She brings in music. When
the music starts, she moves the child. She moves with them, she opens up the possibility
for the child to become the director of their own dance. The dancer- in- residence brings
in other dancers. Jill has twelve student dancers and they are all dancing with children in
thirteen different units.
"The Visual artists program includes the tile wall project, the healing ceiling (which
involves painting the foam ceiling tiles so when patients look up they see healing
paintings made by the children, staff, and family). There are murals, dream catchers,
medicine wheels, origami paper cranes, each one a prayer, and painting one- on- one tshirts. A patient often paints a huge number of paintings. A bone marrow transplant
patient named William Klim painted a series of watercolors during his treatment. Visual
artists in residence also use Fimo clay to make objects, flowers, animals, necklaces
ornaments. They use clay with patients, family, and in support groups. Photographers
gives people cameras to take pictures and encourage them to write stories. Artist go into
patient's rooms and people often tell them what to paint, saying that they want butterflies
or ten daisies. People know very specifically what they want. The visual artists also
make hats, teddy bears, and quilts, and presents for holidays.
"There are storytellers in residence who read and tell stories. They publish the Zine
magazine, an underground newspaper in which the children tell their own stories of being
in the hospital. They share their perspective of being ill. The magizine is circulated
among the children so they can read stories of the children who are hospitalized on a
different floor. It creates an underground communication network where children can
feel like they are not alone but are part of a community. The storytellers incorporate
games, puppets, musicians, songs, dance, and other arts. There is also a theater program
in AIM. The playback theater is a troup that sits with patients and enacts patient's stories.

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A professor from the theater department of University of Florida does theater and theater
games with psychiatric adolescent patients. The artists work on a variety of units
including the bone marrow transplant unit, pediatric intensive care, diabetic adolescent
unit, psychiatry, autistic children, general oncology, medicine, gynecology, surgery,
mother baby, and even the dental waiting room. Artist will go into any clinical area that
is accessible to them or that they are asked to work in. Artists get patient referrals and go
into new units such as the sickle cell unit to do imagery. The daily work changes and
evolves depending on the artists that there and the caregivers who work with them. One
of the most exciting parts of the program now is its flexibility, creativity, inclusiveness,
and speed of implementing new ideas. If you walk into the program and look around and
think of a unique way to work as an artist with patients, you can put your ideas into
action almost instantly.
"Patients at University of Florida who are visited by the Art in Medicine artists say their
whole experience of being ill is changed forever. They are more hopeful, happier, feel
better and have less pain. This process takes place whether the patients or their families
watch the artists or make art themselves. Even if they just watch, they still are an
audience who participates with their heart. If they are too sick to paint, they can see
themselves being painted, or can tell the artist what to draw. They often ask for a favorite
scene, an animal, their child. There are studies in progress now that look at what makes
patients heal faster or live longer. It has been shown that patients who feel better about
themselves and are more hopeful, live longer with cancer. A person who is in touch with
their own creaivity is in a state of joy and hope.
"There are many beautiful projects that artists do in Arts In Medicine. The healing tile
wall is the illumination of embodied moments of making art. In a studio, the child with
cancer, the parents, the staff, anyone who wanted to, could come in and paint a tile. Each
tile told a story. When we first set up the studio and got the materials together, we felt
touched by a certain luminosity. It was like seeing the light on the leaves. What we saw
in each tile was an illumination of a precious moment where someone went deeply into
their own soul to make art. The project taught us that making art is transitory, it happens
in a moment. The first person who came into the room was a mother with a child
receiving chemotherapy. The child was playful, but the mother shook her head and said,
"I cant paint." Lee Ann said "I can help you?" The materials were all there but the
mother sat there for a long time thinking. She said quietly, "Would you mind if I painted
a tile for my little daughter who died in September?" For the fisst time, the woman felt
she had been given the opportunity to make something that would remain. For the next
hour, she almost meditatively painted her lost childs name in different colors, and wrote
"I love you" and the date that her child had died. The mother became absorbed and
transfixed in a busy hospital, while her other child was getting treatment. She quickly
went to a very private place within which was all about her painting. Time was
suspended as the mother became very focused in making this tile. It was obvious that
this was important to her. She said, "so you are going to put this tile in a wall so I can
come back and see it?" Lee Ann explained that there would be a healing wall. A
teenager painted himself as a brave hero and showed the tile to a little child with the same
leukemia as his who was about to have the same bone marrow transplant. They then

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made a tile together that portrayed both of them holding hands. The tile was called "two
brave men". Tile painting is so easy it could be done by everyone who walked in without
any training. The tile wall, of over one thousand tiles, now hangs in the hospital atrium
for patients, family, and staff to see each time they came to the hospital. There are
beautiful mosaics that surround the tile wall. These mosaics capture the themes and some
of the recurring images that are seen in the individual tiles. It is lovingly crafted to
complement the art the patients made. Lee Ann created the mosaic after the birth of her
son who was born with Downs syndrome. The art work gave her a community and a
project when she needed support.
"Those are the kind of projects artists do. They are simply community artists who have
come in, who have negotiated with staff and caregivers, who make a commitment of their
time, bring in the supplies, and are there for the patients. The projects go on for a week, a
year, or two years , but each one iss about an artist who has negotiated with a physician
or nurse, who runs a unit, to set up a studio and work with their patients. It happens
because someone goes in and makes it happen. Artists cannot wait to be asked, they go
in as guests. They need to be receptive and totally honor what is going on in the setting.
Here they did it by simply creating a studio space for the patients to work. The patients
were getting all -day chemotherapy. They would come in for months at a time, they were
there.
"This program is a shared vision between artists and caregivers. At University of Florida, it
is deeply tied to nursing care. The nurses are brought in as vital participants in the program.
Every artist who comes on a unit is in communication with the nurse. Physicians and nurses
write prescriptions for art for patients just as they would write a prescription for a drug or
other intervention. As the focus of healthcare changes from cure to care, nursing is
providing leadership and a vision for others. AIM has become a clinical model for nursing
practice to integrate the arts in care practice and for nurses to choose creative art
interventions in responding to the patients' needs. It advocates the presence of artists inside
the hospital to teach and facilitate how the arts can be implemented right at the patient's
bedside as they get their chemotherapy and their medical treatments. The nurse is the
facilitator and advocates the patients voice in this process. The nurse has deep knowledge
of how this can happen and the power to manifest it for the patient's care."
How art and healing is different from art therapy
Art therapy has been a major force in art and healing for many years. Art therapy ,
music therapy, dance therapy, poetry therapy, and writing therapy, all are mature fields
with wonderful, creative practitioners who meld the arts with psychotherapy to heal.
Expressive arts therapy uses art as a creative force to work with patients in a wide variety
of ways as varied as the practitioners who grace this beautiful field.
Traditionally, art therapy involved people who used art to diagnose, analyze, and
interpret, an individuals psychological processes. The art work was used in art therapy
to try to resolve persons problems and help the individual gain insight through the
imagery they drew. Though the art, the persons inner process would be revealed and be

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accessible to the patient and the therapist. It was a powerful healing technique that used
all the art forms to deal with grief, anger, and emotional and psychological illnesses. The
model of art therapy is often different from art and healing as portrayed in this book
because art therapy is formally integrated into a diagnosis and treatment medical model
which includes classification, taxonomy, and medical reimbursement. It also involves a
specific training, a degree, a license, and a defined role in a medical setting. It has
sometimes been difficult to integrate into the mainstream medical model due to
reimbursement systems and in some settings it works well. Art therapy often has a focus
on interpretation and analysis. The people involved are therapists primarily, not artists.
Using traditional psychological models the therapist helps the patient deal with the areas
of conflict. More art is made as the process continues which reflects the healing and
helps it occur. In expressive arts therapy, the therapist helps the patient make art, dance,
paint or write. The work of art is believed to help the patient deal with the areas of
conflict and the therapist helps by interpreting or doing a process which moves the patient
towards healing.
At this point in time, art therapy and expressive arts therapy are much broader than they
used to be, and are extremely creative and innovative. They both run the spectrum from
psychotherapy, to art and healing, and each therapist has their own way of working that
goes from traditional psychotherapy to making art to heal. Right now there are people in
art therapy and in expressive arts therapy who do art in healing the same way we discuss
in this book, and others who are traditional therapists. But currently there are basic
differences in the approaches of both fields that make them separate and unique. Each
has its own power, each is right for some patients and some artists. Art and healing
provides a new alternative to artists who want to work with patients and not do therapy or
be licensed and a new alternative to patients who want to make art and not be in any kind
of therapy. It is the right path for many artists and patients.
The basic belief of art and healing is that an artist can be with another person just to make
art, and that that process is healing in itself. There is no diagnosis, classification,
treatment, or outcome measurement, other than the patients experience of the process as
being meaningful to them. Expressive arts therapy often bridges the two fields of art and
healing and art therapy. It involves characteristics of both and can be either in its role.
Art therapy today also can be art and healing without therapy or interpretation, or can be
strict psychotherapy, depending on the person and the program. Also art therapists work
in art and healing programs along with the artists to teach and just be artists. Art therapy
is a powerful healing technique that has contributed much to art and healing and to
medicine.
At this point in time, in art and healing, we believe that there is no need for licenses to
certify artists. The only license you need to be with another human being in a time of
suffering, is to be human, to be present, and to have the intention to be healing. What we
have found in the most powerful work, is the persons intention to heal, to be witness to
their creative process, to be present, to be clear and allow the other person the space to be
creative by themselves without imposing an opinion, without any criticism at all, is key.
The intention to heal is critical. The merging of the two peoples spirits is magical. One

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person has the intent to be healed, one person the intention to heal. You join and create a
caring encounter. Art is just the vehicle for love, for joining. The artist embraces the
persons painting as the finest expression of the individuals life. It is art at the finest
because it is taken as something we do together with another person in a new level of
meaningfulness.
Healing environments: changing the hospital
"The effect in sickness of beautiful objects, of a variety of objects and especially of
brilliancy of color is hardly at all appreciated. I have seen in fevers (and felt, when I was
a fever patient myself) that most acute suffering produced from the patient not being able
to see out of the window and the knots in the wood being the only view. I shall never
forget the rapture of fever patients over a bunch of bright colored flowers. People say the
effect is only on the mind. It is no such thing. The effect is on the body, too. Little as we
know about the way in which we are affected by form; by color and light, we do know
this, they have an actual physical effect. Variety of form and brilliancy of color in the
objects presented to patients are actual means of recovery." (Florence Nightingale, 1888)
Since ancient times, environments have been crucial for healing. In Navaho sand
paintings, an environment for healing was made that told a spiritual story from the
persons culture. The patient was put right on the sand painting and was then part of the
whole world of ancient spirits and was in the nonordinary space of healing. In Greece, in
Delphi, the healing temples were in places of great beauty and were a healing place to be
in themselves. They were in magnificent natural sites and had sacred springs mountains,
or rivers near by. It took a pilgrimage to get to the healing temples. They were believed
to be on sacred sites where earth energies were strongest. The beliefs of the people let
them embody stories of the earth and the gods and goddesses healing them in the sacred
sites.
Sacred space
Sacred place is an environment that takes someone from a feeling state of the ordinary
world, to one where they are deeply grounded in themselves and can experience
transcendence. Just being in sacred space take the person from where they are running
around worried and upset, to their being relaxed and in an attitude of prayer. We can
intentionally create sacred space in the hospital by having art everywhere that is healing,
and by changing the architecture to a healing vision. Doorways, arches, room shapes, can
all create sacred space. Each and every room in hospital must be seen as a sacred space
to enhance a patient s healing. . Making alters in the rooms or in staff areas creates
sacred space. We can do this and give patients, family, and staff, permission to do this,
Art supports the diversity of different peoples faith. It allows people to be open to create
a sacred space around them. This is as important a part of medical care as anything else.
One physician at a conference told us that he was surprised to see how many patients or
their families are making alters in their rooms. He said that families do this especially
when the patient is in a coma. It helps them go into a space where they can pray, where

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they can participate in the healing process, and where they can actually help the patient
heal by bringing in their spiritual help, whatever that may be.
In creating healing environments we must think about the messages people are given.
Visual imagery of people being cared for shows that the environment is loving and
nurturing. These images could be a nurse gently leaning over a patient , of doctors
tenderly holding a an old man's shoulder a hand reaching to help another someone they
are with. These images are caring encounters and can be shown to ground the hospital in
caring. These images are powerful communicators to everyone to show what is
happening. It is indeed beautiful. Another suggestion we have would be to utilize large
photo or painting of surrounding landscape near the hospital. For example, photographs
of nearby prairies, lakes, mountains, and forests. Bringing the surrounding landscape into
the hospital is healing. It grounds people in the earth that they are used to around them. It
connects them to the community they are part of. A healing environment then both
grounds the patient by putting them in a sacred space putting in touch with nature.
In modern hospitals we realize increasingly that we need to create environments in the
hospital that are healing and make a person feel cared for. When people come into
buildings that are huge or out of scale they do not feel at home. Its important to make
this environment feel comfortable. Textures and colors communicate feelings.
Traditionally, hospitals have been sterile, monumental buildings, that make you feel
alienated and not at home. At times They have been huge complexes, with long corridors
and hidden faces. It is hard for a person to feel oriented, to feel a human presence,. The
lack of sensitivity to views, to what is seen out of windows, has not been valued. We
believe it is criticism important. Hospital environments can be strange with strange
noises and often seem to contradict healing. These buildings themselves need to be
healed. The communities within hospital need to be healed.. Art is the way to heal these
environments.
Creating a healing environment in a hospital
We believe that creating healing environments in hospitals is a major part of changing
Healthcare. It needs to be done to optimize healing. We need to bring in the elements
into the hospital. These elements are Water, air, earth, fire, in nature they create balance
and harmony. We suggest natural materials, ecological materials, ventilation for clean
air, earth materials, plants, things that are alive, such as gardens. The use of Sunlight,
and warmth, hearth centers, and medicine wheels or mandalas are part of our ancient
memory and can be used in healing way. Reflections of the community, its heritage, its
history, its uniqueness, its celebrations help people feel at home and feel cared for. It is
important to be oriented and at home to be open to healing. Images of the peoples in
the area are deeply grounding and satisfying to people who are ill. These images let
people know they are not alone. They are being cared for in the context of community.
Photos of people caring for others illuminate the hospital community and show patients
that they will be cared for too. Caring encounters also reminds staff that they are caring
and enhances care.

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The dimensions and spaces, how high ceilings are , how long corridors are, can be
orienting or disorienting. Environments can make a person feel small, insignificant,
inadequate, even lost, or if they are healing make them feel deeply at home. Huge places
accentuate the experience of weakness rather than empowerment unless they are sacred
like a cathedral. When you approach the hospital, is there an open doorway, a threshold
to experience an entry. an honoring? From rooms are there vistas, is there healing sound
or music, are there outside healing gardens? Are there interactive environments that
draw you in? Are there fountains with the sounds of water and life? You have to bring
nature into the hospital. We believe that light and sound and movement are blended into
the environment to make a patient feel and whole. Are there pieces of art that connect
you to nature or the spirit on the walls? Are there textures and colors that are create
harmony and balance. What tells you that it is a place oh healing for you and your family.
How does the environment make the human body feel safe and comforted uplifted?
There are many hospital now that are incorporating these design characteristic into the
hospital environment. Annette Riddenhauer of Aesthetics Corporation in San Diego has
designed many hospitals which reflect a healing purpose and create healing
environments. Her sensitivity to the hospital as a healing environment is helping to
revolutionize health care. Her hospitals reflect the spirit and intentionally are designed to
enhance healing. We have mentioned her projects above in programs with visibility. San
Diego Childrens and the Integrative Health Center in Tucson, Arizona, exemplify art and
healing in design.
Hasbro Childrens Hospital in Providence Rhode. Island. was done by volunteer efforts
and contributions. Much of the work was done by Paula Most, a remarkable woman who
has made her hospital a place of extraordinary beauty and healing. She worked at Hasbro
first as a volunteer, then as the art director. She has joined with Rhode Island School Of
Design and brought in students to do murals, she has had artwork donated by local artists,
and raised funds for fountains, and gardens, inside and outside. She has put up
collections by staff, patients, and community members in windows and put art on every
wall in the hospital. The environment is deeply healing to the children who are in the
hospital, their families and the staff. When you see a child who has lost their hair from
chemotherapy and is obviously very ill sitting in a wheel chair and completely
animatedly telling his mother about each star wars figure in a window collection you
understand how art in a hospital heals.
Creating a healing environment in our home.
Last but not least, it is essential that we create a healing environment in our home. We
heal ourselves by creating and maintaining our own healing environment. We can do this
by creating a relationship with nature, with sunlight, and by opening up the views to the
outside. It is as beautiful as bringing in the flowers from the garden and letting the
sunlight in. Creating healing environment also includes the company of good friends and
family and bringing in positive healing sounds of nature. Music TV dim lights candlelight
aesthetically important environment at home Inside our own living environment, we can
create a sacred space where we honor ourselves and the physical energy of our home.
We can make our own alters. We can position art work where we can see it when we

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walk around the halls. We can use paintings as windows. The artwork can change our
perspective and bring into our lives colors and vibrant images that are life enhancing. We
also can create sacred time within the environment that becomes part of our lived
experience of healing.

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Chapter Eleven
How Professional Artists Use Art to Heal themselves, to heal others, and to
heal the earth

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 Artists making art to heal themselves

In this section of the book is about professional artists who heal themselves, heal others,
and heal the earth. For many years, the field of art and healing has been made up of two
different worlds. First there was the world of the artists working with patients in hospital
programs. Second was the world of the professional artist making healing art in the
studio, and in the community. For a long time these worlds were separate. The
professional artist did not bring their art to the hospital and if they worked with patients it
was outside the realm of medicine. Physicians did not see the professional artist as a
healer. The separation is now longer real or complete. Art and healing are one, the artist
healer is one figure again. The professional artist is now a recognized healer.
The artists we talk about in this chapter have devoted their life to healing art. These
artists are contemporary shaman in that they have taken on the role of being specialists in
seeing the soul and portraying it in art to heal. These artists have gone far into the inner
world of inner visions and see more deeply than most of us do. They have perfected
techniques of healing with art and made their work powerful and intricate. Their healing
art can be thought of as "advanced therapeutic practices" that are inspiring for each of us.
The art that these artists create can be intimidating to people who just beginning to make
healing art. It is professional art and its technical skill often comes from years of training
and a lifetime of work. Please don't be intimidated by their art. Instead, realize that their
work can be a guide to people starting to heal themselves with art. As you will see from
their stories, each artist is also an ordinary person whose story is the same as our story,
whose lessons are applicable to all of us.
The first group of professional artists using art to heal are the artists who make art to heal
themselves. These artists are people who have had an illness or a life crises and started
making art in their own studio to heal themselves. Then they became professional artists
and devoted their lives to making healing art. Or they can be artists who had been serious
and often well- known artists before they became ill, and the illness changed the focus of
their art to healing.
Hollis Sigler talks about painting and breast cancer
Hollis Sigler is a breast cancer survivor who was a respected painter before she became ill.
She was a leader in the feminist art movement, painting scenes about her own life as a
woman. After her diagnosis she painted a series of paintings that chronicled her inner life
with breast cancer. Her work expressed her thoughts about her illness and her anger at the
way society views women with breast cancer. Her paintings evoke a sense of vulnerability,
isolation, and sometimes waning hope.
The exhibition of her works has toured hundreds of hospitals nationwide and has even been
shown at the United States Congress. It has been moving and transformative to women with
or without cancer. Women with breast cancer realize that they are not alone in having
frightening images of their illness. These stories inform the clinicians who are committed to
facilitating healing and you as a healing artist. Hollis Sigler has lived with breast cancer
for many years. We deeply honor her work which communicates what it is like to live

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with breast cancer and crusades for breast cancer awareness. She may be the best known
healing artist today.
Hollis says, "I started out doing the breast cancer artwork as therapy for myself. I was
keeping diaries of my experience, and it gave me a handle on what I was feeling about
things. It showed me a reflection of my feelings and helped me cope with life. For me,
that was its healing experience. The therapeutic quality of letting me have a dialogue
with myself about my experience. I think all art is therapy in the end. People will
disagree with me, but I think anybody who makes art is in the process of dialoging about
their thoughts and their feelings and therefore the art manifests in a language that they
can reflect on.
I felt better, more whole, more complete, through the experience of making art. It helped
me understand some of my most painful feelings. It was definitely a big bonus that I had
in doing it. I believe that being in touch with yourself and your feelings is a healthy thing
to do, so being a visual artist is very beneficial in terms of healing. It helps me cope and I
believe it does have a major effect on healing my breast cancer.
For the people who view the work, it helps give them a voice to their own experience that
is very healing to them. They say, "oh yes, this is my experience." My art has the ability
to include people. In my paintings, I don't talk much as an "I". I talk as a "we". So it is
hopefully including others in the dialogue. It helps other women with breast cancer find
their voice and be included. My intent is to inform, to talk about my experience and share
it with others who have had the experience. Also, to let people know they are not alone.
We are a community of women in the process of healing ourselves. It is a process that
they can be involved in by making art. They can find their own voice."
When I make art, I have a sensation of great satisfaction, it is very meditative. It is a
complete sense of self. In the process of making art, I get transported, moved into
another realm that I find very, very relaxing. For me, art making is transporting. I can
get out the feelings and have them out there to see. I can encapsulate them and examine
them. That was part of the motivation when the initial pieces were made. I was waiting
for tests, in limbo, with no past no future. Just the present was all encompassing. Putting
it on paper helped me deal with it. It always helped me in crises to put it out there. "
Visionary artists
Visionary artists make art that is deeply healing to themselves, and the viewer. The
studio artist who is a visionary artist is absorbed in their creative process so completely
that they are merged with the visionary space. The visionary artist sees deeply in the
spirit world. They journey between worlds and bring the images out from spirit world
with their paintings.
Alex Gray, a New York painter, is one of the leading visionary artists alive today. He goes
deep into a meditation state and brings out images of exceptional beauty and light to share
with us. He sees the union of body and soul and can paint it for us. He has created a large
installation piece called Sacred Mirrors that shows us our own beauty and oneness and
allows us to see how we are all connected to nature and to each other. His figures show

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deep spiritual realms of consciousness, the unity of male and female, the wings of spirit
flying, and the peaceful and wrathful aspects of human existence. He portrays worlds that
he can see more deeply than most of us or that we can not see at all but know are there.
Through his art, he heals himself and us.
His pieces are deeply healing and are often used by cancer patients as meditations. Many
patients say that the portrayals of space, energy and healing, in Alex's art, correspond to
their own visions during healing meditations. The pieces were assembled in a book, Sacred
Mirrors, which is used for healing by people with illnesses and people on a spiritual path.
He is part of the movement that is bringing art back to its roots of transformation and power.
He is a true visionary artist in the tradition of sacred artists throughout history.
An Alex Grey painting draws you in and engages you in a way that can be more intense
than some "real" scenes. It accesses your imagination more than a real place might do,
especially if the place is one you have seen over and over again and are habituated to.
The painting magnifies the image for the viewer brings it to their attention. It brings to
you the enhanced attention of the artist. The visionary artist brings a spiritual vision to
your attention, they share with you their enhanced vision. Alex Grey believes that a
visionary artist is a person who sees the deepest brightness they can see, after a lifetime a
practice. And then, with the intent to heal, they bring the spiritual vision out to share
with the community. That is what all healing artists do. The artist births the spirit into
form with their hands, eyes, and commitment. They give you the gift of their undying
passion and commitment to what they do. They give you the attention they give it.
Visionary artists make spiritual and religious art for a community vision that lasts
through the ages or changing times. They make images that will speak to the soul and are
truly universal.
Alex Grey talks about visionary art
"The interconnectedness of body, mind, and spirit became my premier subject for my
artwork. That was brought home when I had the psychedelic experience of the
universal mind lattice. That was not a specifically art event, but it was a
transpersonal experience, the revelation of a strata of being, that I had not previously
experienced or known about. It showed me a realm of complete interconnectedness
with all beings and things via a love energy that was in an infinite, an omni-directional
grid, a sort of fountain drain, a toroidal shape. Each being and thing was one of the
cells interlocked in this ongoing network. It was there with totally no reference point
to the external world or external reality--it was all the energetic realm and it felt like
the total bedrock of reality. This was this scaffolding of creation that the dreamlike
world of mundane manifestation was draped over. It felt like a veil had been stripped
away and I was seeing the way things really were. It was beyond time, it was beyond
and it changed my entire point of view about what we are.
I came back from that experience, and looked at my wife Allison. She was looking at
me, and I said, 'It was the most amazing space--we're there, we're always there. It's
just--I've never seen it before. It's where we'll go when we die, it's what I was before I
was born, it's like..'. She says, 'yes, I know... and it looked like this', and she started
drawing it and it was the same space. She saw the same transpersonal space at the

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same time that just drove it home to me. I'm not saying that that's it, and that's the
only space. But it was my initiation into the mystic headspace that I feel is profoundly
true. And it did change my outlook on life and spirit.
I felt profoundly grateful for the experience and after the trip, Allison and I felt like
there's nothing else more important to make art work about. We felt that we had to
make art about our interconnectedness and this realm of loving energy that we all
share. This was something for us to base our lives on, So from that experience, the
Sacred Mirrors, started to gel.
Alex Grey's advice on making visionary art
"I think that there are definitely ways you can reach into the psyche, to the most potent
visions that you have, and externalize them. I think that in a way, it's more important
that the work be heartfelt, than it be necessarily greatly skillful. Skillful means can be
developed, and I'm not denigrating it. I think it's very important, but I think that
finding your own personal and universal truth of where you are right now, is what is
worth making art about. To give yourself the permission to have confidence enough
to pick up that pencil or crayon or paintbrush and make the mark out of your own
heart and soul, that can be nothing but healing in itself. Keep praying, you know, pray
to whatever spiritual source you feel aligned with and look inside and make the work
directly from that. That's as simple as I can say it."
Artists making art to heal other people
The second group of professional artists who use art to heal, make art to heal another
person who is ill or in the midst of life crises. These artists can work with groups of
people in workshops or classes, or work one- to- one. These artists make art to heal the
community, to heal a neighborhood, to heal certain groups of people, to heal race
relations, to create peace, to heal prejudice. In neighborhood art projects, they often
involve groups of people in making art for increasing self esteem, for empowerment, for
change, and for neighborhood beautification. The projects can be done in schools,
hospitals, community centers or parks.
Christiane Corbat is an artist who lives in Providence Rhode Island. She was a sculptor who
made static figures. After a period of great darkness and suffering in her life, she made a
body casting of her body. She found the process and the sculpture to be deeply healing and
transformational for herself. She then began to make body casting sculpture with people
who had physical or emotional illnesses or were seeking spiritual growth. She made a series
of sculptures called Amazons for women with breast cancer. From Christiane's sculptures,
women could see themselves as beautiful. Often they would take the sculpture home and
use it as part of a healing meditation. In one sculpture, the sutures around the mastectomy
were to be plucked as harp strings to turn the suffering into music. The sculpture is deeply
healing and her experiences have helped Christiane continue her healing art work. In the
past years she has made body castings of people with heart disease, organ transplants,
asthma and other diseases. Each piece of art shows the person who is ill and makes it into a
transformation that gives the person a new view of themselves or their illness. Her sculpture
is a new type of studio art, art made with intent to heal another person.

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Christianes process is simple, elegant, and completely extraordinary at once. People are
often referred to her by physicians. She talks to the person who comes to her, and
together they see a vision. The vision comes out of the simple sharing of stories of the
lived experience of the persons illness. She glimpses the subject of the piece with the
person and together they see the spirit of what the person will transform into. Then
Christiane makes a body casting of the persons body. The piece of art embodies the
transformation, is the transformed form, and is believed to help make the process
happen.. By participating in the making of the transformation, and by looking at the
finished piece, the person becomes transformed. And in the process, Christiane herself is
transformed too. She is now the embodied shaman, the one who sees the transformation,
manifests it, and makes it happen. She is powerful and her process is real. She is an
artist healer, a contemporary shaman, an exceptional woman.
Christiane tells us about how she makes art to heal others
My intent when I work with a person is to help them to access their healing so that they
become aware of it. I can make the image that will help them to get on that wavelength
or move in that direction. We cast their bodies to see the change that will happen and
help it happen. In A Fine Line Between Hope and Despair, made with a man was
dealing with heart disease, it was the balancing act with the scale. It was our
consciously pushing down on hope, which was feather, and pushing up despair, which
was those two very heavy pieces of metal, that let him control it himself. He becomes
the one who can balance his life.
We gave him an image that he could use to make hope carry the day, on a regular basis
when he needed it. The casting process was very close to having an angiogram in that
it took place in stillness, and that he's going to have to have that done on a regular basis.
Maybe the peace and control will come to him as he is lying there on that table, now
that he's doing the balancing act. I think it's very important to give people a myth that
they can carry when they are going through a crisis or a crucial moment. If you can be
a hero or heroine or you can have a power animal that ideal--it just helps you--it gives
you a tremendous amount of power.
Starting a healing art group
There are many artists who work with individuals in the community in informal
situations in their studios or homes. Annie Pais is a painter in Florida who set up a studio
in her home and created a community of women who came together to make art. As she
worked with them, she realized that the making art was a meditation, that it was a way for
the women who came to paint, to get deeper into their own lives. She saw that they made
art to deal with the issues of their lives and to empower themselves, and that by working
together in a creative process, there was more energy. In Annies own process she
believed that art was spirit becoming matter. She herself had used art as prayer, as
meditation. She believed that by using the art as a creative process for healing, it would
be profoundly powerful. What evolved, was that the group started doing ceremony and
ritual together. One woman who was pregnant would make art of pregnant woman,
another woman dealing with her beauty, did art of flowers. As a collective, all the pieces
of art began to weave a story together.

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This healing art group had started as a simple art class where she had invited women to
get together and make art in her home. It turned into a womans healing group that used
art to heal. Next, Annie began to do work with women who are surviving cancer. She
is now increasingly involved with people who see themselves as healing. She now does
art workshops with cancer survivors. They rent a house together and just make art for a
week. They have a healing artists retreat. It started as an informal process and evolved.
It emerged out of a need, as she saw the art was healing. She continued because she was
committed in her own path. With Annie, much of the healing process centered around
painting what the artists loved. She encouraged people to paint what they were in love
with. She taught them to look at art as a way of falling deeper in love with the things in
life around them. She would paint beautiful still life painting of things she loved and get
people to look around their own lives for things that they loved. She painted the
magnolias, the blue heron, her living room furniture. It was very ordinary and beautiful.
Work like Annies shows us that there are numerous ways to do art and healing with
others. It does not have to be in a hospital program or even with patients, it can be in
anyway you see yourself in the community working as a healing artist. Her work also
shows us that you do not need to know what you are doing in advance. It will grow by
itself.
Medicine art
Medicine art is art that radiates power to heal. When the Yoruba of Africa create fertility
dolls, they make them and pray for fertility in one process. It was believed that the
prayers went up to the spirit and the spirit actually came down into the doll. When the
Yoruba made twin dolls to keep couples together, they were treated as if they were alive
and the twins were fed and cared for. When the objects were treated as alive, they
become alive to the person and were seen as filled with energy. They become infused
with life and spirit. People believed that spirit resided in them. Healing artists make
objects that become alive with spirit. A Maori woodcarver told us that his carvings
radiated power. Maori tradition says that they have energy fields that affect the world
around them. The carver believed that his figures healed by changing the air and
molecules. He said that they would work even if the people did not know the legends the
piece represented. The Tibetan Buddhists believe that art is an incarnation of the deity on
earth, that art is sacred as a presence and powerful in itself. They believe that the deity
comes into the piece and gives it power.
Sandy Carlson is a Florida sculptor who makes spirit dolls. She is a contemporary
shamanic image maker. She believes that she makes form that the spirit come into so that
the form embodies the spirit. Her art gives the spirit a place to rest and a home. Her
pieces of art become your friends, they become speakers and seers in your life. The
objects themselves carve out destiny, they bring certain energies into your life. They are
alive and rich. A woman who lives with one of her figures said, "when I first bought the
Kali spirit doll, the goddess came home with me. My life became involved with death
and rebirth. It was like the spirit was in the house and brought that powerful energy into
my life. She kept me company in my sadness and when it was over she took my
sadness. She keeps the treasure of the memory of my sadness. I dont have to keep it in
my body anymore. I could release it. If you let go of the anger, you dont have to feel
the pain and sadness anymore. The doll can hold the sadness in space and time. It no

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longer hurts you . When I was the most sad, I could see I was sad, and I am changed
now." The art can be abstract or a portrait. The subject is not important. It is what it
brings out in you that heals. The forms belong with you, they live a life with you .They
are transformative in themselves and have their own power.
Medicine art objects have been made with the purpose to heal. Any art that comes into
your life can change your life. It is imagery that is powerful. Images that are of a
visionary landscape make the visionary world real. They bring the visionary world into
your life. An image of a deity or of Christ or Buddha brings the holy spirit of that being
into your life. Beauty illuminates your life when you hang a painting filled with radiant
beauty. Calm comes into your life when you hang a paining that is calming. Painful
images brought into your life stir up difficult emotions. You are attracted to what you
recognize.
Artists who use art to heal the earth
The third group of artists are artists who use art to heal the earth. They believe that the
earth is alive and is presently disrupted and needs to be healed. They believe that making
art in watersheds, or mountains, or dry lake beds changes the energy and heals. Making
earth art is deeply transformative to the artist. They feel a sense of connection to the
earth that is beautiful and sacred. In fact, many of these artists believe that the earth
speaks to them through art. These artists receive images from the earth to make art that
heals the earth. It is as if She is speaking to them for Herself. All healing artists believe
that the earth is helping them heal, but the artists who heal the earth live within the
earths voice and hear Her song.
To be any type of healing artist, it is important to ground yourself in the living earth, to
ground yourself in the sacred places where you live. It is important to see the sacred
places on the earth around you as places that nourish you and give you energy. Each
place that you live in has a place which is sacred and full of power. In Gainesville,
Florida, where AIM located, it is the springs, in Marin County California, the home of
Anna Halperins Tamalpa Institute and Michael's Art As A Healing Force, it is Mount
Tamilpais. In Providence, Rhode Island, where Christiane Corbat makes her healing body
castings, it is the ocean. Find the sacred places around you and go deeply into them and
feel the energy from within. Go to the sacred springs, the rocks, mountains, the ocean,
the caves, the old trees.
It is important for all healing artists to be deeply connected to the earth. Nature is in a
constant creative process. Nature is always giving birth and taking its life back into its
body. Nature tells you that what you are doing as a healing artist is totally natural.
Making art is what nature does, making art to heal is what nature is. You go to the sacred
places near where you live to meditate and nourish and heal. They inform you of what is
real in the change of seasons, in the changing light, and in the shadows and the darkness.
They create the opportunity for you to know where you are. The path you are on is the
path you are on, and the sacred places in nature, remind you that you are deeply alive and
creative as you are.

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The life of a healing artist is the same as a vision quest. A vision quest is a ceremony
done by some Native American peoples where a young person went into nature to find
themselves. They sat for days in a secluded place and waited for a spirit animal or voice
to come to them and tell them who they were or what they were to do on earth. The
vision quest was about finding their own spirit and helping others. It was about listening
to the voices of the earth and the ancient ones. Becoming a healing artist or healing
yourself with art is also about making your life a sacred vision quest. It is also about
finding out who you are and what you are to do here.
As a healing artist, your life is a vision quest, literally a quest for visions. Your own
personal life is informing you in every way. You have shifted from an ordinary person
who is only occupied with the dailiness of material things, to someone who is
concentrating on healing yourself, healing another or healing the earth. The work is
connected to your own life. It comes out of your life, and as you see your art emerge,
you know that everything is perfect as it is, that it will bring you to where you are. The
work is difficult because often you will fall back on yourself for support and sometimes
you'll have to keep reminding yourself how profound and sacred the work is. Alex Grey
says that if you dont doubt this work occasionally, you are not going deep enough into it.
Doubt is facing the opposites, the tension of life. When you go deeply into your visions
you feel the dark even as you are in the light.
So to ground yourself in this work, look to the earth. You can do sacred pilgrimages, be
alone, meditate with the earth, do an intentional healing of the earth. We believe that all
healing art is healing the earth. Whenever you heal yourself or heal another, you heal the
earth as well. You can canoe down a river or stand on a temple mound and see and
realize you have been touched by the earth. Your spirit soars, and you pray with the
intention of being with the earth.
Anouk's path of the feather
One day, Anouk, arrived. She told us she was on the path of the feather. She was an
sculptor and jeweler from Montreal, Canada, and she came to the AIM program at
Shands Hospital to make healing art. She had been to the rivers and had collected rocks.
She brought these "rock people" to the bedside of children with cancer. She told the
children stories about an Native American medicine and she had the children paint the
rocks the five different colors of the medicine wheel. Each color evoked one element of
the medicine wheel, yellow for change, red for healing, blue for passion, black for
grounding, green for soaring.
Then she collected the rocks from all the children and arranged them in a circle in the
center of the hospital sun terrace. She built a sacred medicine wheel painted by the
children with cancer. She had everyone who came by pray to heal each person who had
painted the rocks and do imagery to bring up a collective energy to spiral from the earth
up to the sky. She believed that the raising of the energy healed the earth. She merged
healing the children with healing the earth. The rocks stayed in place for three weeks in
this busy terrace in middle of the medical center. It was healing art to heal the patients,

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the staff, and the medical center itself. It created a space in the heart of the hospital that
was healing art.
It was her idea to make art at the bedside and then do the ritual in the sun terrace. It was
an act of boldness and fearlessness in her life as a person and as an artist. The first day
she came to the hospital , she walked into a patients room and asked the person to draw
with her. She did not know the patient was blind; and she felt terrible when she realized
it. She was embarrassed, shy and upset and she had to get all her energy up to keep
working in the hospital. Within six weeks was so brave she could create her story of the
healing medicine wheel of rocks. Anouk as an artist emerged from afar, came in, put her
healing artistry to work , and then she was gone. It was as simple as that. We must
create openings for people like this.
Vijali talks about healing the earth
Vijali is an earth artist who heals with the light that comes from within her heart. She had
been a studio painter in Los Angeles and had a vision that she should go to the mountains
and become a hermit. She moved up to a tiny trailer in the mountains outside of Los
Angeles and lived alone. There, the rocks spoke to her. A rock opened and showed her to
look within. She saw there that she was to go around the earth and stay with people and
make art to heal. She went to nine countries in seven years in her world wheel project. In
each country she would ask three questions: What is your essence? What it holding you
back from being it (that is, what is your illness)? And what can you do to achieve who you
are (that what is, your healing)? Then with the local people she would do an earth carving,
or performance piece that embodied the answers to the questions. She would live with the
people for months and fall in love with them and their lives. She would heal them as a
community by making the piece with them and sharing in their healing.
Vigali says, "My intention in my work now is to heal the planet. Of course, we are
the planet--we are part of the planet. All this dissension, wars, bloodshed around the
world, yes. There is intention in my preparation for the next World Wheel, especially
trying to call for a global cease-fire for 48 hours. There is an intention of getting
peace into the world; peace into each individual's life, which I think that is the only
way to have world peace. We are on the way to a world transformation, so I am
working on a very personal level, as well as on a global level, with the intention of
healing. My work right now is global healing.
"Who am I? I'm just light and space, with red-mud splattered on it. When I speak of
art, I don't just mean paintbrushes, but the whole of life, where you go, how you sit,
how you do everything, everything is part of that gesture of creating. Every thought
we have has an effect on the whole galaxy, the whole cosmos, so everything is
important, everything is sacred, and everything is ritual. And ritual has an effect on
people, so every part of every gesture is having an effect.
"There is no separation for me between art and prayer. No, the art is truly the prayer,
there is absolutely no separation. The prayer, when you make a prayer is words. The

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words are vibration or sound, even if you're thinking, and nothing is said out loud.
That thought itself is creating a particular vibration and on some level, even that
thought is a sound. The same thing is true with sculpture. As you're carving the
sculpture, it's saying something, it is a vibration that is sent out into the world. It is
prayer.
"In the next world wheel, I'm just going to have one question. The next world wheel
is dedicated to the children of the world because I feel this next period will be for
them, they will be inheriting this world. I feel they are very important and so I'm
going to ask them particularly, 'How can you bring peace into the world'. I am going
to video the children around the world and have them answer it. I'm going to carry a
book because some children will be too young to verbalize it, and I will have them
draw in my book. I have people write in their own script and the children draw their
answers.
"You know we're being healed in the process of everyone else being healed. I was
such a damaged child; and I think that if the child that I was could be happy, filled
with joy, the way I am now, I feel that anyone can be healed. I couldn't read until I
was 13 years old and people would talk to me and I was so shy that I couldn't look up.
I thought they must be talking to someone else, someone in back of me, so I wouldn't
even say a word and people would be talking to me. At school they thought I was
deaf because I couldn't answer. They kept having my ears examined because I
wouldn't respond. I was such a mess and in so much pain internally.
"One reason I am doing the world wheel is because I didn't have a family, so I keep
looking for other ways to have a family. So now I have a global family. The art
really helped me because I was always drawing even from the age of two, even if I
couldn't communicate very well with people. The art led me into the world and into
my own healing and the healing of others."
Vijali's advice on how to heal with art
"Well, I would say to really follow your heart and do what you really love. And never
make decisions which parents are always telling kids to do about the practical; you
know do this job because you're going to make money, and its more practical. But do
what you really want to. Go and paint or if you want to work with children do that,
because that's the clue from the inside to what is really right. It is the clue to how
your yourself will unfold, and what would be really healing for yourself. And what
heals you is the healing you do for other people in the world. It's your contribution to
the world. So follow your own inner voice, really connect with your own guru, not a
guru or a teacher from outside. You can learn tools from teachers but...
"You can meditate. Take time to be alone, to make contact-- just hanging out with
yourself in nature you can become attuned to yourself and your world. We all have
this ability, we just don't pay attention to it. You know, it's like, our culture tells us
not to day ream. You know you are sitting in school and looking out the window and

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daydreaming. That's supposed to be bad because you're supposed to be writing down

what the teacher is saying. But we have to her these little feelings that float up. We
just have to follow those little moments that really tell us what is right for us to do.
Then step- by- step we are led into our own healing and way of being.
Doing ritual on sacred sites to heal
Artists and healers are finding that sacred sites are important healing resources for
healing themselves, others, and the earth. Healers are taking patients to sacred sites to
heal them and artists are going to sacred sites to make healing art and do intentional
healing rituals. There are sacred sites in your backyard and in ancient stone circles, they
are both gifts to the healing artist.
Sacred sites play a major role in art and healing. The energies they hold from the earth
and the rituals done in the past flow up into us to empower us deeply. Sacred sites are
most often situated near rivers, caves, springs, mountains, ancient trees, or the sea. and
the energy of these earth forces come up into our body, mind, and spirits to make any
healing more effective. The ancient ones who did the rituals to heal in the distant past
come to us in visions and speak to us and give us their power too. The thought forms of
the ancient healers are around these sites and we can feel them and they come into us.
People have found places of power that follow a line across an area which they call ley
lines. Often there are churches, ancient stone circles, springs, caves, mountains and
ancient trees on these ley lines. In Great Britain, there are ley lines that go from one end
of the country to the other. Healers and artists do ritual on these lines to heal.
Artist healers now do rituals in sacred sites all over the world. They do rituals at sacred
springs, ancient trees, mountains, stone circles, and temple mounds. They use sacred
sites to empower them as artist healers in their work. Each place, every community and
wild area, has its sacred sites. Artist healers are now finding and creating their own
sacred sites through ritual. Vigali, in her World Wheel has created a ring of sacred sites
around the earth. By making healing art with communities in nine countries around the
world she made new sites that people can visit and use for healing ritual. Ritual is
embodied in multimedia healing art. It is a performance piece done to heal with sacred
intent. It is the oldest art and the oldest healing. It uses dance, music, visual arts,
storytelling, all at once to produce transformation. Many healing artists use ritual in
sacred sites with any other healing art that they are doing at the time. The ritual enhances
the art they are making. Sacred sites are an important resource for artist healers in their
work.
Mending the Heart Net, Putting it all together
More and more of us are putting it all together, making healing art to heal ourselves,
others, and the earth all at once. Alex Grey did a performance art piece at Shands
Hospital, Gainesville, which did this. His piece Mending the Heart Net, was done to heal
himself, his family, the patients in the hospital, their families, the hospital staff, the
hospital itself, art, medicine, the community, and the earth. Mending the heart net
became the focus of several weeks of ritual for the artists in the community, for a major
art and healing conference, and for the people coming into Shands Hospital. It truly was
about putting it all together.

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Mending the heart net was a sacred ritual. It was the first performance art piece done in a
medical center by a major performance artist. Its goal was to heal the patients, staff,
hospital, and the earth. Its occurrence changed the hospitals sterile space into a sacred
celebratory space where love and healing could be manifest with intent. Its beauty and
symbolism were transformative to everyone in the community who came and
participated.
The piece consisted of a heart made of fabric with the earth and continents sewn on it. It
had an eye in the center of the heart and a paint brush surrounded with a serpent on the
top of the heart. Around the heart were fabric arms and hands with a heart sewn on each
palm. The hands even had fingernails. Surrounding the heart was a rope net that went
for about twenty feet in each direction. The piece was made by Alex and Allison before
they came to Gainesville and was assembled on the site in the hospital atrium in front of
patients, family and staff as they walked by or sat and watched.
The piece was done in the main entry way of Shands Hospital, the main teaching
hospital, of University of Florida Medical Center. Most of the patients and staff go
through the entry way many times a day. There was a table set up in front of the piece
that had cut up bandages and pens on it. There was a sign that invited everyone to write a
prayer on a bandage for someone who was ill or to write their hearts desire. As patients,
staff, visitors, and family members came in, they wrote their prayers or wishes on the cut
bandages. The bandages were then pinned to a heart and tied individually to the web. By
the end of the day the web was covered with prayers. The prayers said everything from
"please heal my mother of cancer we love her", to "may peace come on earth". They
were heartfelt and wonderful. The moment of writing the prayer was surprising and
magical for everyone. Ordinary people coming in to face difficult times could stop for a
moment and be with others and pray with intent. While people wrote their prayers, live
music was played by musicians on a piano, a harp and guitars.
All afternoon people wrote their prayers and talked to Alex, Allison, and Zena and the
AIM artists. Children in wheelchairs were brought down from their rooms by their
parents to see the huge heart. At the end of the day, Alex , Allison, and Zena, sat in front
of the heart and Alex read a poem. The performance was the making of the heart web and
the writing and hanging of the prayers. It gave patients, staff, and families the
opportunity to pray with intent and see their prayers in a net with others.
Arts in Medicine artists took the piece down in a ritual after two weeks. Then, two of the
artists read the prayers out loud for a whole week as a chant and typed them up so that
they could be shown to the hospital administrators. They then were taken to a nearby
spring and the artists did a healing ritual. One artist was the old woman of the springs
and she read the prayers and gave the bandages, now tied together in a long rope to the
other artists. Each artist read the prayers that they were holding out loud. The artists
then went down the river in canoes and stopped in a meadow with a huge ancient tree.
The tree had been hit by lightning and its center was burnt out. To the artists it
symbolized the creative fire within each of them, the power of lightning to open their

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hearts. Each artist entered the tree and prayed for their healing artist to emerge, be filled
with passion, and be strong. They then buried the prayers in the earth in the center of the
tree. Later the artists had a celebration and honored each other as healing artists.
This piece was a ritual to heal that can be done in any medical center by anyone. Of
course Alex, Allison, and Zena, are extraordinary but we all can do this too. Giving
people who visit a hospital the opportunity to write out a prayer is very beautiful and
transformative. Giving the artists in the program the opportunity to come together in
ritual was also valuable.
Alex Grey's visualization to mend the heart net.
You can participate in Alex and Allison's performance ritual by looking at the photo of
the heart net and by doing the imagery exercise. As you do it you can imagine that you
are healing yourself, others, and the earth.
"Close your eyes. Breathe deeply and regularly. Relax and let go of tensions. When you
are ready, bring your attention to your own heart center. Many religions point to the
heart enter as the dwelling place of the soul. Feel the warm glow and loving presence in
your own heart center. Now, using your imagination, project a beam of light from your
own heart center out to the symbol of the heart .net. Sense the commingling of energy
with the heart of the world, a network of love that links all beings and things. Hands of
light reach out from the heart net to help activate all healing and positive intentions. See
the heart net accomplishing the fulfillment of good aims through thousands of beings
performing heart centered actions. Now , having seen your own love energy connected
with an infinite network of love energy, it is time to bring the power of the heart net back
into your own body. Imagine that the infinite love energy of the heart net condenses to a
point at the center of the eye in the giant world heart. From the eye, a powerful beam of
light shoots into your own heart center, filling you with clarity and tremendous healing,
loving, creative, energy. All of the your soul's energy is returned to your body, even
from troubling problems, which may have felt draining. You inwardly promise to use this
energy to benefit others."
Alex said that "this event honors the special connections between healing, art, and the
spirit of love. At their best, what links art and medicine is that they are both heart
centered offerings of service."

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Chapter Twelve

Conclusion: Transforming the future: become a healing artist

"It is like putting on the mask
of the healing artist
and taking it off.
When you take the mask off
the second time
you realize you are changed
and your world is changed."

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Let art and healing change your life

In listening to the beautiful stories of the lived experience of art and healing, we hear
these themes: Art saved my life. I would not be here if it wasnt for my art. Art healed
my life. Art healed my illness. Art healed my of my childhood. Art will take us to the
future and heal the earth. And we hear artists and healers tell us that art and healing
change your life. Art and healing tells you who you are. Art and healing lets you be
yourself more deeply in all directions. Art and healing takes you elsewhere, away from
your suffering. Art and healing lets you see the most brilliant illumination that you can
find and bring it out for everyone to share. Art and healing lets you fall in love. Art and
healing lets you see yourself and others as beautiful. Art and healing lets you bring
luminosity to yourself and others. Art and healing is about intent. Art and healing is
about trust. Art and healing is about loving Her and hearing Her voice and singing it on
earth. Art and healing is about community. Art and healing brings spirituality to art and
to healing. Art and healing brings spirit into each of our lives. Art is the most beautiful
thing I do except loving my family.
In listening to the stories of the artists doing this work, we hear this advice. To do art and
healing it helps to be present in the moment, totally open, and completely flexible. To do
art and healing it helps to be committed and see ourselves as artist healers. To do art and
healing it helps to be in love with life, with beauty, and with the next moment. When we
are artist healers we are the oldest healers and the oldest artists that exist. We join the
tradition of art for transformation and healing. We help the mind, body, and spirit,
resonate as one. We open our hearts to see the person that we work with as magnificent
and as our equal, as someone we love. We see them, hear them and honor them by
helping them make art and see, hear and honor themselves. We honor this process with
our whole life. We see beauty beyond our dreams in our next breath and in theirs.
Healing in the broadest sense is finding and embracing life. In the seeing of others, we
see ourselves. It is knowing who we are and what we are to do. It is being born into
perfect compassion and grace, into connection and oneness. It is about deeply falling in
love with Her and singing Her songs on earth.
For most people, the story of healing yourself begins when you are ill and you exhaust
the resources outside of yourself to heal. You reach for art when the loneliness and inner
turmoil that you experience is still there, when you leave the therapist after the fifty
minute visit or leave the oncologist after chemotherapy and know there is more to healing
than what happened to you in the office. You reach for art when you feel you need to
something else when you feel angry, sad, miserable, unfulfilled, or depressed. And then
you may remember that you have always wanted to be an artist and have never done
anything about it. Or you just may be drawn to this work. In the illness you are self absorbed and struggling for your own personal survival. You realize that the painting,
or the dance, or the poetry, or the journal, is the way to be with yourself. Making art is
the way to be with the pain and live with it. Not in an inability to deal with it but in an
engaged process where you form it and are in relationship to it. It takes you out of the
darkness and into forms. And in the art, everything suddenly has a relationship with the
disease and the illness. The art lets you be with it, not talk about it.

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Your art is like a cocoon you spin around yourself. Suddenly after you start, you
surround yourself in it, you go into your studio, you are totally absorbed with it, it merges
you with the pain and illness, and one day you pop out of it. You emerge out of it and you
can see the cocoon and you are transformed and the memory of what you were before
you entered the cocoon is the artwork. That is what is left. You can see who you once
were and you are now different and you can fly like a butterfly and you are beautiful and
you can see who you once were and how beautiful you now are. And you can see how in
the making of art you were becoming who you are now. And you realize the depth, the
extent of the change that is possible. The caterpillar does not see the butterfly, but the
butterfly can look back and see where they were.
Our dream, an artist for every patient, a patient for every artist
It is our hope that every patient will include creative healing on their healing journey.
We also hope that nursing programs, medical schools, and art schools will include art and
healing as a part of their program. We also hope that community artists will be able to
expand their world in ever-more meaningful ways into service.
Our dream is every patient making art and an artist for every patient. We hope that all
hospitals will fund art programs to enhance the quality of care, and that artists will
innovatively create forms to make their art transformative. Research needs to be done
qualitatively and quantitatively to determine how art heals. More research needs to be
done to demonstrate that art improves the quality of life, reduces symptoms, and relieves
pain. Important research need to be done to demonstrate that art lengthens life of people
with life threatening illness and cures illness. This is best done by both artists and
providers in a multidisciplinery team approach. This view of the future requires a radical
change in consciousness that can be achieved though education and consumer pressure.
The changing medical system is looking for therapies that are inexpensive and have
tremendous benefit. Because the arts are a self- initiated process, art in healing is cost
effective. The power of these processes is in the individual. The hope for art and healing
lies in our hearts. As artists find that they need to make art to heal, and healers find they
cannot practice healing without art, art and healing will become one.
A guided imagery of the future of art and healing
This imagery is yours. It is for you to fill in from your own imagination. By now you
will have images of healing that you love, pictures of yourself as a artist healer, images
that heal you, others, and the earth. I will only give you the sketchiest outlines for you to
image on. Bless you as your healing artist. Be well.
We invite you to close your eyes and go anywhere. Go to a healing place, place where
you make art, a place where you live as who you are. See what is looks like, smells like,
feels like. Look at the natural landscape that surrounds you, the buildings if any, the sky,
the water, the ground, the trees. Look at the art or sculpture around you, listen to the
music, join in the dancing. Read words around you or listen to songs around you. See
the community of which you are a part. See your family or friends. See you as an artist,
as a healer, as yourself fully. See yourself loved perfectly from before the beginning of
time to after the end of time. See this become your life. Now open your eyes, and bring

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this healing vision out with you into your life. What part of it can you live now. What
part of it, even the smallest part, can you make come true now?
The Medicine Wheel Web
The world wide web on the internet is a way we can all focus our psychic energy in one
place at once. If we all picture an image or picture healing the earth, in the traditions of
shamanic artist healers, it will happen. We have set up the Medicine Wheel Web on the
world wide web to help heal ourselves, heal others, and heal the earth with healing art.. It
is part of our larger web site at www.artashealing.org. Our web site has information
about the field of art and healing, about conferences, events, and exhibitions, and it lists
links to other sites. We hope that each healing artist that reads our site and our book will
be part of a collective consciousness of people making art to heal. And we hope that each
person who is healing themselves with art will become a part of the web too, to share in
the healing prayers and help themselves heal.
The Medicine Wheel Web is about becoming an intentional healing part of the
consciousness that surrounds the earth. We all join, share our visions, pray as one, and
find the other who dreams as we do. Through the noosphere, the consciousness that
surrounds the earth, we become one consciousness with each of its parts still remaining
an individual. The term noosphere was first used by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit
paleontologist, to refer to his concept of a thinking envelope that surrounds the earth and
acts like a collective consciousness. Many people realize that the world wide web is a
noosphere and through it we can merge and think as one being. We believe that one
function of the noosphere is to see the earth and heal her and to receive the thoughts from
the universe as it grows and looks back on itself. Our web site is about becoming
intentionally part of the healing noosphere, as it self- balances the earth.
Healing artists can make up a living medicine wheel that surrounds the earth. They can
be the part of the noosphere that balances and heals. You are healing by just making art.
You are a node on the noosphere that is like a cell in the immune system or a cell that
can produce growth and regeneration. You are a node in the noosphere that can see into
the mind of the universe and be one with it as it grows. The artist creates images, sounds,
movements, poems, that resonate in the noosphere all at once. You are like flowers in a
spherical wreath around the earth. As you resonate as one, all of us are healed.
We hope that each artist on this wheel will find others who are having the same dream,
bringing in the same images. We hope that anyone who needs to be healed will find
others who are doing the work they are involved in. Healing artists who make bears will
see other people who have same dreams, and make bear art. You will find your spirit
brothers, sisters, and lovers. This is about knowing that you are not alone. You will see
that someone believes in you, that you are being seen. This is about seeing you. You are
being illuminated in the world so you can see yourself and others can see you too. That
is how the earth is healing itself. As we see ourselves in these moments, the earth is
healed. This is about you seeing yourself as a healing artist. This is about being a

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healing artist with others as a ritual healing act. When an artist becomes part of the
living medicine wheel, they intentionally become part of the noosphere that will heal the
earth.
A collective guided imagery to heal yourself, others, and the earth.
This guided imagery is on our web site and allows us all to actually image at once.
Imagine that you are in the center of an immense field of healing energy. As one of the
minds around the earth you are like a star in an immense constellation that is the living
being evolving towards God. We believe that if everyone pictured a healing form at
once, the earth would heal.
Blessings to you, welcome to the spirits of healing, the four directions, the animal spirits,
the ancient ones. Call them in to you as you breathe and as you look to each side of you
in a prayer. Now make yourself comfortable, take some deep breaths and let your
abdomen rise and fall, go to your place of imagery or meditation, go to your place of
peace and power.
Now imagine a web of light that surrounds the earth. It looks like lines of light or pure
energy crossing and meeting at nodes that light up and explode with love. Now imagine
that you are one intersection, one node of exploding light and love. For each of us as a
healing artist is only alive as the node that lights up and holds one point in the web in
perfect peace. As you glimpse yourself as a healing artists and hold your healing vision
you help make the web and she is born.
Look at the Alex Grey painting Theologue, and see the nodes of light and the intersecting
lines. See them as surrounding the living earth with you as one intersection. Hold your
image or poem or song or healing prayer and make it your point of light. See the web as
whole and you are seen and she is born again. Let this image flow around the earth and
see yourself as one node with your art and prayers as your emanation. Put yourself in
the web and hold your vision of yourself as a healing artist with your vision that you are
working on in place. See all the others around your as far as they go back and forwards
in time and space. Feel yourself heal, feel us heal, feel the earth heal.
Go deeper now. Drop into your center, if you have healing forces, ancient spirits or
power animals call them to you. Know that you are a healing artist who has a vision to
heal yourself, others, and the earth. Feel deeply that as you hold this vision or even hold
your space with intent your node is lit up and radiates love and you make the web that
heals the earth at this moment. Come out slowly, move your body, touch the ground, pray
or meditate on peace, and go on with your day.
Seeing more of the vision
Creative Healing is actually about the way people see the visions that come from within
them and begin to use them with intent to heal. So it is the first step. It is the beginning

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of how you find out who you are, how you find out your story, how you heal yourself,
how you heal others and the earth. Is it only after you start to use your images to heal
that your creativity becomes illuminated and you can move from the ordinary world into
a an extraordinary world. One that can be more a visionary one. In the visionary world
your images are formed in color, light, movement, spirit animals come, magical
landscapes and ancient ancestral spirits appear. Spirit guides like she who gardens us
from above become a part of your creative and visionary life. You can hear the music,
the words, the art, from the inner world that is at once magical, mystical, and mysterious.
Then, you as the artist healer becomes the contemporary shaman who can hear Her song
to heal the earth. This is when the Path of the Feather appears, and we see that the sacred
sites and spirit animals call out to be heard so that they can be heard by everyone. The
medicine wheel web forms and shows us that if we all join all over the earth as the
noospere and see the same vision the earth will be healed. Then, you become the ones
who heal the earth.
So in our vision, the path of the healing artist goes like this: 1. Creative Healing. We let
our images come out to heal and be seen. 2. The Path of the Feather. We let the earth
speak to us. Her voice becomes sacred again and we hear the voice of the ancient spirits
and of the spirit animals. The medicine wheel emerges and the healing rituals are
formed. 3. The medicine wheel web. Art and healing become one on earth.
When we interviewed the healing artists for this book, we asked them how they
ended up where they are. We asked them how they thought they ended up as a
healing artist when they started as a studio artist, or a nurse or a physician. We
were given two types of answers to our question. The first response was, "It is
destiny, I am part of an ancient family, we have always sun Her story to heal the
earth." The second answer was, "It is who I am, deeply who I am. By becoming a
healing artist I am becoming myself." In a real sense, the two answers are the
same. For as we join the ancient tradition of artists to heal the earth we find out
who we are.
A final invocation for our healing work to be done
Like the prayer that started this book, this is a small prayer to the forces that help us do
our creative healing. Just as we called them in, in the beginning of the book, we thank
them and release them in the end of the book.
God, Great Spirit, She who gardens us from above, We thank you for art and healing and
for our lives. We thank you for the lives of our families, we thank you for the lives of the
people with illnesses and the healing artists that we talked to for this book. We thank you
for this sacred work and letting us do it. And we pray to you, we dream deeply up into
Her heart that art and healing become one on earth. We dream deeply up into Her heart
that art and healing will heal ourselves, others, and the earth. We dream deeply up into
Her heart that art and healing will give each of us a reason for being, will change our
lives into manifesting the full brilliance of who we are, and will allow us to love each
other.

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Art is a way of healing, art is a way of knowing, art is way of caring.

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