Art as a Healing Path

When our eyes see our hands doing the work of our hearts, the circle of Creation is completed inside us, the doors of our souls fly open and love steps forth to heal everything in sight. Michael Bridge

One of the wonderful avenues that came my way during my grieving process after my little brother Drew died, was art. I grew up in a large extended family that had a many artistic people in it. There was the uncle that sculptor, my mother the oil painter, my sister the photographer, my brother the graphic designer, … you get the picture – right? I always thought the gene had skipped me or I’d been left out when that gift was handed out. So I largely became an art enthusiast buying pieces of affordable art or attending museums when I could.
During my mid-life transition, I left my pharmaceutical career and went back to school to get a master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology. During my second year, I had a chance to do a project that was open ended. We started the work with a meditation to guide our project selection. During this meditation, I saw in my mind images of dancing, painting and sculpting. I was somewhat surprised but I opened up to what the visualization held for me and ran with it.
I ended up developing a project about healing through creative expression which included a combination of writing, dance and art. It was such a rich journey of self-discovery and healing that I could not have picked a better project for myself. I learned how to be patient with myself as a beginning artist. I changed my beliefs about my creative capacity. I found healing by creating art that symbolized my losses and loved ones. I also discovered that as expressed myself in dance or art, I was making parallel changes in my life such as being more open, speaking more authenticity and being more creative. I found that writing held a rich tool for me to clear myself and uncover intuitive wisdom.
Above all, I learned that we are all artists in some shape or form and that as long as we’ve been on earth, art has been a fundamental means of healing. It is not in my mind a separate task in life called art, but an inherent part of each one of us, always ready to offer us a means of expression and healing.