I once led an art and healing group with women with breast cancer , to make mandalas, and 6 out of 8 the the women drew angels.....

you start by making art from where you are in your life right now: make art from the breast cancer experience, whatever comes to you mind, start there and let it move

Finally, you can  make art.  Next  is the art 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 research at The University of Florida, Gainesville, 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 mind’s 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.