art, prayer, and healing all come from the same source in the body, they all are associated with similar brain wave patterns, mind body changes and they all are deeply connected in feeling and meaning.  

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sculptures of the mother goddess

to promote fertility, and honor the divine feminine goddess, 

within every woman

were ancient healing art

The healing power of art and prayer has been known throughout history.  In fact the first healing, was music and dance in hunter gatherer cultures freeing what the Kalahari Bushman called healing “boiling energy”.  

The process was seen as sacred, as part of the spiritual life of the people. Each night people of the tribe would dance wildly and go into a trance or meditative state.  The people believed that the dance itself freed the person’s own healing energy. Eventually, 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 theater or performance art.  But in ancient times this ritual was sacred and it was part of the culture’s medicine.

In a very real way the first artist, the first religious figure, and the first healer were one figure in society, one person, the shaman.  This figure became a specialist in going inward to the place of creativity and healing.  They became the person who embodied the original rituals that previously were spontaneous and made them intentional.  

All tribal peoples believed that there was a healing spirit that could be freed from within a person by going into the space of music or art and fully participating in the experience. Christian and Buddhist art also works on the principle that meditating on images or listening to certain sounds puts a person in a sacred state and heals.  In Navaho sand painting the patient was put on the ground and the sand painting was made by a medicine man around them.  The sand painting’s imagery told a traditional Navaho healing story and the healer told the story of the painting to the tribe as it was made.  It is believed that the story, and the shapes and colors directly effect the spirits and heal the patient.  Researchers find that Navahos using sand painting are healed from some conditions that Western medicine cannot cure.  

Furthermore in traditional cultures it was believed that art healed the world, not just the individual.  It was believed that art and music changed the hunt, fertility, the crops, the weather, the life of the tribe, and the earth.  Today many healing artists also believe that their art helps heal the earth. They are making environmental or eco-art to heal neighborhoods, rivers or to create world peace.  

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 labyrinths were ancient art and healing tools. 

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via flickr.com

art heals yourself, others, the earth, our mother

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VIrginia Kelley's beautiful ceramic sculpture is a visual mandala  for art and healing, in each hand a sacred offering, all hands together to heal self, others, and the earth

Creativity and spirituality and healing is a new field in both the medical world, the art world, and the spirituality world. 

When we use the word art we mean all the arts: painting, sculpture, music, dance, poetry, storytelling, journaling, whatever we usually think of as the creative arena.  All together, in our world is performance art, in art and healing, its ceremony. 

We can visualize this movement as an expanding sphere.  On one half of the sphere are people with physical or mental conditions, or people with life problems in search of personal growth, healing themselves with art.  This side of the sphere, patients and healers using art, includes the fast growing area of art programs in hospitals.  

On the other side of the sphere are artists making art to heal themselves, others, or the earth.  This side of the sphere, artists making healing art, includes most spiritual painting, much relaxing new age music, and some performance art and ritual.  

The reason we portray the field as a sphere is that we see art and healing as one whole like the earth, healers and patients using art to heal, and artists using art to heal, are both working in parallel and now are joining together to create the field of healing art.  

What is being born is a whole new way of healing and making art that will change our lives, and the fields of both art and medicine.

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The project: A woman remembers a story about her family's  Mexican viliage e where all the daughters were kidnapped. To heal this family story, she brought her daughter to class, and wrote a short play and kissed and loved her and protected her......

I teach a course in art and healing, 

 at San Francisco State University  Institute of Holistic Health , 

In my course, I ask the students to do a project: 

to use art (visual arts, word, music, dance, all together = performance art or ceremony) 

to heal themselves (physical, mental, growth), others, (family members, hospital  program, ancestors) community or earth. 

This project is real, REAL, they have to do DO it., 

not write theorize bibliographic search, read about others etc. 

they have to actually do art or ceremony to heal something. 

Then, they do the project, present to the class and send me 2 page paper for their grade.

Ummmmm

Sounds easy? Hard? Impossible?

Well, the projects are so beautiful surprising shocking tearful sad joyful and HEALING and transformative that it blows me away each year. 

I can’t believe what they do..

With simply that sentence above defining the project, they do art to heal……

So….

You YOU can too.

The next weeks I will post some projects of my students,

Enjoy, cry, learn, bless.

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The island of Delos heals

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churches have sacred space altars,
to light candles
to pray
for healing

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Sacred space is visionary space, it is non-ordinary reality.  

It is space that is full of meaning, pregnant with power. 

It is space that has similar characteristics so that each practitioner who creates it usually does similar things. 

The sacred space itself calls to them and tells them what to do.   

The ritual is dictated from the space, not the space from the ritual.

            Sacred space is connected to your own story of what is meaningful. 

If you were to walk on a road and found a rock it might be an impediment and be moved away with annoyance. 

If you were told it was the rock Buddha sat on for his vision and you were a Buddhist it would be the most sacred space, a place of pilgrimage full of meaning.  

When you create sacred space, you find the objects that are most meaningful to you, you bring in light and air, you clean and arrange with love. 

You make the place a place of love, light, healing energy and beauty.  

Each person’s sacred space is their own, deeply tied to personal meaning, the common threads are beauty, cleanliness, meaningful objects and careful arrangement.  

Altars are common to most sacred space. 

They vary by tradition and content. 

Sacred space is made alive by prayer and visioning.

 It is empty without the spirit that infuses it with healing power. 

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via nytimes.com

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via edition.cnn.com

thank you Steve

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via guidedimageryinc.com

Diane's guided imagery is used by hospitals all over the world
thank you Diane!!

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Art and healing and guided imagery are a great way to prepare for surgery

Its been shown that just listening to a guided imagery tape for 15 minutes

Shortens hospital  stay, reduces pain medication use and really changes things

Making art is relaxing and helps deal with fear and put you in a positive place for healing

Buy an Diane Tusek guided imagery

And make art

Tell anyone you know who is expecting to have surgery to do this and help them 

Tusek D, Church J., Strong S., Grass J., Fazio V.: Guided Imagery in Hospitals: Diseases of the Colon and Rectum. February 1997, Vol. 49, No.2.

The use of Guided Imagery for Surgical preparation and post operative recovery for colorectal patients showed that Guided Imagery significantly decreased pre and post op anxiety, pain and length of hospital stay of the colorectal surgical patient.

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when you 

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via nasa.gov

the latest portraits of Artemis
the moon goddess's home

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You can let art heal you, others, neighborhood or earth

By doing an art and healing ceremony

create sacred space.

Make a tobacco ring, circle around your place

create loving accepting non judgmental healing circle family

with people present

allow each person to be honored witnessed accepted and loved

then present art you made to heal

to your friends or family in a ceremony

you will be witnessed, blessed and loved

by creator mother earth and your family

to close

for the closing

I always do tobacco offering to each direction 

And let one person at a time offer themselves

then thank each other in a hugging line

you can do this

goddesses and gods

you are.

See the full gallery on Posterous

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via psychcentral.com

here and now,
shutting out intrusive thoughts
is healing

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you have moments of pure transcendence

if you don’t

pray for them to come,

 invite them, 

ask your spirit guides spirit animals ancestors for them

look for them with teachers and lovers

then

when they come

slow down time

go deeply into them

and make them

your guided imagery practice

and make art with them

art heals yourself, others, neighborhood and earth

you do

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