Moving Into Healing Through The Arts

(Two paintings by Andelene, Colleen's mom)

I have found often when I’m not sure of what I’m feeling if I can immerse myself even for just a moment in the arts I generally can feel something that I might not have been able to tap into without it.

Music is a huge one for me and I grew up hearing Frank Sinatra being played throughout the house and Christmas music beginning the day after Thanksgiving. I retreated into a closet where I could plug in some old headphones and fell in love with John, Paul, George and Ringo listening over and over again to the album, Meet The Beatles. I was love struck.

In our household music is always in the background. R. Carlos Nakai and Peter Kater are enjoyed along with Neil Young and many other artists. I heard one time in an interview Neil Young expressing that he didn’t make it a habit of commenting on his lyrics and what they meant to him. Rather, he desired for his words to land however they needed to for the listener.

In Neil Young’s song, Slowpoke, he has a lyric that says, “When I was faster, I was always behind.” This is the truest of true in bereavement. It simply cannot be rushed or hurried along by the bereaved or by those standing by wishing it could be. It is going to have its way with us and take as much time as is needed. The erroneous assumption that after the first year, all the firsts have been moved though, boxes have been checked off and certainly you should be okay. There could be nothing further from what I experienced and often it’s after our first year that we put work boots on our grief and begin to fully learn how to carry that which cannot be changed.

In the depth of a bitter Utah winter, both internally and externally, I learned how to create no sew blankets. For someone who does not even own a glue gun or sewing machine this felt adventurous. I could find lovely flannel fabrics and create blankets for babies, dogs, relatives, family, you name it, everyone received one. There was something so satisfying about beginning and finishing a project that had texture and color to feel and gaze at.

Many of the women I’ve known have turned corners of their houses into crafting havens and are painting, creating terrariums, baking, gardening, remodeling, finding their potter’s wheel and experiencing the cool and wet clay between their fingers, are writing poetry, becoming authors and whatever medium might entice them.

Here are three women who are finding ways to put their art out into the world and welcome healing for themselves and others.

Saundra and her daughter, Sophia, offer workshops for those in the workplace to gather to explore, and to immerse themselves in the healing arts. https://artsoulhealth.com/.

Andelene, Colleen’s mom is sharing with us some of her pieces that she has created. She explains that when she cannot summon the words for what is going on within her, the emotions and expressions find their way through her brush strokes onto the canvas. That which might have felt unreachable is now birthed using colors, textures and it informs her in ways that words could not.

I’m not sure how it happens, yet the arts are a way of plumbing the depths, with whatever medium is chosen. Healing is an art form whether we are using instant pudding to finger paint with or digging in the dirt and creating a garden. If often arrives unexpectedly, yet it’s always waiting and asks to be invited to the table. My garden taps on my shoulder, what might be calling you?