In 1997 after a routine exam I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that a rheumatologist said would leave me crippled and in a wheelchair within 10 years if I did not do exactly as he said. I did not do exactly as he said and 15 years later I am not in a wheelchair. I left his office in a very bad mood when he looked at his watch and told me that he didn’t have time to answer my questions. I won’t bore you with what happened next regarding meds, changing physicians and the like.
It was during this stressful time that I became an open book, going to anyone and everywhere looking for a cure for Rheumatoid Arthritis. (Click here to read a creative writing piece about that time.) Finally one day when I was feeling particularly desperate I googled the word ‘healing’ and came across the following DH Lawrence poem:
Healing
I am not a mechanism, an assembly of various sections.
And it is not because the mechanism is working wrongly, that I am ill.
I am ill because of wounds to the soul, to the deep emotional self
and the wounds to the soul take a long, long time, only time can help
and patience, and a certain difficult repentance
long, difficult repentance, realization of life’s mistake, and the freeing oneself
from the endless repetition of the mistake
which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify.
For me finding this poem was what Jung called a synchronicity where acausal events (googling and my illness) collide together causing an internal shift in consciousness or awareness. It is too personal and complicated to go into a longer explanation. Suffice it to say, that it began a personal experiment with the healing capacity of the Arts as an everyday artist. By the Arts, I mean storytelling, poetry, music, dance, visual arts, painting, sculpture, singing, woodworking, blogging, etc., anything and everything that allows us to give expression to our experiences with illness.
Over the years I have written poetry and essays that reflect my personal struggles in coming to terms with the mystery of healing versus cure. My professional experiences, study and research have proven to me that the creative process of making art has the capacity to unite mind, body and spirit. Although I occasionally work with professional artists, singers and actors, I do not consider this population to be the only ones who can make art. Any one can make Art. Anyone can reclaim their right to give creative expression to their experience of the human condition. Whether or not it sells is beside the point.
When counseling clients living with chronic illness, I encourage them to write, draw, paint or sing out those deep feelings that can’t be accessed through the intellect. If clients claim not to be creative, I have them share music, film and other art forms that touch their Souls. In this way I gain access to the images and feeling tones that help me assist them in bringing meaning to their individual situation.
From my point of view, we need to leave medical technology to our doctors. Our job is to try to understand how we can use the experience of illness to become more aware, more conscious of life’s mistake and to free ourselves from the endless repetition of the mistake which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify.
In Peace,
Nance
