Healing is a Pilgrimage

Art is Powerful!

The journey for inner healing is not a straight path! It looks more like a labyrinth with many levels and peels like an onion! At least that is how my spiritual journey has been. Over the years I have felt compelled to seek help from others. And as I peeled back those layers, I could look back to see where I was being led.

The thing about a labyrinth is that you are physically turning back on yourself and just when you think you've reached the center you find yourself thrown back out to the edge. Things that don't seem very significant now come back to you when you least expect them and they add to or strip away from what Picasso called the "dust of everyday life." You know what happens when you let dust accumulate!

In one of the more painful times in my life, I sought out a spiritual advisor. Didn't know what they actually did but kept reading it in books and magazines. This lead me to a wonderful Sisters of Charity nun whom I connected with. I got to a place where I had no words for what was happening inside of me and she asked me if I could put an image(!) to the feeling. I realized that I had been given an image not long before of a snail. The snail has become part of who I am! And it describes my personality. I carry everything around with me (past, present, worries about the future) and I am slow on the uptake sometimes! Then there are those times when I seem to slip and slide my way along a path leaving a slime path behind. Just making that connection helped me be able to go on and talk about what was dammed up inside of me. (I got the image from a video where Maria Harris had asked us to find a shape in the clay we were holding. Art, of course!) I've made it part of my signature (if you look at the first blog I did you can probably see it in the bottom corner). It is an image that comes out for me as an aspect of who I am.

Movement inside the self may also take some movement on the outside or physically for anyone to access what needs to be healed! I always ask people to draw with their non-dominant hand to access what the body is calling for them to heal. Our dominant side hosts the judging/criticizing part of our brain which blocks or controls what we think. It is not always the wisest for our healing. Just that small movement from one hand to the other allows the body to free up our spirit. I also have asked groups to walk the labyrinth before they sit down to do a piece of art to help them get to a different place than they have brought with them. Dance is a powerful form of expressive art and one that people who need movement must use to help themselves to heal. I find walking the labyrinth immensely helpful when I begin my work with art and healing. My preference is with images, but I find a more well rounded response when using movement and voice (which I will speak of in another blog).

My son at 4.

Children are naturals with art, moving, and singing. They don't worry about how it looks or what color things should be! Blue noses and green feet are wonderful! Working with art and using your non-dominant hand takes you back to childhood. It frees up that child within to show what is happening inside of you. Each color you use corresponds and vibrates to a different energy center or chakra. It can help you find out what is happening with both physical pain as well as emotional and spiritual pain. I have lead one day retreats with Art and Healing, weekend retreats and used it in spiritual direction. There is something that is freed up by the use of art and I found that by understanding the process, I have been able to teach others how to work with it themselves.

Some of my work has been images, but some of it is abstract too. My son Michael offered one of the artworks I did for his healing to put on this blog! Thanks! I leave you with that image until the next time!

He calls this the All Seeing Eye!