Healing in Creativity 

It is exhausting 

being   

outside and inside

of your mind.   

So much noise. 
Memories.
Questions. 
Silence. 

   

A Reflection:  

Is it possible to take a minute, or two, along our journey to stop? To not just see but feel? To breathe? 

For me, living is a cousin of life. A cousin that makes you laugh, cry, and feel secure. A cousin that forces you, if only for a second, to sense that you matter. 

 

Can art be our cousin? Just for a little while? 

Inside ourselves? Outside? 

For me, expressions of art and creativity cannot heal. Art, in every form,  is a declaration of the now with the potential to travel or disappear independently.  However, my definition of healing may be different than yours. In my opinion, art's ability to heal or not heal is reliant upon our personal/internalized conception of healing.  If it's ok, I will encourage you to define healing, embrace it, and carry it with you until a new definition is needed.  

My personal definition - for now. 

Heal  /hēl/

verb

1. to make whole 
2. to return 
3. to go back 
4. to deem it usable again 

 

Life flows in one direction. Movement is constant even when it's wrong and definitely when it's right. Returning seems like an option yet the second time is just that. The second. 

Art is the imprint of a "now", a specific moment with vast or minuscule variances. Art is unable to rewrite or erase perception or experience. Art moves with us. Art can remind our mind of where we have been. Art can soothe, calm, numb, and assist escape. Art can foster a desire for internal understanding and initiate the process of healing. Thus art is a tool of healing but not healing itself. A tool that has to be welcomed without judgment(s) regardless of form.  Art can be a bridge of connection and a fire for useless debris.  Art can be time uncovering buried treasures once guarded by monsters. Art can be time living.

  

My current opinion is that healing is a process to a new path, to new knowledge, to growth. Going backward is not possible. We don't get to return to that moment and do something different. If we choose, we are allowed to learn and create. Healing is the action and art is a tool. Healing begins from within the spirit through the mind.  Art is a means of including the body. Living is to life as art is to healing. Separated they survive, together they are magic.