Posts Tagged ‘cancer’
Art as Healing vs. Art Therapy
Art: something that is created with imagination that expresses important ideas or feelings Healing: to restore and make whole again Therapy: the treatment of physical or mental illnesses Art as Healing: My Way Most times when I explain what I do, I am met with the response, “Oh. You do art therapy.” I reply no, not…
Read MoreFear No Art: Trust & Blind Contour Drawing
Many times, it is plain, old-fashioned fear that keeps survivors from signing up for our offerings – not the fear that comes with a cancer diagnosis, but the terror associated with the words creativity and art: “Oh no, I couldn’t possibly. I do not have a single creative bone in my body.” We believe that everyone has creative bones;…
Read MoreTranquility Practice: Creating Radiant Mandalas
There is a wonderful strangeness about meeting in a classic business boardroom for our Lunch and Learn series. A very large, stately, dark mahogany table fills the room. Two of the four walls are almost floor-to-ceiling glass. It is an elegant space that holds us well. This boardroom is transformed when we meet the first…
Read MoreFinding a New Whole: Self-Portraits
Each spring, I like to dig a little bit deeper into who I am, face some fears, uncover a long-forgotten aspect of who I truly am and hopefully move one step closer towards my personal quest for wholeness. In Jungian psychology, this journey is referred to as the path of individuation, a process where we learn and…
Read MorePerpetually Stressed?
Overwhelmed? Overloaded? Over-scheduled? Overstimulated? We are bombarded every single day with information from a multitude of sources, and our minds have been trained to absorb this onslaught, this rapid-fire of words and images and sounds. As if this isn’t enough to overwhelm, most of us also have an insane To-Do List. Much is expected and…
Read MoreSpeaking from the Heart: On Mourning
What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. – T.S. Eliot, “Four Quartets” No matter where you are in your cancer journey, life has changed. Overwhelmed by the resulting uncertainty, we often become metaphorically frozen in time, unable…
Read MoreMandalas for Restoring Balance
Last month’s explorations took us into the complicated realm of Balance. We throw that word out a lot these days: “I need more balance in my life.” “Strive to maintain a balanced life.” Ruminating over the meaning of balance, our class came up with word associations like equilibrium, stable, controlled, static, rigidity, precise — none of which made us feel very…
Read MoreGratitude in Difficult Times
I recently found this passage about gratitude among Dana Jennings’s reflections in the New York Times on his cancer journey: When you have cancer, when you’re being cut open and radiated and who knows what else, it can take a great effort to be thankful for the gift of the one life that we have been blessed…
Read MoreOur Inner Lives
Opening my Gmail this morning, I landed on a message from my daughter containing a link to the article How Not to Be Alone by Jonathan Safran Foer, saying it reminded her of me. I was deeply touched by this gesture, and it reminded me of all the cancer survivors I have worked with and of our…
Read MoreGrant Awarded to Healing Icons Traveling Art Exhibitions
Our staff worked very hard on our proposal for the South Carolina Artists’ Ventures Initiative Grant, which is offered by the wonderfully terrific state agency The South Carolina Arts Commission. Our efforts were rewarded! Healing Icons received a grant of $5,000 to fund our traveling art exhibition project, collectively titled Sometimes Words Art Not Enough. S.C. Artists’…
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