Sunday, February 17, 2013

CREATIVITY AND HEALING FROM LOSS

                                                                 Healing and Creativity

                                                 Sandhill Cranes on their migration path; Arizona.
                                                        Photograph by Stewart Burchard
                                   

A dear friend took this photograph from a trip we all made to Arizona some years ago.  It chronicled an experience I will never forget.  The four of us had heard that over 20,00 sandhill cranes came in each day during a brief time to forage on their migratory path.  Intrigued, we went to see it.  How could there really be so many of them?

Well, there were and the sight and the sound was a nearly mystical moment for each of us.  Imagine, if you will, multiplying what you see in the photograph above. The sound of their soft voices and the whir of their wings was like a hymn quieting our souls.

Creativity comes in many guises, all of those guises help us to heal from loss, be it physical or otherwise.  This past year, as I wrote earlier, was a time of health issues that resulted in the loss of some of my independence and an increase in physical pain.  But, the year was also an intense loss of another kind, one we have come to depend on: friendship either through death or loss through misunderstanding or even just the erosion of aging.

Life is precious.  Family is precious.  Friendship is precious.
Live each moment to the fullest.

The creativity we bring to our lives can be a blessing, a gift to others.  With those friends and their spouses walking the long goodbye, I promised to send them a card each month, just to let them both
know we think of them still and send our love.  It has meant much to each spouse and even more
to us.  Another friend has suffered a terrible accident resulting in brain damage, she is under care for perhaps years before restoration of function. Often I send my own art on cards. One who no longer knows me is/was an incredible artist who constantly encouraged my work.  She no longer remembers who we are, no longer understands the wonderful art she once created.  I walked that path with her as she forgot her art bit by bit and she finally forgot me.

Perhaps my work now is to understand what my art can be for others as well as for myself.  As we show the house now, I am pleased that somehow my work speaks to those who enter our home. I also am writing more.  I have embarked upon a blog that chronicles my growing up in a very special place. It has been a tremendous boon to see how so many have responded to the blog, and that others who grew up there have shared their experiences letting me me know their thoughts.

                                                                  This is my Memoir Blog.

                                                           http://schoolstvillage.blogspot.com












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