Following up on yesterday and my sharing of how writing Haiku has been healing for me, I offer you an example of writing when sleep wouldn’t come.  According to my notes, it was 5:30 AM, not a normal wake-up time for me. Evidently I decided to do my Morning Pages and be complete with them:

And in the middle of crying, scribbling wildly across pages of a new notebook, I remembered my reminders on “Haiku for Healing”, so I took my advice…

Try some Haiku now
Instant gratification
Seven syllables

All I have to do
Three lines, so simple, then done
Quiet now I am

It’s hard to believe
Simple syllable counting
Quiets my being

Crying, depression
Tearing through the pages
Then Haiku counting

Nine lines, calm set in
Is that all there is to peace
Counting simple sets?
_____

Storming all over
Words and thoughts flying about
Writhing in my bed

Life has no purpose
At this point in time
Empty, void of love

Where is the passion
Who are the recipients
In unknown blackness

Empty words they are
No one’s there to receive them
Feeling all washed out…

Put pen down, sleep came
Woke up full of energy
Lots of new ideas

©2008 Sheila Finkelstein

Hours after writing, I concluded:

Haiku wipes the tears
Middle of the night sadness
Lonely, guilty, write

Yesterday I concluded here with “all writing is healing.” Today in my Morning Pages writing (also referenced yesterday – 7/19), this statement surfaced and the thought to check the dictionary kicked in. It seemed like a good idea, a foundation for this blog, so I did. I found:

1. To restore to health or soundness; cure. See Synonyms at cure.
2. To set right; repair: healed the rift between us.
3. To restore (a person) to spiritual wholeness.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/healing (See Below for more definitions.)

“Cure”, “return to wholeness”, “restore”, “repair”, all words that are included in the above. All imply something is/was wrong prior to the healing process. And that’s what it is, a “process.”

In November 2005, I wrote: “Haiku When Fatigued”:

Scattered all over
Pieces of my heart shattered
Love’s disappointment

When I write for healing, in my Morning Pages and/or from prompts in my writers’ group, the words simply come. Without a specific set intention, they flow from within. The “Haiku When Fatigued” was written two years before Sam died. The “love’s disappointment” I’m sure was referring to my expectations that our lives would have healthily gone on intertwined forever, or until one of us peacefully passed in his or her sleep at a much older age… in the nineties at least. (Sam was 75 and he was blessed with basically good health during most of those years.)

We never expected anything like Parkinson’s Disease. Fortunately for both of us Sam, gentle, accepting man that he was, was able to be with it throughout his 10+ years of affliction and accept what was happening.

I wasn’t so accepting. Anger would set in and so I wrote and counted syllables to gain control:

My days are stress-filled
Insidious I call it
Parkinson’s Disease

Smart, bright, humor-filled
“Sam’s the Man” they all do say
Gentle, loving, kind.

Tapping into Sam
The part that’s rich and funny
My sweet loving man

Gentle smile face aglow
Humor sparkles in his eyes
Often disappears
©11/05 Sheila Finkelstein

In October of 2008, almost a year after his death, I set up a web page with memories of those smiles and stories he wrote with photos of our sons as toddlers. See SAM SMILES. This was another creative form of healing for me.

So, I’m back to where I started today and leaving with other questions… “Restoring” to what? I like the sound of “spiritual wholeness”. And what would that look like? Also, is it a “restoration” or a new “creation?
________________________

MORE DEFINITIONS of “HEALING”:
Tending to cure; soothing; mollifying; as, the healing art; a healing salve; healing words.
http://www.answers.com/topic/healing-2

heal⋅ing  [hee-ling]
–adjective
1. curing or curative; prescribed or helping to heal.
2. growing sound; getting well; mending.
–noun
3. the act or process of regaining health: a new drug to accelerate healing.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/healing

healing,

n 1. the process of recovery, repair, and restoration.
2. return to wholeness.

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/healing

and medically defined from the same site

healing /heal·ing/ (hēl´ing) a process of cure; the restoration of integrity to injured tissue.

healing by first intention that in which union or restoration of continuity occurs directly without intervention of granulations.
healing by second intention union by closure of a wound with granulations.
spiritual healing the use of spiritual practices, such as prayer, for the purpose of effecting a cure of or an improvement in an illness.
healing by third intention treatment of a grossly contaminated wound by delaying closure until after contamination has been markedly reduced and inflammation has subsided.
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/healing