July, 2009 | Writing For healing - Part 2

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

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I have been in my head on what I can do here on this blog.

Do I share my writing? Do I invite you to post your healing writing? Do I need photos?
Is this about writing? Is it about healing – how to heal?
Is there such a thing as an answer to “How to heal?” And I could keep going on asking myself, and you, questions and questions.

Do I ever answer them? Sometimes.
Are there always answers? Probably. Not always the ones we want to hear.

On the other hand, if we are open to writing, simply writing – free form , with no intention other than to write whatever comes out, then usually some answers appear, often totally unexpected.

Off and on for years, I have been following Julia Cameron’s recommendation for “Morning Pages”, which I first read about in THE ARTIST’S WAY: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity . It’s also one of the core practices covered in each of her subsequent books. For those unfamiliar with them, “Morning Pages” are three pages of free flow writing, longhand, first thing in the morning. I have gone through periods where I have done this faithfully, daily , and I know the practice frees up my day. I will admit there are mornings where e-mail first wins out AND I still manage to go back to my spiral notebook.

One of the “rules” is to not look at the pages for at least two weeks after writing them. I often keep a separate pad beside me to jot down the “to-do’s” that often surface during those 15 or 20 minutes. This morning I started writing in a fresh book and to my dismay I discovered I had inadvertently purchased the “college-ruled” rather than the “wide-ruled” pages. Heck, I may be a “good girl” and do my three pages of writing daily, but I don’t want to write more than I have to, plus those narrow spaces are confining.

Being one who usually finds a way to “bend the rules” and still be “right”, I decided I would simply count the number of lines in the wide ruled books and do perhaps one and a half spaces for each of my lines. Instead of simply counting spaces in each of the books, I realized I could simply go to a book already used up and count the handwritten lines…easier to do also.

Interestingly, the book I picked up from a pile sitting near by was one in which I had written two days after Sam died. A couple of scattered pages throughout that notebook also had some other “healing” writing…writing from prompts in my writing group. I was moved by what I read and reminded that I’ve been thinking about going back to older writings and putting them together.

Then I read about the NaBloPoMo – National Blog Posting Month – Challenge, which is writing every day in one’s blog. I decided to take it on. The 30 day count-down begins the day we start. It will be a great discipline for me and a practice in non-perfection.

I know I often go into long stories, then edit, wonder, “The point is?”, and continue on down the path of “presumed perfectionism”. The intent here will be to simply post daily (could be old writings) and know that from the practice conciseness will come. And, it will be OK if it doesn’t.

The blog in which to take on the challenge is this one. For “all writing is healing.”

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July 2009

Healing as Defined in Online Dictionaries – plus Haiku

Random thoughts on Writing for Healing and Daily NaBloPoMo Challenge