Blog

I just read John Smith's blog on living with cancer entitled "Back to the Future." As with most poetics written by cancer patients or patients challenged with disease, this one is about life and love, compassion and a granddaughter "marching confidently into the...

What does it mean to listen with all of your senses, every fiber of your being, every molecule that ensures seeing the person before you? It means giving over to Greater Hands that guide you. You surrender your Ego and listen from deep within. Enlightened listening is...

So what is awe? Researchers at UC Berkeley tell us that "awe happens when you encounter something so vast that you don't feel like you can wrap your mind around it completely." Awe involves the magic of life, like birth, or something in nature so beautiful you can't...

Every Day Is A Gift “I didn’t expect to recover from my second operation but since I did, I consider that I’m living on borrowed time. Every day that dawns is a gift to me and I take it in that way. I accept it gratefully without looking beyond it. I completely forget...

I just came across a wonderful article entitled Creativity and Spirituality in Nursing: Implementing Art in Healing by Mary Rockwood Lane, PhD, RN, published in Holistic Nursing Practice journal. Studies show that creativity and spirituality can heal by changing a...

I recently attended a conference at The Chopra Center. While Deepak enlightened us about Super Genes and Healing Beyond Biology, others taught primordial sound meditation and the basics of Ayurvedic healing. Because I use meditation and guided imagery in my Create to...

As I welcomed patients into last night's Create to Heal class, music was playing. "You are listening to one of the great oratorios," I told them. "Handel's Messiah." "Whenever I am tired or overwhelmed, feeling off" I continued, "I listen to "Hallelujah" from The...

The younger the wiser? A 16-year old in my Create to Heal class picked a word for our first creative writing exercise of the morning: conformity. "Conformity is needed to be comfortable with yourself so you can connect the space between the person and people you...

I started Create to Heal many years ago working with domestic violence survivors and women in crisis, and now also work with cancer patients, their families and their healthcare teams. Essentially anyone touched by cancer. I find that the creative writing process and...

I am continually surprised and delighted by the articles and "press" on art and creativity and the positive influences on the healing process. Huffington Post's Arts reporter Priscilla Frank recently wrote about her own experience with disease: her father's brain...