The Artist is the Voice of the Healer Within

from Natural Awakenings - May 2020

by Natural Awakenings - Alachua, Citrus, Marion, Sumter Co & The Villages, Florida

PIES WITH PURPOSE

by Martin Miron

Mary Rockwood Lane, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, co-founder and director emeritus of the nationally recognized Shands Arts in Medicine program at the University of Florida (UF), headed the program for more than 15 years and is now an associate professor of nursing at UF, teaching Creativity and Spirituality in Healthcare. She lectures and teaches workshops around the world, and has been involved in setting up art and healing programs in Florida and around the country. She received a bachelor's degree from UF, a master's degree from Boston College, and a Ph.D. from the UF.

Lane is the co-author of professional publications and several books, including Creative Healing, Spirit Body Healing and Path of the Feather. Shaman Wisdom-Shaman Healing was a finalist in the health/healing category in the prestigious Nautilus Awards. She also founded and directed the art and healing masters program at Wisdom University with Michael Samuels, M.D. She participated in founding the Center for Spirituality and Health at UF.

At a time when art was not integrated into health care, she was inspired by her own experience of healing herself with art to launch the Shands Arts in Medicine program, which incorporates art, music, poetry, theater and dance into clinical care on 15 hospital units. Lane developed an end-of-life curriculum that fully integrates spirituality and creativity, to be taught at all UF health science colleges. Lane and Samuels have taught art and healing courses at undergraduate and graduate level for many years and watched their students undergo major life transformations as they healed themselves from sexual abuse, unresolved grieving and illnesses.

Her newest course is delivered as a free, online six-week program on Coursera. She says, “This is a new concept in education. By making art, a caring, loving community is formed and students can share and heal deeply personal and deeply important things that may have never been addressed in their lives. It is such a new experience; online education without judgment, in a loving, caring, sacred space. It is a new kind of university online distance education, using art (visual arts, music, dance and word) to heal yourself, others, community and the Earth.” It uses teachings, guided imagery exercises and art projects to help heal whatever needs to be healed.

“Everyone can use this program: to heal yourself, create your own art community groups, work with an artist-healer in a program or as part of art therapy with a trained art therapist”, advises Lane. “If you already consider yourself an artist or healer, we’ll show you how to go deeper into your creativity or healing with personal introspection on emotional, intellectual and spiritual levels with a mind to show you how the two worlds are naturally linked and how the artist can be the voice and hands of the healer within.”

Lane is a Feminine Power life coach and facilitator . Her desire and passion is to honor the healing power of creativity to create self-activation and personal transformation. Her newest course meets an urgent need to discover of the inner rich and beautiful resources within. Every summer she leads Artemis Sacred Journeys annual retreat to the Greek islands to honor the divine feminine and return to the ancient temples.