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CRT ART Seasons of Life: Enhanced Healing in Life Transitions through Four Cyclical Phases

Sunday, November 1, 2009: 11:00 AM-12:15 PM
Sunday, November 1, 2009: 2:45 PM-4:00 PM
Sunday, November 1, 2009: 4:15 PM-5:30 PM
Monday, November 2, 2009: 1:00 PM-2:00 PM
Monday, November 2, 2009: 2:00 PM-3:15 PM
Monday, November 2, 2009: 3:30 PM-4:45 PM
Tuesday, November 3, 2009: 10:15 AM-11:30 AM
Tuesday, November 3, 2009: 11:30 AM-1:15 PM
Tuesday, November 3, 2009: 1:15 PM-2:30 PM
Tuesday, November 3, 2009: 2:45 PM-4:00 PM

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Description/Overview: Nurses have long recognized the significance of process in our work and ourselves: processes of development, maturation, healing, and caring for patients who are themselves in process of illness or major life transition. We also recognize that healing processes require time. Yet it is not TIME that heals, but rather processes (requiring time) which engender most effective healing ... from the inside out. Life events that significantly threaten physical, psychological or spiritual well-being engender need for self-preservation and healing. Life processes fostering most effective healing occur in their own time and order. Overall they involve recognition, acceptance, openness to allow healing, and moving with/into the process itself. Contrasting with current popular culture, "I want it ALL ... and NOW!", effective healing requires process beyond superficial, immediate gratification. Life IS process: not one-directional but cyclical as with tides, ebb and flow, calm and storm. Process may move forward leading ultimately to self-actualization and generativity, or retreat leading to sinking, stagnation, despair. Abraham Maslow termed the highest state of well-being self- actualization, allowing focus on metaneeds especially meaningfulness. Characteristics include continued freshness of appreciation, appreciation of the mystical, peak experiences, acceptance of nature, others and oneself, and a focus on others outside oneself. As titled, the four paintings that comprise this presentation visually portray transitional phases or seasons in response to life-changing events: significant loss, major illness or surgery evoking the process of healing and potential self-actualization. (1) TRANSFORMATION (summer): process of grief, loss, change required before moving positively forward; butterflies emerging from chrysalis; painted after two years" active grieving, it brought realization of healing from the inside out. (2003) (2) CONTEMPLATION (fall): process of taking in, absorbing, allowing new "being", serenity, allowing old to drift away like falling leaves; experienced cyclically and pervasively, it took years to emerge visibly, underscoring its necessity for BEING and BECOMING. (2008) (3) TRANSCENDANCE (winter): rising above, free of vestiges of pain, regret, old leaves, ready to DANCE; I felt joy recaptured, acknowledging suffering preceding growth, but celebrating evolved BEING. (2006) (4) REBIRTH/REJUVENATION (spring): new soul growth, beyond and above, new meaning, youthful, fresh, childlike appreciation of nature, others, self, life: a granddaughter's face, it evoked a freshness for life and new beginnings. (2003) The paintings themselves emerged from within during "seasons" of my personal seven year healing process following significant threats to my health and life: loss of a loved one and heart failure followed by three heart surgeries. The process was not smooth, fully conscious, nor always in described order. Yet all phases were essential and occurred naturally. Each painting emerged from my internal process. Though each was conceived as a "painting", the meaning and symbolism were evident only when viewed on completion and reflection: when my process allowed me to SEE them. To share my paintings is to bare my soul. But the very processes revealed to me may evoke recognition and strength in other nurses for their own or patients' healing. They may also enhance our global efforts to seek meaning and commonalities to build a healthier world.
Learner Objective #1: The learner will be able to recognize and describe the cyclical nature and universality of four phases in the process of healing change in the context of connection with others through global commonalities.
Learner Objective #2: The learner will be able to experience the numinous personally and describe his/her feelings in response to visual art and its symbolic expression.
Presenter
Priscilla Mackenzie Kline, EdD, RN, Nursing, Clemson University, Clemson, SC
See more of: Creative Arts Submissions - Heart of Nursing
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