Chapter 5
The Next Level of Art as Healing
Over the years as an adult, I experienced physical challenges within my body that came to me as messengers. They included: breech positioning of both our children, hyperthyroidism, breast and kidney cancer, and a category II spinal misalignment that created pain and imbalance over my entire body. These challenges were giving me a message to reconnect with my true self and life purpose, see myself holistically, and unite my body, mind, emotions and spirit.
Health challenges were also opportunities for me to be self-directed in making choices about my health and healing, and confidently expressing them to healthcare professionals. Each time I was faced with a health challenge, I responded as positively as I could. I sought healing alternatives and used the least invasive measures available to me. For example, both of our children were in a breech position during the end of the third trimester of my pregnancies. When my obstetrician discovered in the last week of my first pregnancy that my son was in a breech position, she directed me to prepare for a c-section surgery. I chose to research other options and was able to get the support of our Bradley childbirth coach and family to try natural approaches. This resulted in both of our children changing their position and being born naturally.
Just before the new millennium, I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. My endocrinologist said that I would need to take radioactive iodine to basically destroy my thyroid and then take synthetic thyroid medications the rest of my life. This seemed like an extremely destructive treatment to me. When asked if there were any other options, I was told a medication being used in Europe was having some success. However, I was discouraged from trying it because it required careful weekly monitoring of my blood for negative side effects. Despite the resistance, I gave it a try and my thyroid was back to normal functioning in a year.
The most dramatic health challenge occurred in the new millennium when I moved with my family with excitement and hope to Southwest Florida to teach at Florida Gulf Coast University. Coming to Florida brought me pleasant memories of times with my grandma Ella. Little did I know that it would lead me further down the path toward my purpose as a healing artist. After being in Florida for eight months, I found myself confronted by the life threatening dis-ease of breast cancer. It was difficult having to face surgery, but I did not have the support of other healers or health methods at the time. The night after the surgery to remove the tumor, I heard a voice in a dream clearly say, “Press every good out of evil.” This was another dream that appeared strikingly real.
At this time I met a wonderful healing artist and retired oncologist, Dr. Wilma Bulkin-Siegel. She was working on her series of paintings of people who were recovering from breast cancer. Through her healing abilities as a physician-artist, Wilma gave me hope as a healing artist and became another one of my important art mentors. She gave me the gift of painting my portrait. I discovered that in order to be more connected with my life purpose, I first needed to be able to provide creative healing for myself.
Portrait of Susan by Dr. Wilma Bulkin-Siegel
The dis-ease of breast cancer gave me an opportunity to use my creativity as a part of my healing. It also confronted me again with having to address my fear of being alone in the darkness and silence. I started this process by doing a healing painting each time I laid alone in the dark radiation chamber. I closed my eyes and envisioned the radiation as a healing light. I created a small painting of the image seen during each treatment. On the opposite side of each one, I painted a series of transformation paintings of my family and objects that were meaningful to me. These paintings were woven together into one two-sided painting. The cancer that had been inside of me symbolized the cancer in the world that my loved ones had to face when people were not able to value them as people first. My painting became a metaphor for healing the cancer in the world and transforming it into something beautiful. I entitled it: Transforming Cancer: Press Every Good Out of Evil.
Transforming Cancer: Press Every Good out of Evil watercolor collage
I framed this painting suspended in a plexiglass box as I was taught by professor Lou Rizzolo in graduate college. I submitted it to the Westminster College exhibit Faith in the Arts – A Gallery Presentation by Alumni June 2002, to which I had been invited. Unfortunately it was pierced and damaged in transit, but the shipping insurance claim allowed me resources to continue creating healing art for many years. I was also given an opportunity to have it featured in the film “Art and Medicine in the Sunshine State” show 206 in The Art of the Living Gallery, a VeriaTV series produced by AMSPictures.com in 2008. These experiences made me realize that art can truly be a living creation of the artist that has its own life and way of reaching out into the world to touch others.
Continue to Chapter 6: Going within to Find a Deeper Level of Healing