Schedule for lectures, performance pieces, and workshops
Michael Samuels, M.D. Director, Art As A Healing Force.
I will use the web to post information on my upcoming events, so people can prepare for them, and know more about them. This will grow as I try it, and see if it works. Each ritual usually starts in prayer space, the Wednesday before, and finishes the Wednesday after. If it is to make art and healing one on earth, everyone can participate by praying or imaging, starting the Wednesday before. Instructions will be posted on a page for each event, I hope. I can be called at 415 868 0533 or E- mailed at msamuels@www.artashealing.org for more information.
Events
Michael Samuels, M.D.
"Demeter, Buddha and the Bears: The Ancient Roots of Contemporary Spiritual Healing" The Eleusian Mysteries, the story of Demeter and her daughter Persephone, was the most important art and healing ritual for consciousness transformation in history. It was enacted in ancient Greece for 2000 years. The Tibetan Buddha realms provide the technology of guided imagery and were the high point of body, mind, and spirit technology for thousands of years. The Bear Dance conducted currently in southern California has healed the Chumash people for thousands of years. These three rituals help us understand how we can heal patients with spiritual tools in present day medicine. Michael Samuels, M.D, is currently working with all three forms to develop a contemporary spiritual technology to aid in healing patients today. This lecture is about spiritual healing with patients. We talk about healing the whole patient, body, mind, spirit. How do we actually heal spirit? How does a physician, nurse, acupuncturist, massage therapist work with intention on the spiritual level with patients? As we move towards a futuristic medicine that will heal the whole patient- we will need to incorporate spiritual technologies such as art and healing, guided imagery and shamanism that can directly address spirit with intent. If spirit is not addressed, healing is incomplete and not as effective. |
Wisdom University Gainesville Intensive
October 15 -19 Gainesville Fl.
Art and Healing at San Francisco State University:
starts Sept. 2007
A course about healing art using our book Creative Healing, experiential and fun, how to, with guided imagery and information on all we talk about in this site.
Institute for Holistic Healing Studies
Deptartment of Health Education
San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132
Email:
ihhs@sfsu.edu Tel: 415.338.1210
Fax:
415.338.0573 IHHS
Office: HSS Building, Room 329
Art as Healing
Fall 2007, Instructor: Michael Samuels, M.D.
msamuels@michaelsamuels.com
Course Summary
This course will give students an overview of the entire field of art and
healing. It will describe the physiology and history of art and healing,
tell
how to use art, writing, music and dance to heal, give examples of programs
that use art to heal and give examples of artists healing themselves, others,
and the earth. It will emphasize how art and healing is part of holistic
healing and will speak about spirituality and art and healing. The course will
have guided imagery exercises and experiences throughout.
The course will involve the student deeply in the world of art and healing.
Students will do a project on art and healing and actually use art to heal
themselves, others or the earth. This will be one of the first courses on
art
and healing in the nation. It will prepare the student to become an
artist
healer. It will interest anyone who is an artist or healer or wants to
become
an artist healer. It is innovative and revolutionary. Art and healing is
different from art therapy and expressive arts in that is does not require a
license or special degree. It only requires that the person be
passionate, work from the heart, and love.
Grading
Your grades will be based on:
A journal about your involvement in art and healing
A paper about your favorite part of art and healing
A project on art and healing to heal yourself, others, or the
neighborhood/earth
Required book
Creative Healing, Michael Samuels, M.D., and Mary Rockwood Lane, Ph D.,
Harper
San Francisco, 1998.
And later, Spirit Body Healing, Michael Samuels and Mary Rockwood Lane, Wiley,
Oct 2000.
Twelve session outline syllabus:
Art As Healing will meet on three weekends in: September,
October, and November,
1. Saturday morning, Introduction: An overview of the field, The
Transformative power of art, How artists and musicians use art to heal
themselves, how art and music are used to heal people who are ill in hospitals
now, how art and music free our healing energies. The field of art and
healing
worldwide. How art and healing fit into holistic medicine.
2. Saturday afternoon, How art heals: Scientific research studies,
physiology,
the autonomic nervous system, the immune system, the mind body models of
healing, resonating the body, mind, and spirit, freeing healing energy,
changing attitude and giving hope, freeing the spirit to heal, healing the
earth. Guided imagery and art and healing.
3. Sunday morning, The history of art and healing: Art as a
transformational
force, how art and healing were one, the hunter gatherer, the shaman, how the
ancient peoples used art to heal, the ancient agricultural peoples, Christian
healing art and music, Buddhist healing art and music, our traditions of art as
effecting the world rediscovered.
4. Sunday afternoon, How people use art to heal: Painting, sculpture, music,
dance, poetry, storytelling, we are all artists. Making a studio, sacred
space
and time. An overview of how to use art to heal and how to teach art and
healing to others. Intention, the witness, release the inner critic.
5. Saturday morning, Painting and Sculpture and healing: Drawing images from
within, seeing the illness and its healing forces, how to use shapes and colors
to heal, mandalas for healing, fabric arts, healing quilts, murals, going to
art shows as healing, examples of art that heals, hanging art when you are ill.
6. Saturday afternoon, Music and healing: combining music with guided
imagery,
drumming, examples of healing music from around the world, going to concerts,
listening to music, using tapes when you are ill, playing music, singing,
chanting, toning.
7. Sunday morning, Dance and healing: Moving and healing, moving in bed,
dancing the spirits, going to dance performances, finding your own healing
dance.
8. Sunday afternoon, Poetry and storytelling as healing: Bringing out
our
healing stories, freeing our emotions, telling our story, finding our
healing
voice, going to theater as healing, writing poetry and Journaling as healing.
9. Saturday morning, How healers use art and music today: Hospital programs
in
art and music, art and music at the bedside, the artist in residence in medical
centers, performances in art and music for people who are ill, museums and
concerts as healing. How artists use art to heal themselves, the artist's
stories, artists healing themselves with art, music and dance. How
artists use art to heal others, artists healing other people.
12. Saturday afternoon, How artists use art to heal the earth. Artists
healing
their community, artists healing the earth. Neighborhood art, eco art,
universal spiritual art.
13. Sunday morning, The artist as a healer, a new figure in art and in
healthcare. The spiritual in art and healing. Transcendence. How
the spirit heals with art.
15. Sunday afternoon, Conclusion: Art and healing are one, the
creative
spiral, the future of art and healing, making yourself into a healing artist,
changing your life.
We will have guest teachers each session who are experts in their
fields. They
will demonstrate how they use art to heal. We will have an internship
opportunity at a hospital and/or neighborhood art project.
This is a new course taught for the first time. The opportunities are
immense, the outcome will be a surprise.
Learning objectives:
Students will learn:
Frame their own view of a patient's inner journey of healing
Experience the imagery of artists and patients as they heal
Understand the physiology and history of art and healing
Understand how art can be used with patients
Understand how an artist can use art to heal themselves, others and the earth
Understand how the creative process heals
Understand how they themselves can be a healing artist and heal
themselves,
others, and the earth.
Become art healers or healing artists
The field of art and healing
There is an exciting new movement being born today in healing and art.
Art and
healing are joining and becoming one. The healer is discovering that art,
music, dance and poetry have profound healing effects. Doctors, nurses, and
therapists are now working with artists and musicians to heal people of all
ages with many conditions including cancer and AIDS. Healers have
found that
art and music, combined with traditional medicine are powerful healing tools.
At the same time, artists and musicians have found that art and music heals
themselves and others around them. The artists and musicians who have
healed
themselves of illness are changing the art and music they perform to become
healing art..
Because of this merging of art and healing, hospitals all over the world are
incorporating music and art into patient care. The most sophisticated
university medical centers are now creating art in medicine programs which
invite artists and musicians to work with patients and literally change the
hospital environment. These programs have the artists and musicians go
into
the patient's room or perform in atrium spaces. The patients watch and
experience the exhilaration of a symphony or the beauty of an exhibition or
they paint, play music, or dance themselves with the artists. Art and
music
crack the sterile space of fear the patients live in and they open it to the
joys of the human spirit. The spirit freed then helps the body heal.
Replacing fear with hope is the essence of modern mind body medicine.
Programs at University of Florida, Gainesville, Duke at Durham, and
University
of California, San Francisco, all have incorporated sophisticated art programs
in the medical center for both their patients and their staff. The Art in
Medicine program at University of Florida, Gainesville, now has three artists
in residence, a poet, a painter and a dancer. These artists and over
twenty
others, enter the rooms of patients with cancer and other illnesses every day
and make art with them. The artists play music, dance, draw and
sculpt. They
write poetry, tell stories and even dress as clowns. Patients watch, tell
the
artist what they want them to do, or make art along side of the artist.
Performances of music, dance, poetry, or theater, are put on in the hospital
lobby . Patients are brought from their rooms, families and staff stop as
they
go to lunch, the music drifts through the sterile corridors and draws more
people towards its transformational power. Patients and staff alike leave
relaxed and uplifted, they are changed and healed. Patients at University
of
Florida who are visited by the Art in Medicine artists say their whole
experience of being ill is changed. They are more hopeful, happier, feel
better and have less pain. This process takes place whether the patients
or
their families watch the artists or make art themselves. Even if they
watch,
they still are an audience who participates with their heart. If they are
too
sick to paint they can see themselves being painted or can tell the artist what
to draw, a favorite scene, an animal, their child. There are studies in
progress now about whether patients will heal faster or live longer. It
has
been shown that patients who feel better about themselves and are more hopeful
live linger with cancer. Art and music certainly put a person in a state
of
joy and hope.
Likewise healing art heals the artist and art. The new movement of
healing art
is producing art and music in all mediums that is spiritually uplifting
for
the artist and the audience. Sculpture, painting, music, dance, poetry
and
theater all now have healing art in their midst. Until healing art, art
had
lost its meaning for the both the artist and the culture. Art hung on the
walls to decorate or increase in value. Going to museums or galleries was
confusing and often meaningless for the viewer. Art and healing bring art
back
to having a purpose and gives artists a reason to be and a role in
society
that is meaningful. Art and healing make the art have value to people's
lives
again. The art of Christine Corbat is deeply moving to her and her
patients.
Hollis Sigler is a breast cancer survivor who was a well known painter before
she became ill. She was a leader in the feminist art movement, painting
domestic scenes about her own life as a woman. After her diagnosis she
painted
a series of paintings that chronicles her inner life with breast cancer. Her
work expressed her thoughts about her illness and her anger at the way society
views woman with breast cancer. Her paintings evoke a sense of
vulnerability,
isolation, and sometimes waning hope. The exhibition of her works has
toured
hospitals nationwide and has been shown at the United States Congress. It
has
been moving and Transformative to women with or without cancer. Woman
with
breast cancer realize that they are not alone in having deep images of their
illness.
Brief Biography- Dr. Michael Samuels
Michael Samuels, M.D. is the founder and director of Art As A Healing Force,
a
project started in 1990 devoted to making art and healing one. He
lectures
nationwide to physicians, nurses, artists, and patients on how to use art in
healing. He has organized many nationwide conferences on art and healing
and
visits and participates in projects in hospitals where art and music are used
with patients. He is the author of fifteen books including the best
selling
Well Body Book, Well Baby Book, Well Pregnancy Book, and Seeing With the Mind's
Eye. He is the author with Mary Rockwood Lane of Creative Healing, How
anyone
can use art, writing, music, and dance to heal body and soul. Currently
he has
a private practice that uses art and guided imagery with cancer patients and
people with life threatening illness.
Brief resume
Michael Samuels, M.D.
Star Route
Bolinas, Ca.
94924
415 868 0533
415 279 2990
Florida 904 497 1722
352 318 2662
msamuels@path.net
www.artashealing.org
www.pathofthefeather.com
Born New York City, 1942
Brown University, 1960-1963
New York University College of Medicine, M.D., 1967
Research immunogenetics, New York University, 1964-1967
Residency, Pacific Presbyterian Medical Center San Francisco, 1967-1968
United States Public Health Service, Hopi Indian Reservation, 1968-1969
Marin County, California, Department of Public Health, Physician, 1969-1975
Co-founder, co-director, Physician, Headlands Clinic, Bolinas, California,
1970-1975
Author, 1972-1999
Workshop leader and teacher, guided imagery for patients with life threatening
illnesses, 1985-1999
Private practice and consultation in guided imagery for patients with
life-threatening illnesses, 1975-1999
Advisory boards of Commonweal, Tamalpa institute, Alpha institute
Co-Founder and Director, Art as a Healing Force Program, 1990-1999
Performance artist doing ritual to heal the earth and make art and healing one.
1993-1999
Books
The Well Body Book
Be Well
Spirit Guides
The Well Baby Book
The Well Child Book
The Well Child Coloring Book
The Well Pregnancy Book
Well Body, Well Earth
The Well Adult
Take Charge Of Your Arthritis
Take Charge of Your Hypertension
Take Charge of your Heart Disease
Seeing with the Mind's Eye
Healing with the Mind's Eye
Creative Healing, how anyone can use art, writing, music, and dance to heal
body and soul.
The Path of the Feather , Putnam, Oct, 2000
Spirit Body Healing : How art heals with your spirit, Wiley Oct, 2000
HH 677 Arts and Healing