Exhibits › Healing Through Art
By historical standards, most Americans nowadays experience unparalleled material wealth. This includes access to ample food, safe tap water, sanitary indoor plumbing, heating and air conditioning, a modicum of modern medical and dental care, opportunities for entertainment and travel, a car, a personal computer, antibiotics, antihistamines, aspirin, and other readily available over-the-counter anodynes.
Yet Americans spend over $11 billion dollars on doctor-prescribed antidepressants and an additional $4 billion or more on anti-anxiety drugs. If one adds in annual alcohol and sales in illegal drug purchases, this totals at least $165 billion dollars spent on trying to feel a little better about life and one’s situation.
Unfortunately, liquor acts as a depressant on the brain and nervous system, and most “happy pills” mitigate all deep feelings—like love and sexual desire.
The well-respected Consumers Report organization notes that:
“1 in 5 adults—about 50 million Americans—reported hurting every day or almost every day in the previous six months. Nearly 20 million reported pain so severe it limited their ability to work, socialize, and even take care of themselves and their family.”
The real inconvenient truth is that there is an inherent and unavoidable sadness to the human condition. Everyone we love and everything we cherish perishes in a relatively short period of time. Including ourselves.
Consumer culture has tried with great vigor and ingenuity to distract us from this stark reality with various transient pleasures, potions, and a plethora of psychotherapies—all claiming to have “the answer” to what ails you.
When Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 BC, the Jews were dragged off to slavery in Babylon. The most profound communal response to this tragedy was the creation of the Book of Lamentations. It is the text that still is held as sacred by both religious Jews and Christians. Even as a modern secular Jew, these ancient words resonate with me.
Other related texts in the Old Testament, like the Psalms and the books of Job and Ecclesiastes, can also console our spirits in these increasingly precarious and bewildering times. One does not need to believe in an all-powerful deity to be moved by religiously inspired poetry and symbolism.
Like virtually all people who have managed to live into their 60s, I have known my share of grief. My response to these difficult moments has always been art.
The words of the philosopher John Armstrong seem especially apt: “Art reminds us of the legitimate place of sorrow in a good life, so that we recognize our difficulties as elements of any noble existence…To say that art is therapeutic is not to suggest that it shares therapy’s methods but rather its underlying ambition: to help us to cope better with existence.”
I hope that the following poems and mixed media drawings catch your eye, stimulate your ear, and touch your heart.
Poetry
Poetry read by Mimi Rice, veteran Tampa Bay actress and radio theater producer.
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Deep in the belly Each breath fingers an The sun is playing The world was torn up Each of our stories Words don’t get lonely I am not enlightened— I am not a lyricist whose rhymes I am not a label or brand name— Fear murmurs in my left ear— A still small voice mumbles something The magic is that there is no magic:
The magic is that there is no magic: The magic is there is no magic. The magic is that there is no magic… My friend’s pain is mine I’m cheerful when well Awake or asleep On a fool’s errand Happy thoughts are no Not walking toward you A small sharp pebble Ambulance siren Even if I came from nothing Count 1,2,3,4… Laconic faces There are optimists Without a trace our |
More Poetry
Aging Haiku & Aging Free Verse
Prints
More Prints
View the permanent art installation at the Maine Medical Center, showcasing six prints that feature Maine’s rugged coast, tranquil farmlands, and deeply forested mountain ranges.
View the Exhibit
Lamentations and Beyond:
Healing Through Art
View spreads in PDF format.