What is Healing?

     “Before ALS, I could see my plans opening into limitless vistas, now I am cured of planning. ... In my fourth summer of ALS, I am healed by music and vulnerability.

     Healing comes in many guises. We’re healed by just the touch of a friend. We’re healed by the hug of a child.
     And healing does not imply that your life is suddenly going to lose all of the struggle, all of the challenge. What it does instead, is it strengthens us for what is next.
     But to be open to healing, means to be vulnerable. And I think if you look at me, I’m what you would call ‘a vulnerable adult’. The cat doesn’t even listen to me here. I have no real sense of control any more. 
     And so the choice could be to resent this, to be frustrated by it – and there are times when I am, I promise. But I think the greater choice, is the fact that once you embrace your vulnerability, you’re open to such beauty. And in the end, isn’t this one of the things that truly makes us human? The ability to make, to perceive, to live in beauty?
     For me, I’m a musician, I’ll always have the soul of a musician. And because of that, music heals me. If I'm finding myself anxious, or find myself in a space where I know I better get a hold of this, I find that listening to music is one of my best strategies. And so, music is a healing activity. But if you talk to Matthew Sanford, for him, visual art just opens up that same sense of healing. I know so many people who are artists in their own right. And they’re really not themselves until they’re in that artistic mode, either listening, perceiving, or actually making the art.
     I feel that I’m just lucky that I have that gift, because in many ways, it’s helped me to understand how to do this, and do it in the most humane way possible. And that is healing.”            Bruce Kramer

Bruce Kramer's EXCEPTIONAL interview by Krista Tippett      http://onbeing.org/program/feature/in-the-room-with-bruce-kramer/7424  


     "We tend to equate healing with curing, with fixing. There is no fixing for life. We're all headed to the same place. I'm just going faster.
      But there is healing that I have. If I can find myself in a space that I feel quiet and secure and loved, isn't that a healed space?"           Bruce Kramer

http://www.classicalmpr.org/story/2013/08/29/music-with-minnesotans-bruce-kramer 

      Completely letting go: http://www.johnlovas.com/2015/03/the-problem-of-evil-zen-perspective.html 

Bruce Kramer