Assignment: Dimensions Of Wellness

Beauty in its largest and most profound sense is one expression of the universe” (Emerson 1982: 48). In this sense, then, art transforms us and helps us to see our everyday world differently, in that arts move us into a space where we can create visions of other ways of Being/ doing/ knowing and ask what it might signify to realize them (Greene 1991). It is this engagement in art and a sense of beauty that gives rise to wonder, to questioning, and to pondering our Being. The art and science of caring- healing is emerging in mainstream medicine and nursing, as the public has a hunger for the intersection among art, science, beauty, and spiritual dimensions of the healing arts and health and also has a greater sense of self- knowledge, self- control, and well- being. As Kandinsky (1977) understood it, “the spiritual resides in art” (just as Emerson viewed nature as spirit); perhaps they are one and the same, tapping into the human spirit of humanity and the universal source of infinity in which we dwell. In any event, in nursing and caring- healing work, we draw upon healing arts in a more expanded way that integrates science, art, beauty, and spirituality. These are manifest in unlimited potential for areas such as visual arts, music, sound, aroma, dance, movement, theater, drama, storytelling, design, psycho- architecture/ sacred healing architecture, and a variety of tactile- touch and noncontact, energetic modalities. Diverse categories of healing arts are emerging. At least four types have been identified: Art intended to directly heal, using symbols, images that calm and center. Art created by artists to facilitate their own healing; for example, autobiographical art, representational art depicting incidences of treatment, illness, change. Art about specific aspects of the healing process— pain, loss, body image changes, loss, grief, death, as well as hope, change, joy, insights, and so forth. Artist- designed psycho- architecture; healing spaces/ healing architecture— this art/ architecture makes a conscious, intentional, even a technical, precise scientific effort to integrate symbol, myth, archetype, mystery, and legend into architectural and environmental themes. Such art can be considered “ontological design,” an integration of sacred geometry into architectural structures so humans can “be” and feel differently as a way of experiencing self- in- harmony, with the sacred universal field of life’s energy for healing, wholeness, alignment, and so on. (Lafo, Capasso, and Roberts 1994: 9) Caring Science seeks to combine science with the humanities and arts. Caring Science is not neutral with respect to human values, goals, subjective individual perceptions, and meanin