"Dedicated to my mother, the Great Goddess." Life, unpredictable, yields return for sacrifices made. Departing from the conventional path, I surrendered much to existence. Pain, a constant companion, birthed verse—each line a product of anguish turned art. In the ebb and flow of life's challenges, I found solace in writing. What emerged were rhythmic verses, transforming suffering into poetry. Some reflect, others introspect; some offer insight, and others observe. Regardless, each verse is a product of life's trials and emotions. Surprisingly, these verses multiplied over the years. Today, I share them not for accolades, but to be heard amidst the chaos. Some stories must be told, some silences shattered. I offer my rhymes openly, a reflection, a token of my journey. ~Envy Vyazz

While the first healers were musicians who relied on rhythm and song to help cure the sick, over time Western thinkers and doctors lost touch with these traditions. In the West, for almost two millennia, the roles of the healer and the musician have been strictly separated. Until recently, that is. Over the past few decades there has been a resurgence of interest in healing music. In the midst of this nascent revival, Ted Gioia, a musician, composer, and widely praised author, offers the first detailed exploration of the uses of music for curative purposes from ancient times to the present. Gioia’s inquiry into the restorative powers of sound moves effortlessly from the history of shamanism to the role of Orpheus as a mythical figure linking Eastern and Western ideas about therapeutic music, and from Native American healing ceremonies to what clinical studies can reveal about the efficacy of contemporary methods of sonic healing. Gioia considers a broad range of therapies, providing a thoughtful, impartial guide to their histories and claims, their successes and failures. He examines a host of New Age practices, including toning, Cymatics, drumming circles, and the Tomatis method. And he explores how the medical establishment has begun to recognize and incorporate the therapeutic power of song. Acknowledging that the drumming circle will not—and should not—replace the emergency room, nor the shaman the cardiologist, Gioia suggests that the most promising path is one in which both the latest medical science and music—with its capacity to transform attitudes and bring people together—are brought to bear on the multifaceted healing process. In Healing Songs, as in its companion volume Work Songs, Gioia moves beyond studies of music centered on specific performers, time periods, or genres to illuminate how music enters into and transforms the experiences of everyday life.

The best-selling English translation of the mysterious and cosmic Greek poetry known as the Orphic Hymns. At the very beginnings of the Archaic Age, the great singer Orpheus taught a new religion that centered around the immortality of the human soul and its journey after death. He felt that achieving purity by avoiding meat and refraining from committing harm further promoted the pursuit of a peaceful life. Elements of the worship of Dionysus, such as shape-shifting and ritualistic ecstasy, were fused with Orphic beliefs to produce a powerful and illuminating new religion that found expression in the mystery cults. Practitioners of this new religion composed a great body of poetry, much of which is translated in The Orphic Hymns. The hymns presented in this book were anonymously composed somewhere in Asia Minor, most likely in the middle of the third century AD. At this turbulent time, the Hellenic past was fighting for its survival, while the new Christian faith was spreading everywhere. The Orphic Hymns thus reflect a pious spirituality in the form of traditional literary conventions. The hymns themselves are devoted to specific divinities as well as to cosmic elements. Prefaced with offerings, strings of epithets invoke the various attributes of the divinity and prayers ask for peace and health to the initiate. Apostolos N. Athanassakis and Benjamin M. Wolkow have produced an accurate and elegant translation accompanied by rich commentary.

A daily hymnal, featuring nearly 400 hymns and readings for every day of the year (special days have more than one), including 69 metrical psalms and 7 spirituals. Embark on a journey through the traditional Christian year, entering by way of Advent, visiting major and minor landmarks along the way, culminating in a celebration of Christ the King. On your journey, feast on the riches of hymnody, new and old, locally and globally, following the narrative pathways of the gospel story as outlined in the Revised Common Lectionary. Find nourishment in reflective commentary by living hymn writers, classic hymn writers, and master scholars. Discover more about the hymns and psalm paraphrases by observing their sources, and learn more about the church year through guiding essays.

Poet John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) proved a significant contributor to American Protestant hymnody--since 1843, more than 2,100 hymnals published in the United States have included adaptations of his works--despite the fact that Whittier never considered himself a hymnist. This book compares and contrasts Whittier's original published texts with versions adapted as hymns, exhibiting the hymnodic elements of his poetry and displaying the textual changes to Whittier's lines by hymnal editors from a variety of denominations. The work offers in-depth comparative studies of many of his poems and their resultant hymns, a catalogue of hymns-from-poems, a chronology of Whittier's life and works, notes, bibliography and index.

Heal yourself and your community with this proven 12-week program that uses the arts to awaken your innate healing abilities. From musicians in hospitals to quilts on the National Mall—art is already healing people all over the world. It is helping veterans recover, improving the quality of life for cancer patients, and bringing communities together to improve their neighborhoods. Now it’s your turn. Through art projects, including visual arts, dance, writing, and music, along with spiritual practices and guided imagery, Healing with the Arts gives you the tools to address what you need to heal in your life—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. An acclaimed twelve-week program lauded by hospitals and caretakers from around the world, Healing with the Arts gives you the ability to heal your family and your friends, as well as communities where you’ve always wanted to make a difference. Internationally known leaders in the arts in medicine movement, Michael Samuels, MD, and Mary Rockwood Lane, RN, PhD, show you how to use creativity and self-expression to pave the artist’s path to healing.