art and healing | Sheila Collins

After The Fall

by Sheila Collins | Jun 1, 2015 | Health, Health and Wellness, Personal Stories, Story-telling, Uncategorized

It’s day 16 since my fall, the pattern interrupter that broke my shoulder (or more exactly, the humerous where it inserts into the shoulder) and changed every activity of my daily life. Luckily I’ve learned quickly how to sleep on my back in a stable, relatively...

Tis the Season

by Sheila Collins | Dec 17, 2014 | Environment, Grieving, Personal Stories

The view from my window this December morning, just after first light, announces a foggy grey day. Streetlights and car headlights from across the river are the only signs of life in the stark landscape. The lawn and shrubbery are the clear winners as a steady rain...

Embodied Connections

by Sheila Collins | Feb 9, 2014 | Health

Growing up as a dancer the body was, and still is, my first language. I often sense or “know” things before I can explain them to myself or anyone else. This has caused me some difficulties since I, like you, grew up in a culture where the top priority or measurement...

Excerpt from “Warrior Mother”

by Sheila Collins | May 28, 2013 | Book Excerpts, Grieving, Health and Wellness, Past Events, Personal Stories, Publications, Rituals, Writing

People would often say to me, “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be, children dying before their parents.” They said it when my thirty-one-year-old son, Kenneth, died of AIDS and again, seven years later, when my forty-two-year-old daughter, Corinne, died of breast...

The Path of a Warrior Mother

by Sheila Collins | Jan 29, 2013 | Art & Life, Book Excerpts, Personal Stories, Writing

In looking at images for the cover of my book, Warrior Mother, I discovered early on that pictures of a skinny woman, dressed in battle gear, brandishing a sword were totally irrelevant. I found in Native American folklore, references to the path of the spiritual...