Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

Novels:

• Nicholas Evans, The Horse Whisperer (Delacorte, 1995), about a man's gift for healing others.
• Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011): a children’s book about “an eighth grader’s healing and discovery through art.”
• Kaui Hart Hemmings, The Possibilities: A Novel (Simon & Schuster, 2014): “ . . . a novel about learning to move forward, even while haunted by such dark thoughts.”
• Erika T. Wurth, White Horse: A Novel (Flatiron Books, 2022): “Kari’s mother abandoned her as a newborn, a foundational wound that Kari does not want to reopen.”
• Laura Zigman, Small World: A Novel (Ecco, 2023), “is a graceful swan dive into the question of how a family rearranges itself after the death of a child.”
• Chetna Maroo, Western Lane: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2023): after her mother’s death, a girl finds refuge playing squash.

From the dark side:

• Joan Didion, Play It As It Lays: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux,1970), about emotional wounds.

Poetry

Books of poems:

• Dana Levin, Now Do You Know Where You Are: Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2022), is “the diary of a poet’s painful passage from not writing to writing again. Levin freely shares the self-doubts, false starts and dead ends of her return to poetry in this unguarded literary experiment.”

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Robert Schumann, Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Op. 61 (1846) (approx. 35-40’), “began to take shape at the end of 1845, shortly after his recovery from a nervous breakdown. His comment then to Felix Mendelssohn, ‘drums and trumpets have been sound- ing in my mind for some time now,’ might strike us as a wry reflection on his dis- turbed mental condition, replete with aural fantasies, of the year preceding.” “The narrative of the C major Symphony is that of the journey from despair to healing and redemption”. In this work, “Schumann reinvented his own compositional language and created an alternative way of thinking about the symphony – despite the onset of the syphilis that was eventually to kill him”. Top recorded performances are conducted by Toscanini in 1941, Bernstein in 1960, Szell in 1969, Karajan in 1971, Sawallisch in 1972, Kubelik in 1978, Gardiner in 1998, Gielen in 2010, Holliger in 2012, Abbado in 2013, and Thielemann in 2018.

Perhaps Tibetan chant offers the music most overtly focused on healing:

• Chant of healing mantra (121’)
• Tayata Om mantra (65’), for healing all sufferings

Many pastoral-toned short works by British music suggest a return home to England’s soothing and verdant landscape.

• Ralph Vaughan Williams, Fantasia on Greensleeves (1934) (approx. 4’)
• Vaughan Williams, English Folk Song Suite (1913) (approx. 10’)
• Edward Elgar, Serenade in E minor for Strings, Op. 20 (1892) (approx. 13’)
• George Butterworth, The Banks of Green Willow (1913) (approx. 7’)
• Peter Warlock, Capriol Suite (1927) (approx. 11’) “is set of six contrasting dances in a renaissance style.”
• Frederick Delius, The Walk to the Paradise Garden (from “A Village Romeo and Juliet”) (1906) (approx. 10-11’)
• Ernest John Moeran, Piano Trio in D Major (1920) (approx. 26’)

Charles Koechlin, chamber works:

• Lajos Lencsés, “Chamber Works for Oboe” album (1999) (56’)
• Sonatine für Oboe d’amore mit Begleitung von Flöte, Klarinette, Harfe und Streichsextett, Op. 194 (1943) (approx. 21’)
• Sonate für Oboe und Klavier, Op. 58 (1916) (approx. 26’)

Other compositions:

• Jonathan Leshnoff, Of Thee I Sing (2020) (approx. 22’) is a commissioned work via the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, in response to the terrorist bombing in 1998. The composer says: “The idea would be a 20-25 min piece for orchestra and chorus that transcends the atrocity and focuses on all the good that came out of it in the last 25 years. A city growing together. But also transcending death. To the point where in this bizarre world music actually unifies and makes the listener step out of the crazy into a spiritual sphere. Where the spiritual becomes reality and the other just a dream.” OPC’s music director said, we “didn't want a requiem. ... My thing was that there was something that had to be healing about it . . .”

Albums:

• Steven Halpern, “Music for Sound Healing” (1999) (69’) and “Music for Sound Healing 2.0” (2017) (79’)
• Steven Halpern, “Crystal Bowl Healing” (2003) (75’) and “Crystal Bowl Healing 2.0” (2018) (80’)
• Steven Halpern, “Self-Healing” (1975) (62’) and “Self-Healing, Vol. 2” (1982) (75’)
• Bonnie Rideout, “Celtic Circles” (1993) (57’)
• Nawang Khechog, “Music as Medicine” (2005) (69’)
• Klaus Wiese, “The Healing Touch of Tambura I” (1991) (59’)
• Ruthie Foster, “Healing Time” (2022) (47’): “It leaves you feeling that everything’s alright, which is what Healing Time is all about.”
• Matthew Bourne, “This Is Not for You” (2024) (38’) is an album of introspective solo piano pieces.

Music: songs and other short pieces

• Sara Evans, “A Little Bit Stronger” (lyrics)
• Nawang Khechog, “Healing Through Kindness”
• Nawang Khechog, “Music as Medicine”
• R.E.M., “Everybody Hurts” (lyrics)

Visual Arts

• Jackson Pollock, Number 1: Lavender Mist (1950)

Film and Stage

• The Horse Whisperer
• I’ve Loved You So Long, on the healing power of Love and understanding
• Silver Linings Playbook: sometimes healing is about making the day about someone besides myself.
• The Science of Healing
• Goodbye, Mr. Chips, about a teacher looking back on his life and service
• Limbo: spiritually, this film is about healing, though the story takes another turn throughout the final extended segment, just as the characters are healing themselves and each other through love.