As I previously shared, my work with surveying nurses nationally over a 15-year period yielded many unexpected revelations and blessings to me. Simply stated, as a group they together opened my awareness to the potential for healing within many holistic and alternative therapies. Nurses did not present these alternatives as competing with modern medicine but served as an important compliment to standard protocols. While there is no singular official viewpoint from the nursing profession on these subjects, there does exist a growing conviction from great numbers of nurses testifying to the benefits of utilizing supportive and alternative therapies.
I might better summarize this topic by sharing a perspective that nurses are helping lead the way to wellness, by continuing to work beyond treating illness with increasingly pre-emptive actions directed at the interrelated root causes of illness. These poems emit from an intimate appreciation of the inspirational lives of nurses in delivering an increasingly comprehensive mission to humanity. In addition, my own experience in seeking nurse’s practical advice included their invaluable assistance to me and my family which also led me to many alternative health practitioners for my ongoing healing.
Where to start, who’s to say or know,
Saving lives, CPR for the heart and soul.
Treating illness, with many interventions,
A segue into the world of preventions.
Beyond present protocols, are new inventions,
Delving deeper into healing intentions.
From resuscitations, and Intubations,
To managing a patient’s pain cessation,
Internally resulting in soothing sensations,
Eternally touched beyond documentation.
Management of all this and so much of that,
Beyond comprehension and job descriptions,
Be it surgical, or pharmacological prescriptions,
It results in treating innumerable afflictions.
Applying new technology, and medication,
With each renewing breath is life’s restoration,
Even overwhelming odds, knows death is not failing,
As all outcomes yield an emotional exhaling.
Adding intuition into the medicinal fix,
A nurses ingredients blend a therapeutic mix.
Not only intuitive, nursing is also creative,
Increasingly this quality is substantiated,
Being both quantified and more qualitative.
Fusing science and soul, an inevitable linking,
Combining Logic and Love, with critical thinking.
In spreading salves, inside hospital doors,
Or sewing open wounds, closing topical sores,
Treating outside, and under the skins surface,
Beyond any limiting boundaries they face.
Humanity hurts outside clinic doors,
Beyond the spaces upon hospitals floors.
Adding to the treatment of many an illness,
Elevating discussions into the heights of wellness,
Nurses rise above any present occasion,
By grounding families with a healthy education.
Who can capture this mystical mission,
For the practical scope of its caring vision,
Is simply too comprehensive to document,
To voice any singular uniform statement.
A growing awareness of metaphysical forces,
Of auras, and chakras, and unseen resources,
From psychic, to tantric, and energy fields,
A knowing sense to use these protective shields.
While not yet quantified by physical science,
With qualified research by bona fide scientists.
Yet humanity climbs toward knowledge’s tallest peak,
Science scales the west side, metaphysicians the east.
Up through low lying clouds, and then past the tree line,
Into the cool crisp air, revelations from the sun shine.
Where science and spirituality ultimately converge,
At a point where creation and big bangs merge.
Approving all life, upon our planets paradox,
Proving we are all one, and our universe rocks!
Be it the 3rd rock, or another distant galaxy,
The energy of life, enlightens our living mystery.
No need for sides struggling, of right or left,
Categorically right or wrong, leaves all bereft.
Journeying up life’s mountain, be calm and content,
Knowing at the top, will be mutual enlightenment.
So what is a nurse, what of her speech,
As her silent actions inaudibly reach,
Healing through many modalities, curing much,
Born of science and spirit, a healing touch!
So nurses have taught me about their practice in essence,
Perhaps best expressed as the art of healing presence.
