Healing

Healing is the act of repairing or mending, be it tangible or intangible, visible or invisible, over a period of time, whether so lengthy as to be imperceptibly slow or so brief as to appear instantaneous. Time is a key ingredient in any healing, as this process does not in fact occur instantaneously. Rather, in many cases one needs patience to wait for time to pass before the healing reaches its completion or even until the healing had progressed sufficiently to be observed. There is rarely a set time for healing to be completed; rather, one knows when the healing is completed only by the lack of further change taking place.

Healing, whether physical or emotional, is a change; change cannot occur without the passage of time. The passage of time can be measured by the progress seen in the healingbe it a scar forming, bleeding stopping, or a bone knitting itself back together. Although healing can seem like a reversal of time, changing something back to how it once was, in reality it is, of course, always changing to new.

Emotional healing can be harder to perceive, involving as it does the intangible, the unseen, such as the healing of a broken heart or the healing after the death of a loved one. Because the changes in emotional healing are not as easily seen or measured as in the case of physical healing, one may lose track of the progress toward healing at any point on the path the healing has already taken. Such healing may involve rituals that themselves take time, and through these time-based rituals, such as the Catholic anniversary mass or the Jewish kaddish on the anniversary of death, the healing is aided. This time-oriented set of rituals helps with healing that which cannot often be healed through medicine. Time in its sacred aspects is commonly identified with regeneration and renewal.