The Song of Healing: A Sacred Instructional Poem
Copyright
© 2025 by Gregory T. Lawton, D.C., D.N.,
D.Ac.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise. without prior written permission from the author.
Quotations from the Bahá’í writings are in the public domain.
Published by the Blue Heron Academy of Healing Arts and Sciences www.blueheronacademy.com
First Edition – 2025
Printed in the United States of America
The
Song of Healing: A Path of Compassion, Presence, and Prayer
A Sacred Instruction in Nineteen Verses
Foreword
The Song of Healing is not simply a poem. It is a transmission, a breath passed down through generations of healers, mystics, and lovers of truth. Its verses are shaped not only by the language of medicine but by the music of the spirit.
For centuries, the most enduring teachings of wisdom, whether from Hippocrates or Avicenna, Rumi or Lao Tzu, have spoken not in sterile formulas but in sacred verse. In the martial and medical traditions of China, healers memorized "songs" to anchor deep instruction in the bones of the memory and the soul. In the sacred traditions of East and West, healing was always more than repair, it was return. A homecoming to the soul’s radiant origin.
In this work, Gregory T. Lawton, D.C., D.N., D.Ac., brings us a devotional and practical fusion of body, mind, and spirit, echoing the divine counsel of Bahá’u’lláh and the compassionate teachings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, harmonized with the insights of the great physicians, poets, and mystics of the world. This is a manual of remembrance, a pathway to presence, and a reminder that healing belongs to God, and that the hands of the healer must be vessels of humility, tenderness, and prayer.
Preface
I have spent my life in the healing arts, chiropractic, naprapathy, naturopathy, acupuncture, and manual therapy. But no matter how many techniques I mastered or how many patients I touched, the lesson remained the same: True healing begins in the heart.
The Song of Healing was born out of decades of reflection, service, study, and prayer. Its verses arose not from a single moment but from a lifetime of listening, listening to the pain of others, to the rhythm of breath and pulse, to the silence between words, and most importantly, to the Voice that speaks through stillness.
This poem is a teaching tool, a spiritual song, and a call to those who believe that compassion is medicine, and that the soul can be soothed as surely as the body can be adjusted, nourished, and restored.
I offer this work as a humble contribution to the larger effort of Building a Healing Community, a vision I have carried for over 50 years. If you find solace, clarity, or inspiration in these pages, then the song has already begun.
Introduction
In many ancient cultures, song was not merely for entertainment, it was instruction.
The Chinese martial and healing arts preserve sacred “songs” like The Song of Push Hands or The Song of the Thirteen Postures, which encode whole systems of wisdom into verse, meant to be memorized, embodied, and transmitted. The Bhagavad Gita is literally the “Song of God.” In the Sufi tradition, the mystical poetry of Rumi and Hafiz was recited like scripture. Even the earliest Hippocratic teachings came with moral verses on the duty of care.
The Song of Healing follows in this lineage, a sacred instructional poem composed to illuminate the spiritual foundations of healing practice. Drawing upon the guidance of Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and the world's great mystical and medical traditions, it explores what it truly means to serve as a healer in a suffering world.
Each verse is meant to be read aloud, contemplated deeply, and lived gently. Let it be a companion for caregivers, students, therapists, physicians, and all who walk the path of sacred service.
You are invited not only to read The Song of Healing, but to embody it, breath by breath, step by step, hand by hand.
Prologue: The Healing Path
There is a path beyond books and beyond blades, Beyond pills and petitions It begins where the soul listens. It ends where service becomes light.
Healing is not something we do. It is something we become. The true healer serves with hands, yes But also with heart, breath, silence, and prayer.
Let the words of the ancient ones guide you. Let the Breath of God sanctify your touch. And let your life become an answer To a question only the broken-hearted ask.
“Now is the time to know that all you do is sacred.”
Hafiz
Begin in Stillness
Before you lay hands, lay down your ego. Before you diagnose, discern the heart. Stillness is the healer’s first medicine. The tongue must wait until the heart is clean.
Purify your breath with silence. Cleanse your thoughts with prayer. Let your eyes see without judgment, And your ears drink deeply of pain.
Only then may you begin.
"O Son of Spirit!
My first counsel is this: Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart, that thine may be a sovereignty ancient, imperishable and everlasting."
Bahá’u’lláh
Healing Belongs to God
Not by my hand is the wound closed. Not by my wisdom is the fever cooled.
I place the herbs, I offer the balm, I whisper the prayer,
But the healing the true healing comes from the One Who Made the Breath.
I do not boast of cures. I claim no power.
I am a hollow reed, a servant with trembling hands.
The cure belongs to the Divine.
Let the name of the healer be forgotten
So the Name of God may be remembered.
"Thy name is My healing, O My God, and remembrance of Thee is my remedy." Bahá’u’lláh
The Breath That Heals
Let not your hands be hurried, Nor your mind distracted by the clamor of disease.
Sit quietly.
Listen for the breath beneath the breath
The one that sighs through every living thing.
It is not yours to heal.
You are but a reed in the garden of mercy, A vessel through which the wind of compassion moves.
Breathe in the pain.
Breathe out the prayer.
And let your stillness do the work.
“O people! Do not busy yourselves in your own concerns; let your thoughts be fixed upon that which will rehabilitate the fortunes of mankind and sanctify the hearts and souls of men.”
Bahá’u’lláh
The Mirror of the Heart
The body speaks what the heart remembers. The pain is not always where the wound began.
Look not only at the bone, the blood, the skin but at the sorrow beneath the breath, and the silence lodged between heartbeats.
A healer sees beyond what is broken. They search for what still shines.
To cleanse the mirror of another’s heart, First polish your own.
For the soul is a garden, and the healer but a humble gardener, pulling weeds with mercy, watering roots with kindness, and waiting with reverent patience for light to do its part.
“O Son of Man! My calamity is My providence, outwardly it is fire and vengeance, but inwardly it is light and mercy.”
Bahá’u’lláh
“The art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician. Therefore, the physician must start from nature, with an open mind.”
Paracelsus, Swiss physician
The Fire and the Garden
Not every healer is born in light
Some emerge from the furnace of personal pain. They became healers because they were once broken, And learned love through their own fractures.
Sacredness is not always calm. The most radiant souls have passed through fire. They do not aim to consume, But to illuminate those whose nights are long.
You are not called to perfection But to presence.
To walk with hearts that break, And show them the echo of compassion.
“Some are ailing; they must be treated and cared for until they are healed… The sick must not be avoided… but cherished. We must nurse the sick in tenderness.”
‘Abdu’l-Bahá
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī
The Pulse of the Earth
A healer listens not only with the ears but with the soles of their feet.
They hear the sorrow in the wind, the fatigue in the soil, the unrest in the pulse of the earth.
They know that all illness is not physical. And all pain is not visible. So they sit beside the wound, without rushing it to close.
True healing is not the suppression of symptoms, but the awakening of meaning. It is not to conquer the body, but to accompany the soul.
“Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can alone cause it to reveal its treasures…”
Bahá’u’lláh
“I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.”
Hafiz
To Sit with Sorrow
Do not rush the healing. Do not flee the wound.
To sit with sorrow is not weakness, but wisdom. When we refuse to bypass pain, we become the friend of the soul not its surgeon.
“Be patient where you sit in the dark the dawn is coming.”
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī
The Breath of the Healer
Before the touch, there is breath. Before the remedy, presence.
A healer's medicine begins not with tools, but with attention that still, rooted gaze that sees the soul before the symptom.
To breathe with compassion is to awaken the heart’s medicine subtle, unseen, but more potent than any tincture.
“When you love a person, you want to give joy and happiness to that one… This is a spiritual love. The spiritual love has no desires. It only seeks to serve.”
‘Abdu’l-Bahá
“The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind.”
Caroline Myss
The Silence Between Words
There is a healing that does not speak a wisdom that hides in quiet places. Not every illness asks for remedy. Some ask only to be heard. To be witnessed without interruption. To be seen without judgment. To be held in the stillness of love.
The healer must become as a still pond, reflecting pain without distortion, mirroring sorrow until it softens.
Speak less. Listen more.
Trust the silence between words to carry the balm unseen hands have placed upon the soul.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá writes: "Let the heart be full of compassion, and the tongue free from all but the mention of God."
A Place Within You
There is a place within you that medicine cannot reach but mercy can.
A silence beneath your suffering where the soul waits, unspoken but not forgotten.
The physician may bandage the wound, but only love closes it.
The healer may speak, but the spirit listens in the stillness.
Let that stillness become your sanctuary.
“Turn thou unto the Kingdom and seek illumination from the realm of light; then wilt thou become entirely spiritual, holy, pure and luminous.…”
ʿAbdu’l-Bahá, Tablets of ʿAbdu’l-Bahá, Volume 2
“I searched for my Self until I grew weary, but no one, I know now, reaches the hidden knowledge by means of effort.”
Lalla
The House of Healing
Build your clinic, your practice, your sacred space but do not forget the greater sanctuary: a heart so open that all who enter it feel whole again.
Become the refuge you once sought. Hold space for the ones still seeking. The healer is not the gatekeeper of wellness they are the gate, the welcome, the water, and the walk beside.
“Be a home for the stranger, a balm to the suffering, a tower of strength for the fugitive.”
Bahá’u’lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf
“This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.”
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī
The Hands That Remember
The hands remember what the mind forgets. They carry the warmth of every mercy given, the echo of every prayer whispered over wound and sorrow.
Let your hands be slow. Let them be soft.
Let them say what no words can say: You are not alone. You are not forgotten. You are not beyond repair.
A hand laid with reverence can quiet a storm in the nervous system. It tells the body it is safe to return, to receive, to rest.
Touch is the first language. Use it with devotion.
“Be in perfect unity. Never become angry with one another. Day and night be kind to one another. Be thoughtful of one another’s needs and shortcomings. Be faithful friends and companions.”
‘Abdu’l-Bahá
"Put your thoughts to sleep, do not let them cast a shadow over the moon of your heart. Let go of thinking."
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī
The Light Beneath the Wound
Beneath every wound, there is light waiting to be born. Not from the healer, but from the hidden fire within the one who suffers.
You do not give healing you help reveal it. The soul knows the way, even when the body forgets.
A healer’s touch must not press with force, but awaken remembrance. A whisper to the cells, a breath upon the spirit, a reminder that the body is not broken only waiting.
There is a radiance deeper than scar tissue. Trust it.
“Know
thou that every created thing is a sign of the revelation of God.”
Bahá’u’lláh
"Don’t you know yet? It is your Light that lights the worlds."
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī
The Prayer in the Bones
Every bone remembers its beginning the blueprint of motion, the first breath of becoming.
In the marrow of pain is the memory of wholeness.
Lay your hands with reverence, for even bones pray silent, still, aching to rise.
Do not fear the body's trembling; it is the soul trying to speak.
Touch like one who tends an altar. Move like one who has heard the name of God in a tendon’s whisper.
“Man is, in reality, a spiritual being, and only when he lives in the spirit is he truly happy.”
ʿAbdu’l-Bahá
“The body is the veil of the soul. Tear away the veil.”
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī
The Shadow That Walks with You
Do not reject your shadow invite it to walk beside you. It is not the opposite of light, but its companion in understanding.
The healer who hides from their own darkness cannot hold another’s pain.
Sit with the places in you that still ache, still bleed, still long. From that knowing, build the bridge of empathy.
True healing is not purity it is integrity.
It is the quiet vow to be whole even while mending.
“Bring thyself to account each day ere thou art summoned to a reckoning.”
Bahá’u’lláh
“I carry a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other: With these things I am going to set fire to Heaven and put out the flames of Hell So that voyagers to God can rip the veils and see the real goal.”
Rabia al-Basri
What the Body Remembers
The body holds stories the tongue has never told memories etched in bone, sorrows held in sinew, prayers whispered into joints that have forgotten how to kneel.
It remembers the silence after the scream, the weight of what was never said, the time you kept breathing just to carry someone else.
A healer does not just treat pain they listen to its language. They honor the body’s wisdom and ask it gently, "What do you need to feel safe again?"
Do not rush the release. Do not silence the shiver. Sometimes healing is the simple permission to feel and to be felt.
“The body is the throne of the inner temple, wherein the spirit dwelleth; treat it with dignity and respect.”
‘Abdu’l-Bahá
“Where there is love, nothing is too much trouble, and there is always time.”
‘Abdu’l Bahá
The Medicine of Joy
Let not your clinic be only a place for pain. Let it ring with laughter, even if softly. Let there be beauty on the walls, light in the corners, and warmth in your eyes.
Healing is not only the easing of suffering it is the remembrance of joy. A moment of peace, a shared smile, a story told with hope may be stronger than any salve or needle.
Joy is not a luxury. It is medicine.
The healer must not become a shadow of every wound they touch. Carry light. Carry gladness. Let the soul feel the sun again through your presence.
“Joy gives us wings! In times of joy our strength is more vital, our intellect keener, and our understanding less clouded.”
‘Abdu’l-Bahá
“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be?”
Kahlil Gibran
Let the Heart Decide
Not every ailment asks for action. Some need only accompaniment.
Before you reach for tools or tinctures, ask the heart what it knows.
Beneath your training, beneath your titles, is an inner compass that turns toward love. It will not lead you to greatness only to presence.
Not every decision is made in the mind. The heart, quiet and uncloaked, often knows the path before thought arrives.
So walk not with answers but with awareness.
Let the heart decide how to lay the hands, how to speak, how to remain.
“Verily, the heart is a sign of God… When it is purified from all else save God, it will be informed of the realities of things, and will be the source of divine inspirations.”
‘Abdu’l-Bahá
“It is love alone that gives worth to all things.”
St. Teresa of Ávila
The Healer’s Benediction
Let the path not end with you. Let the light you have kindled ignite another. The healer’s work is not to be remembered but to help others remember that they are loved, they are whole, they are holy.
Speak gently. Tread lightly. Offer without expectation. Give without applause.
Become the prayer you once whispered in desperation. Become the hand you once reached for in silence. Become the healing you once waited for.
And when your own breath falters know that you were part of a river that never forgets its way to the sea.
“Let each morn be better than its eve and each morrow richer than its yesterday.”
Bahá’u’lláh
“Arise then unto that for which thou wast created.”
Bahá’u’lláh
Epilogue: The Memories of Water
Within you, the rivers remember. Your tears are ancient. Your cells, the echo of oceans. You carry the memory of healing in the very waters that shaped you.
Every sacred touch, every prayer whispered, moves like ripples through the unseen well of the world.
Even when the wound was not yours, your presence became part of the remedy. Even when the cure was not found, your love was the medicine.
The healer is not an end but a current.
A living tributary in the greater sea of mercy.
Flow onward. Let the water remember your offering.
“…Be thou as a… river of life eternal to My loved ones…” Bahá’u’lláh, Tablet of Ahmad
About the Author and Compiler of this Booklet
“All healing is teaching, and all teaching is healing.”
“To heal is to teach the body and soul to remember their wholeness, and to teach is to heal the heart and mind toward the light of truth, for every true doctor is both a healer and a teacher, and in their hands, healing and teaching are one.” Dr. Gregory Lawton
It was the summer of 1976, a bright and sunlit Sunday afternoon at the Bahá’í House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois. I had been a member of the Bahá’í Faith for many years by then, my life shaped by its teachings and my heart devoted to its principles. But nothing could have prepared me for the encounter that day, a meeting that would chart the course of my life’s work.
Within the cool, quiet spaces of that sacred place, I was blessed to meet the Hand of the Cause of God, Mr. Zikrullah Khadem. His presence was at once gentle and commanding, carrying both the warmth of deep compassion and the weight of spiritual authority. We spoke, and in that conversation, he encouraged me to pursue the study of traditional medicine, to honor the spiritual foundations of healing, and to fulfill the divine injunction given to Bahá’ís: to advance the science of medicine and to use food and herbs in the treatment of illness.
His words did not simply inform me, they rooted themselves in my soul. They became a guiding light, a call to service that would illuminate every step of my professional journey. I have never forgotten them.
As the Báb Himself has written:
“God hath ordained for every illness a cure. The science of medicine should be studied with due regard to the directions given by the Supreme Pen. Its aim should be the healing of disease, and it must be based on the use of foods. The day is approaching when the science of medicine will be so improved as to eliminate the use of drugs, for various diseases will be treated with foods.”
- The Báb, quoted in Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 156
That teaching, combined with the powerful legacy of Mr. Khadem’s encouragement, became the seed from which the Blue Heron Academy of Healing Arts and Sciences would grow.
When I reflect on that day in Wilmette, I know it was not simply a meeting. It was a calling. It shaped the Academy’s founding vision, to teach and practice healing arts inspired by the Bahá’í principles of compassion, knowledge, justice, and unity. For more than 55-years of private practice and for forty-five years, the Academy has carried forward that vision, offering education and care rooted in a spiritual understanding of health.
At the heart of our mission is a principle drawn from the life and teachings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: unconditional service. This is service without expectation, without hidden motive, without seeking reward. It is given freely, offered with love, grounded in the belief that every human being is a temple of the divine.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá exemplified this sacred standard. He served the poor and the wealthy alike, the faithful and the faithless, the rulers of the world and the most forgotten souls in the street, without judgment, without condition. In His own words:
“To consider a man your enemy and love him is hypocrisy… Look upon him with the eye of friendship… Do not simply be long-suffering; nay, rather, love him.”
- ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 267
He also warned that to serve for the sake of religious conversion is hypocrisy. These are clear and uncompromising words. They remind us that true service is not a strategy. It is a sacred duty, not a means to gain followers, but a reflection of love for God and humanity. When service is given for love’s sake alone, it becomes a healing balm for both the soul and society.
This is the tradition of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, to see every act of care, kindness, and assistance as an offering to God. Whether we offer herbal medicine, education, therapy, or simple companionship, it is not the outcome that sanctifies the work, but the purity of intention and the constancy of love.
At the Blue Heron Academy, we call this tradition Building a Healing Community. It is more than a school, more than a clinic, more than a mission. It is a living expression of the Bahá’í principle of the oneness of humanity, a place where people of all backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs are welcomed, respected, and cared for without condition.
Building a Healing Community is our loving tradition of unconditional service, inspired by the example of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and guided by the truth that service to others is service to God.
“Now is the time to know that all you do is sacred.” Hafiz
The Song of Healing is a sacred instructional poem an offering of remembrance, renewal, and return. Inspired by divine guidance, mystic verse, and timeless healing traditions, it invites the reader into a contemplative journey of inner restoration and outer service.
Each of its nineteen verses is a breath along the path of spiritual medicine, weaving together the wisdom of Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, classical physicians, and the mystic voices of poets such as Rumi, Hafiz, and Sa'di.
Rooted in the belief that healing begins with the soul, The Song of Healing is for the seeker, the healer, and the wounded alike a call to compassion, presence, and prayer in a world in need of remembrance.
Copyright © 2025 by Gregory T. Lawton
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means -electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For permission requests, contact: Blue Heron Academy of Healing Arts and Sciences 2040 Raybrook Street SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546 info@blueheronacademy.com www.blueheronacademy.com
This publication is intended for educational purposes only. The author and publisher are not engaged in rendering medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the guidance of a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your healthcare regimen.