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WAKING THE SPIRIT

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Nonfiction Soaring notes and a miracle WAKING THE SPIRIT A Musician’s Journey Healing Body, Mind, and Soul By Andrew Schulman 312 pp. Picador Reviewed by Sue Ellis Waking the Spirit is professional musician Andrew Schulman’s touching account of expanding his repertoire into the theater of healing. He plays his guitar to stimulate the will to live in people who are gravely ill.  He begins with his own near-death experience, a devastating event brought on by complications of anaphylactic shock following surgery. After three days in ICU, his wife, Wendy, has a sudden inspiration – perhaps music can revive him. She chooses Bach’s St. Matthew Passion , a favorite of Schulman’s, and thanks to earbud cords and an iPod, the soaring notes work a miracle, a fact witnessed by a young doctor in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit. Here’s an excerpt: By early evening, Dr. Eiref told Wendy, with cautious optimism, that I was “out of the woods.” The medical charts, my SICU progress notes report woul...