Expressive arts therapy is like a compassionate, warm light calling into the dark, wild, unknown places of our selves. A pathway to the places within that no words can reach, that hold parts of us we have forgotten or perhaps not yet met. It can bring forward more of who we ever even dreamed we could be, and help integrate that into our every day lives.
“The signs of life gather themselves in any darkness.
It’s a rebirth, a rebuilding, of what was never really destroyed.
In what is its own kind of starlight,
a thousand bright minds flicker on,
our imaginations like flashlights,
searching for a path,
blinking in the dark.”
– from “Rise of the Trust Fall” by Mindy Nettifee
Expressive arts therapy can include: poetry, guided visualizations, ceremony and ritual, drawing, drumming and rattling, movement, listening to music, collage making, role play, lyric writing, viewing art, drama, singing, dance and puppetry. The goal is never to have a professional finished product, but rather to allow these unspoken, undiscovered parts of ourselves to be to explored in their own unique creative language, without judgement or expectation.
” ‘This picture tells a story, ‘ she says.
Her black eyes looking inward and outward.
‘No one who buys this could ever understand-
the meanings in the pattern. What it is
really worth.’ Clouds. A
bird. A man. The earth. Her fingers
feel the beads. ‘There is a story here.
It takes three days and nights to tell it.’ “
– from “love belongs to those who do the feeling” by Judy Grahn
Reach out to talk with me and learn more. I look forward to hearing your story.