Inner Nature Embodiment: Nature-based Expressive Arts Therapy

This presentation aims to offer beauty, depth & inspiration around developing therapeutic work in a meaningful and relevant way. About 40 images will be shared throughout the presentation to illustrate the ideas and experiences. The connection between our bodies, the earth and how we create is deeply interwoven but largely forgotten in our modern world. By sourcing materials from nature, we can observe, relate and restore this link, harvesting wisdom from the sensory experience, details and life cycles of materials. In January 2019, while isolated on a small remote island in Hampi, India, I was called to create a nature-based art installation representing my own rebirth in nature. The processing of this experience as an artist later influenced my work as an expressive arts therapist, inviting more conscious use of nature-based media. One resulting exploration was a nature-based expressive arts therapy workshop in February 2020 called Inner Nature at Sankalpa in Auroville, south India. The workshop included meditation, movement, drawing, nature-based body maps, poetry and sharing in an outdoor geodesic dome. Themes which arose include: honoring the body, non-judgment, self-compassion, self-acceptance, self-love, life cycles, change/impermanence and resilience. Some of the participants' poetry will be shared to help capture these themes. The session during the conference will also include a guided meditation to honor the elements within the body.