I believe that each of us are an infinite source of wisdom and creativity, and that we need more supportive modalities to help touch these spaces within and bring them out and alive in expression. I invite people into wild places, providing art supplies+ support, and guide them through a unique process into meeting aspects within themselves, and nurturing their expression out into the world to better understand, integrate, heal, and offer creative support to. 

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Below is an illumination of the potency of such a collaboration of modalities

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Entering the modality of wilderness therapy, we begin to attune to the coherent energy field that surrounds us in nature. Being in the wilderness has a powerfully silent way of dismantling our walls, resistances, insecurities, etc. as we begin to regulate our nervous systems, allowing for us to inch our way into an unlimited, undefined state of being and identity. There, we can become for awhile genderless, race-less, ageless, without socioeconomic identification, domestication, and cultural conditioning, pausing the pressures of who we are supposed to be, alleviating the stressors of societal frameworks for a time. We begin to steep in a non-ordinary way of being, resting the limbic mind that societal culture asks of us and the often limiting and conforming invisible agreements we participate in, thus opening to the great esteem of the heart, intuition and instinct—these places of immeasurable clarity and connection. So, in connecting with nature we begin to let go, unbinding our expanded selves. This non-ordinary way of being opens our field into cohesion, holistic processing, and the spaciousness to allow insights and our unique wisdom and creativity to come forth. This is what weaves us into the Art Therapy modality. Once these experiences are had, they seed and begin to have subtly-profound influence into our more ordinary, societally-functioning realities, thus informing change in valuably small or large ways, redirecting ones life course incrementally, seamlessly, or greatly.

 

The therapy of being in the wilderness gives space to trauma in its various forms, allowing for it to dislodge and move, however slight or potent; opening for a newer relationship with Self and therefore, self-view narrative to emerge. It is one of the safest places to be ourselves, and deepen with the parts of us that want to be acknowledged and brought into wholeness. Here in the wild, we begin to activate a sense of self that belongs to an extraordinary interconnectivity of life, and greet a more primal purity of Self. The internal place where miracles happen. We open the aperture to a remembrance of who we are and kindle a revolution of perception. Communing in and with Mother Earth, we begin to touch a timelessness and reorganize to a quantum field of possibility in healing and creativity within our lives. This is the great gift of the nature of Mother Earth: to reestablish a relationship with her re-stitches us in an inherent knowing and belonging to life, that we may feel orphaned from in various ways within our cultural conditioning.

 

Wilderness Therapy unlocks pathways of being that immerse us in the sense of our participation in a greater cosmology, and hence, our self-worth begins to resurrect, rise, embolden, and find secure rooting.

 

For all people, and especially youth discovering their footing in the world, exposure to the embrace of the wilderness can awaken an intrinsic alliance with nature and its wellbeing, activating a natural sense of advocacy for restored relationship in various frameworks of our culture. Wilderness Therapy has the power to support youth to discover their inherent context in relating with the natural world, influencing future generations into their potential and unique roles of regenerating culture that is in harmony with the ever-aliveness of our more-than-human world.

 

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Now, let’s bring this state of being onto the canvas: 

 

As we shift into the modality of Art Therapy within the setting of the wilderness, we enter a realm of fertile spaciousness to express unprecedented spectrums of self, giving a voice to things deep within us; an inner journey made visible. Tapping into the safe and held space of nature, we open an opportunity to gently bring focus into the great mirror that the canvas can be; a window into understanding. Tangible expression through art brings unvoiced aspects of ourselves into form, which can act as a map to reading our inner workings, that may otherwise go unnoticed in our lives. Art is one of the most all-encompassing, ever-symbolic, therefore ever-information-containing forms of expression; it transcends rationale and linear thinking, giving access to a greater understanding beyond these societal modes of operation. Art is one of humanity’s greatest allies through our history in expressing our inner worlds, which is the source of our outer worlds.

 

By now, you’re most likely inferring that this is uncolonized art; using the guiding process of art-making not as a competitive container to conform to set-values of “good” art, but wildly more intriguing and freeing. The uncolonized art experience is predicated on the principle that the greatest wisdom, healing, perception-change, visionary resolutions, come from the unleashed genius within, and are most welcomed out in the setting of nature, as expressed through the narrative of art. There are no rules, no should’s, no hierarchal rubric values, but instead an inclusive honoring of every mark on the canvas—every courageous movement to welcome expression to come forth as a blank canvas for all of the things we are carrying with us to come alive. 

 

Through Art + Wilderness Therapy, we show importance to our inner ecology; our inner biodiversity that spans a collection of multi-textural experiences, some traumatic and some expansive, and everywhere in between. This understory of our nature that can reveal why we may do, behave, desire, choose certain things, can be brought to the surface to become aware of its potency in shaping our lives. We begin to show ourselves the safety and worthiness of expression of deep things within us, and begin to normalize acknowledgement. The unapproachable becomes approachable and we create an increasingly familiar space to embrace our trauma expressions yearning to be seen, heard, and held. These collaborative therapeutic modalities offer pockets of remarkable access to also harnessing our creativity, understanding, healing, and visionary selves; it provides a visual literacy to subconscious aspect of Self, including luminary wisdom states of personal, communal, or collective insights. We are living axis points between these two—oscillations of contraction (trauma), and that which informs our expansion (dream weaving). Art Therapy grows our capacity to become present with more of ourselves, developing a self-sustainability and security in diving into the dynamism of being. Growing from this place, we can further begin to normalize conversation around repressed elements and inspirational elements within. By steeping in the safety of expression in this whole way, we begin to give silent permission for others to do the same; to accentuate authenticity in circles of community. Tapping into a form of self-leadership that learns the practice to be inclusive to all aspects of self, and its ever-revealing journey, thus rippling out into the inclusivity of others.

 

In Art + Wilderness Therapy we cultivate an entryway into non-ordinary states of being that transcend the need to perform or conform; we allow for a natural state of beingness that is interwoven in the web of life to express itself and show our conscious self its powerful messages. It can be one of the most radical acts of counter-culture to listen within and express its discoveries. As a child, most of us had blockages to our creativity and voices within—molding to the invisible value systems of those we found belonging with, often at a cost at expressing our profound, prophetic, even, inner-workings in safety and encouragement, in trade for what is deemed useful or conformed purpose. Out value, as you know, is wildly more infinite and multiplicitous than our western culture molds us to think and be. This therapy is a reclamation to those moments. We have this one precious life to find out who we truly are and bring it into some creative and meaningful capacity into our world. To uncover a deeper purpose, especially during these times of great change, finding grounding in exploration within, with the energetic support and guidance of Mother Earth is pivotal. And, to take it further into esoterica, in this process, we can begin to midwife the emerging consciousness on earth, with Earth, through us.

 

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As an artist who has been living in the wild for 3 years, I aim to midwife the marriage of these modalities for others to experience and unlock self-expression. I have learned that nature can sometimes be the only place big enough to hold our deep feelings wanting form an understanding. Some of the deepest pain, and some of the most brilliant glimpses into this extraordinary existence. I intend to hold creative and guided space for others to experience more of their intrinsic selves and engender the curiosities of existence. Our humanity needs us to be that which is uniquely us, ever-influencing the evolution of our great world: like stones tossed into water, the wake of us is being truly us reaches greater and greater circles.

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