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Transformational
Sandtray-WorldplayTM and
The Dynamic Expressive Play of Consciousness
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| The Mission |
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Vision Quest into Symbolic
Reality offers people direct access to their
deepest consciousness so they may align themselves with the innate
wisdom of their own Psyche, be
present with each moment regardless of prevailing conditions, and create
an integrated, authentic life for
themselves, their family, their community, humanity, nature, and the
planet earth.
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| The Vision |
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The Vision is to offer
Sandtray-WorldplayTM Journeys in attractive but simple healing
environments to people of all ages, backgrounds, cultures and
circumstances. We engage in sandplay, supported by meditative
reflection, centering, natural rhythmic movement, music, drama,
expressive arts, travel, and explorations of nature. We journey into the
depths of our individual and communal being. We explore the growing edge
of our life stream.
As we experience the integrity,
wholeness and wisdom that results from such play we become more rooted
in ourselves and more interested in living in global community with one
another and the earth. We learn how to embrace and support others on
their healing journey as family, friends, colleagues, educators, healers
and psychotherapists.
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| The Definition
& Methodology |
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Sandtray-WorldplayTM
is
a transformational journey method
for children, adolescents, adults, families, couples and
groups.
It
is used by individuals and groups in contexts such as psychotherapy,
education, mediation, personal growth, collaboration, business, and
spiritual questing.
Water,
different colors of sand and an extensive
collection of miniature images are made available for play inside
or outside a tray. Play may
be in indoors or in nature. Clients, called
the builders, are accompanied by a facilitating witness who may or may
not, depending on the circumstance, actively participate in the play.
During
journey sessions builders follow their own inner guidance to create patterns,
dramatic play processes and/or Worlds in the sandtray.
Thus they
tap into the very sacred multidimensional depths of psychic
consciousness from which all growth, healing, and self fulfillment
arises. Some create
patterns and some create Worlds.
Some speak and some remain silent. Because
the
play is considered to mirror the builder’s state of being,
everyone is encouraged to
play exactly as they wish.
No
matter how old clients are, they invariably contact their own psyche
during the
Sandtray-WorldplayTM
session. Psyche
is the seat of our life force and our inner
wisdom. It is the
depths of our consciousness, that so easily reveals itself during play
in the sandtray. Psyche, or ‘the
big I’
is much more expansive, more versatile, and more experienced than
the limited consciousness of our personality to which we may refer as ‘the
little I’. Psyche,
rather than the personality, takes charge and directs the
transformation.
Sand,
images, water, incense, candles, and the space of the tray
provide an expansive, uniquely individual and archetypal existential
vocabulary which when used in the sandtray become a visible language.
This language of play expresses all types of experiences and
interdimensional states of consciousness that are, under
normal circumstances, difficult
or even impossible to communicate with conceptual language.
Here, however, language becomes a living language:
what is readily seen can be more readily experienced and thus is
more readily expressed using ordinary language.
 
....
Half the job is climbing up the Mountain with the help of Rattler
Being
in the Beauty, Steadiness and Solidity of my own Stone Consciousness
Then
I can be with this Chaos of Change that is happening within me now ....
During
the play session the facilitator uses special methods to help builders
become aware of how they create the realities in their World.
The facilitator helps
builders project themselves into their created World and its characters,
to bring them to life and to fully experience them.
They learn how to be in the expanded states of consciousness that
are induced when they experience the multidimensional realities that
arise in their sandworlds.
To
amplify the builder’s experience the facilitator-witness often uses
other expressive modalities in conjunction with
Sandtray-WorldplayTM, such
as being in the silence, meditation, sounding, drumming, music,
free-association, telling story, dramatic enactments, embodiment,
movement, voice dialogue, yoga, art, costuming, nature walks, and
special exercises that deepen existential awareness of whatever is being
explored in the sandtray. No
matter what tools are used, in
Sandtray-WorldplayTM
the emphasis remains on the
players’ spontaneous expression and meaningful exploration of their
immediate experience. The
goal is to support builders as
they gently surrender to the process
of the dynamically unfolding, deepening,
expanding and evolving awareness of self, others and the
universe.
A
Sandtray-Worldplay™ session may be a part of
a:
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Personal
psychotherapeutic or transformational
process
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Day
of checking-in with Self
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Special
way of quickly solving a difficult problem
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Method
of sourcing internal resources to manage crisis and trauma
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Poignant
way of marking a rite of passage
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Adventure
into community
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Special
opportunity to bond with ones partner,
family, children, friends or work associates
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Exploration
of individual and collective consciousness
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| Sandtray-WorldPlayTM
and Psychology |
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Sandtray-WorldplayTM
methods deepen the effectiveness and applicability of each therapeutic
encounter, often clarifying the process and the goals of
psychotherapy in a way that verbal or other sandplay methods
cannot. Clients using
the sandtray have opportunity to create and to experience a very
personal rite of passage. Rather than subjecting themselves to ‘a system or a particular
school of psychotherapy’, clients are called upon to create their own
therapeutic transformation. They
embark on a natural Vision Quest into their personal reality, their
community, their ancestry, their humanity, their affiliation with the
earth and the universe. They
emerge with a renewed and authentic relationship to self, others, and
life. In this way
Sandtray-WorldplayTM
aims to normalizes the psychotherapeutic journey and
gives it a solid place in the evolutionary process of our
global community.
Sandtray-WorldplayTM
honors the integrity of each client’s psyche and maximizes a direct
transference between the client’s ego and the depths of his/her own
consciousness. Clients
synthesize their own meaning because the facilitator does not interpret
clients’ play, whether silently or verbally. This minimizes dependency
on the therapist as the expert in the client’s life.
Rather than using his understanding of the play to remain
‘above’ or ‘outside of’ the
play, the therapist assumes the function of facilitator as he asks
clients to take him into the play.
As
clients initiate the therapist into the dynamic mysteries of their World
they teach from their own immediate experiences and reveal themselves
as gifted sentient beings. They
come to know that they can weave the apparently discordant sensations,
feelings, thoughts and experiences that show up in the World into a
connected matrix of meaning. They
also learn that they can loose themselves in their sensations, feelings,
thoughts and experiences as readily as they can witness, use and govern
them.
As
each healing journey is unique, each
Sandtray-WorldplayTM
session is also
different and unique. The
journey progresses in a multifaceted way.
Not a logical, linear process,
it is more like an organic, spiraling, experiential thinking process
that honors all elements of human nature, including the logical linear
mind. It is an exact
replica of the labyrinthine way that life flows.
As clients learn about their winding and spiraling life’s stream, they
more readily accept the way in which they have navigated
past developmental phases of their life, rather than getting
stuck in despair and guilt. They accept the sequence and quality of the
events in their lives, are more grateful to be alive, and settle into
working with the opportunities that exist now.
Some
clients first create:
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Numinous,
reparative healing
visions which then inform the descent into their dilemma and
the emergence of the path to
resolution
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Fertile depths of darkness of
existence, followed by visits into the realms of light
which inevitably leads to the capacity to experience the co-existence of the
shadow and the light, earth and the heavens.
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Their ordinary day time
experiences which after
exploration lead to acknowledging the potential of this time in life
and is then followed by an interdimensional journey of
exploration and discovery.
One
might say truly that every World always suit its builder and although
many Worlds can be initially strange, uninviting and frightening,
all Worlds are healing. They are direct teachings from the psyche.
Because Worlds are so multidimensional and complex,
clients often need to learn the skills to explore them and to
maximize their teachings. Once
they do, clients become increasingly aware of their own versatility and the rich repertoire of choices
available to them in their daily life.
They develop a strong presence that connects to their inner core
Self. They learn to choose,
to purposefully direct and re-direct their creative processes, to stop
sabotaging themselves and others, and to respond to life in the moment.
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| Sandtray-WorldPlayTM
Theory |
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Sandtray-WorldplayTM
is a sacred and natural path to healing and transformation. The
Sandtray-WorldplayTM
facilitator systematically supports the
client's innate mental, physical, emotional, language, memory, intuitive
and spiritual consciousness during each session.
Clients are encouraged to trust their experience, to be curious
and to fully explore their own individual uniqueness as well as the
special aspects of their family, society and humanity without resorting
to judgment of self and others. They
learn how to use their consciousness to re-vision limited view points
and rote behaviors.
This
type of sandplay creates highly focused, meditative states.
It links clients to the sentience or soul of the natural world
(animals, plants, minerals and the planet).
It brings clients into direct contact with spirit and their
primordial inner presence.
Clients
gain practice in being with the unavoidable conflicting dualities of
human life. They learn to
directly experience and manipulate the full range of intense energies,
sensations, feelings, thoughts, dreams, visions, actions,
relationships, memories, intuitions and knowings that they and
others can generate on a daily basis.
The
Sandtray-WorldplayTM
Session consists of:
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Active
play
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Re-visioning play
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Self-witnessing
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Silent reflection
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Verbal free-associative sharing
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Joint exploration with another
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Story telling
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Relating the play to daily life
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Visioning
how to integrate the teachings from the ST-WP into daily life
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Verbal
problem-solving
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Using
mindful reflection to apply the teachings to revise dated belief
systems
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Practicing
the energy patterns associated with the creation of different
types experiences
The
Sandtray-WorldplayTM
session teaches clients
how to create and modulate thoughts, feelings, actions and
reactions to daily life. It
allows for the mindful exploration of the inner and outer planes of
existence and the nature soul and universal spirit that govern our
existence.
As
clients experience connectedness to themselves, to others, to nature and
the universe they slowly become less judgmental, less angry, more
creative, kinder and more forgiving.
They gradually learn to honor and mediate difference and to
fiercely defend and care for themselves and others when necessary.
This transformational play process engenders a more holistic and
flexible relationship to self and others and creates the core
experiences of security and trust in the present moment.
Finally,
it is easy to see how
Sandtray-WorldplayTM
Journeying reaches into the
general community. These
sacred exploratory journeys enrich each classroom, every family
recreation room, each corporate board room, and wherever people gather
to grow, to communicate, to co-create, and to have fun.
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