Our inner worlds contain wisdom and clarity, often elusive or asleep to the demands of this life on earth. Artistic modes like painting, music, poetry, and movement are catalysts that bring inner resources to life. Given voice and movement, our clarity transforms us, and turns life, slowly and softly, into the picture of love we treasure inside. 

Expressive Arts Work (or Expressive Arts Therapy) is about “noticing.” The inner worlds are more powerful and wonderful than these selves we use to apprehend them. They require no grasping, just appreciating. There’s not much work for us to do, but to step aside, and let the spirit have its way. Rather than understanding and controlling the terrain of the heart, we can notice and love its nuances. Rather than “making” things suit ourselves, the inspiration makes us…see, move change…new.

Noticing is more powerful than understanding, serving more fun than controlling, loving infinitely finer than possessing. Moving realization through the arts, we notice, learn, and create avenues for change. Our sights are set on the highest, the meaning of it all, but we attend to the least — the little things with the big consequence. We may all dream of the stars, but how often do we notice a small voice of truth, and let it change us for good? In expressive arts, great meaning comes from slight strokes of the brush. World change follows nearly invisible shifts. Less is more. The least is everything. 

Expressive Arts Work provides ground for tremendous growth. It is also a playing field where responsibility meets delight. With a small “yes” to that play, and another, and another, you never know where you may go, like a child hopping across a brook from stone to stone. The lightness of step leads you right.