Enduring Liminality: Creative Arts Therapy When Nature Disrupts

Abstract

Ecopoiesis invites us to become response-able from within our position as part of, rather than separate from, the natural world. What happens, however, when nature disrupts? When being 'within' and 'part of' becomes disturbing? And, in such situations, what may creative arts therapy offer? When earthquakes struck my home in Aotearoa/New Zealand (2010 onwards), I floundered within my own reactions to nature unchained. And yet, through poietic engagement with natures' creative and destructive elements, my clients and I found ways to endure and even play within the chaos. I've subsequently used arts-based auto-ethnography to chart positionings and practices that may help other therapists to navigate living/working within similarly uncertain situations. In this arts-based exploration, I creatively revisit arts therapy that evolved in response to earthquake disaster and invite wonderings about similar ecopoietic responses to current contexts of COVID and climate change.

Making Nature Personal: Fostering Vulnerability, Compassion, and Personal Growth Through a Transpersonal Eco-Art Process

“…Summer: Ritual is part of a liminal process where symbols may lead to greater transformation; our weekly eco-art making became ritualistic. Their nascent images left me in a place of uncertainty or liminality (Green, 2021). We used wooden blocks and carved them with scissors.…”

“…Working with an object from the Earth offered a sense of renewal and reintegration (Atkins & Snyder, 2017;Green, 2021). My resistance lessened, and the lines etching turned into trees.…”