Therapeutic Thursday: Art Therapy for Relaxation and Centering

One of the exercises I do with clients in Art Therapy is to have them create their own Zen Garden. The philosophy of Zen Gardens is to bring health to people, to harmonize our life, and to return balance in nature. These are dry gardens using stone arrangements, white sand, moss, statues and sometimes, pruned trees. The act of raking the sand into a pattern is symbolic of rippling waves. The raking motion is meant to have a calming and centering effect on the person raking. Playing with the patterns can be a way to open or close a therapy session. The stone and other miniature elements in the arrangements can be used to represent mountains and other natural elements. Sometimes clients make stone statues out of clay for their gardens or paint special stones.

miniature Zen Garden