Tuesday 25 September 2007

Awake

I had an amazing day yesterday. It's not very often I say that about Mondays, especially working Mondays. It wasn't a normal working Monday for me though: I was at an event focusing on Art Therapy. It was a hands-on, participatory event aimed at interested parties such as practitioners in the arts, caring professions, social workers and so on.

I've been to similar events before but not for a long time. I was accompanied by a very very senior person from our organisation who had approached me about it thinking it was likely I would be interested. Oddly, when I first thought about it some weeks ago I wasn't sure. My previous involvement in anything linking the arts to my daytime job had always been with an emphasis on using it as a recreational activity: therapeutic, undeniably, but not Therapy. I'd never considered this as being something that I might be interested in pursuing (not least because it would involve lots more study and expense).

I got a hell of a lot out of this event yesterday though, primarily due to being able to take part in the sessions: which meant being able to draw and to express a number of things as a result. I felt in my element, reconnected to something essential but all-too-often-neglected.

There were a number of other potential positives arising from the day. I'm not going to spell them out here because it would feel incautious, and at the moment any grounds for optimism in this context have to be tempered with a very liberal sprinkling of caution. All the same, it gave me a bit of a boost.

Last night, following on from all this, I had a very telling dream: I'm debating whether I should write and post it, though it won't be this evening.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

That just sounds fantastic (ooooh don't be so coy :)!). It's great to reconnect with something inside, especially if it's something essential. I don't know about you, but it seems that it's exactly that that tends to get lost in the everyday. It then becomes a struggle to find it again. I'm glad you did, especially since (or at least it sounds it) it came so unexpectedly.

(Hope this makes sense, I have been kind of out of it of late...)

Neon said...

I know a few people who trained as art therapists and it seems to be a very fullfilling job if you are interested in that line of thinking.
Maybe this session was a sign...I understand your caution but go where your heart points you.

Ms Melancholy said...

Did you have to make a collage of your private parts? A friend of mine went to an art therapy weekend for women, and came home with a vagina collage. She refused to stick it to the fridge - spoilsport that she is.

Anonymous said...

Hi ario. You're right that this stuff gets lost in the everyday, at least as far as I'm concerned. So yes you are making sense, since that has been precisely the problem for me. I'm being coy because there are no definites on the strength of yesterday - good, positive talk about potential opportunities, sure - but that could all come to nothing.

neon, it remains to be seen but yesterday did spark off a definite interest: which is something in itself, since I've spent so much time over the last few months being more than aware of the opposite, ie what I DON'T want to do.

Anonymous said...

Hi Ms M, the potential for so many possible responses (scuse tautology) to that statement is positively dizzying.....but no we didn't have to make a collage of (or on) our private parts.

I now feel that the day was empty and meaningless and I want to go back and demand that we do so.

anticant said...

Is someone really a spoilsport if she refuses to stick her vagina on [or in] the fridge?

Whatever will Ms Melancholy get up to next? I'm all agog!

Merkin said...

I stuck a 'photo' of my ex-girlfriend's pussy on a T-shirt.
Nice pussy, nice T-shirt.

anticant said...

I hope she slapped your face.

Caroline said...

Sounds fantastic honey - we all need these connections that illuminate.
x

trousers said...

It was cas, and we do. Sometimes, more than we realise.

xx

DJ Kirkby said...

Sounds liuke you had a great time and manged to do so with a very senior work person present! Imagine how much you'd enjoy it with that kind of company!