We are sending our children and youth into War Zones disguised as schools. In Springfield Ohio classrooms found themselves under a siege of politicized Bomb Threats.
In Uvalde Texas & Georgia’s Apalachee High, pupils endured a morning of AR-15 death, destruction & evacuations
These terrible first hand experiences of violence are now a cornerstone of growing up & being educated in America.
Sand Trays are psychologically soothing for all ages. In the photo a young hand draws a Rhoda Kellogg style sun with rays eventually forming into a mandala. An ancient universal meditation on form and movement.
Sand slides quietly, deeply and easily. Flowing through fingers. Providing the space for thought, reflection and emotion.
After having your school shuttered just in case a homemade explosive is hidden somewhere on the premises or after witnessing your 14 year old friends grievously wounded by an assault weapon, perhaps it is time to revisit sensory/somatic remedies for the trauma narrative that follows.
Words are not necessary. In fact they often fall severely short of communicating or comprehending the horror one has just survived. But sand just might speak to the entire catastrophe.
Dr. Margaret Lowenfeld’s Sand Tray/Sand Play Therapy preparation was the intensity of a 1920’s Russo-Polish War. She worked with troops along a 400-mile front, in prisoner of war camps & helped feed/clothe the demobilized Polish college students. She treated 1,000’s with the diseases which followed the war and she witnessed “the larger number of the population displaying the waxy transparency of famine.” She was impressed with the resilience of children under stress. And later back in London she observed children with the same “expressions, postures and gestures that resembled those with which I had become familiar in prison camps and famine areas.”
Sand Trays are one way of acknowledging and providing the material & method required for healing one’s self. The self that used to believe her classroom was a safe space. The self who assumed her playmates were protected by adults & community. When that self is shattered, a revised consciousness must be constructed. One that admits the unthinkable into the equation of SCHOOL.
https://worldsandtherapy.org/page/history
Sand Tray Therapy Miniature Props For School Violence Events: Handcuffs, Cops, Angels, Smartphone Miniature, Tiny Tombstone, Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing, Roaring Lion, Mother Wolf With Pups, Explosion, Military Vehicles, Red Devil, Bomb, Miniature Weapons, Green Grenade, Warrior Woman, Miniature AK 47 Rifle, Coffin, Praying Hands, First Aid Box, Ambulance, School Desk, School Bus, Miniature Hospital, School Building.
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