Stonecast and felt ground
Yesterday I wrote about a simple, creative practice for nervous system regulation using stones and bilateral movement. Today I want to share a little bit about how to extend our connection with the practice through a series of art explorations.
Temporarily modify the stone to build softness or texture by wet (wool) felting, stitching on top, weaving it with twine or string or grasses…
Often, with those I work with, we follow an expressive arts therapy approach and wet-felt the stone, working with the softness and the weight of the stone.
I learned bilateral expressive arts approaches like this from Elizabeth Warson and Cathy Malchiodi at the Trauma-Informed Practices and Expressive Arts Therapy Institute.
The bilateral process of tossing the stone back and forth helps the wool fibres open up and connect, then shrink down to the shape of the rock. Working together, we might trade stones to see what another feels like, bringing curiosity to our preferences.
Before returning the stone to where we borrowed from, we carefully remove the felt, and see that the stone has become a mold for the wool cast. This transformation from felted stone to stonecast provides a new sensory exploration and a noticing practice. How does the lightness of the stonecast feel in contrast to the weight of the stone? What does this new created space need?
