Art and Meditation

Art is a by-product of getting in touch with ourselves. Playfulness helps us to get in touch with our creativity. After all, children are naturally creative when they play!

So in these painting groups - and in all my work with art therapy as well as in my own paintings - I use lots of exercises to bring us back in touch again with the spontaneous child inside. This child is adventurous, courageous, curious and ready to play... It's all about rediscovering the creativity that everybody has - but that most people have forgotten.

Our body is our first expression. Often we lose connection with our body and impulses - simply by getting lost in our thoughts: worrying, or just thinking about the future or the past.

Meditation is helpful in bringing us back into the body, and in contact with the here and now. That's why I use various kinds of meditations in my work. Many of these meditations involve using the body in dance and movement. In that way, we come back in contact with the body, and our feelings and senses are re-awakened.

Opening up the senses means above all: eyes that can see, and a heart that can feel.

"Touch, smell, taste, see, hear as totally as possible. See a child running after a butterfly in the garden... so absorbed... see a child collecting seashells on the beach as if he were collecting diamonds.

Everything is precious when the senses are alive."

Osho