The Somatic Healing of Therapeutic Art
By Arena Heidi and Rachael Hannah Pagett
Sometimes art pieces emerge from the subconscious that act upon us in unexpected ways. An image may offer a blueprint or energetic pathway for healing trauma that has been stored in our body. Rachael and I offer our experiences with several pieces of somatic art, which reveal the importance of creative expression and a healing bodily response.
Healing for Brain and Body
Artwork by Rachael Hannah Pagett
Arena Heidi: Some art pieces have a power to them. They help us to make internal and external connections. I fell in love with this image of Rachael’s the moment I saw it. I knew it contained healing medicine. And furthermore, I needed its medicine! The drawing was the catalyst that brought us together. We began writing about it, before we knew anything about each other. It inspired us to stumble into the gritty details that any collaborative endeavor entails.
Rachael: This was a piece of work I did while studying for my Bachelor of Arts Psychotherapy degree. I made this image for my Life Span Development class. It represents how through our brain we have so many emotions that we radiate outwards somatically through our body. The colors represent the different responses. The more I looked at the image, I saw it change into to a fetus, like the birth of a new life connection to our primal brain.
When I did the artwork I really enjoyed the process. It felt healing when I embodied the colors. And also how they radiated out from the image around it. I felt the technique had a fluidity about it. Even though I used pen it didn't feel restrained.
Arena Heidi: I love how the image represents so many things and yet is undefinable. I feel it in a whole body way. It connects to the parts of my inner self that remain contracted and curled in trauma. The image brings color and energy to those traumatized parts. It also represents organs, like a brain or stomach, and reminds me that my organs communicate with each other as part of a functioning whole.
I receive a strong visceral felt sense from the image that makes me feel good, but also a bit uncomfortable. I inwardly squirm because it activates vulnerable places. I have found that healing artwork often has this element of discomfort to it. Healing entails being with the wounded parts of ourselves that we have previously rejected. Staying present with the art piece and those sensations, facilitates integration. The lines that radiate out from this organic form are like a nest or web supporting it, but they also function as neural lines of communication, relaying sensory input and feelings. Looking at the image reminds me of the colorful, complex, plasticity of our brains and organs. As we heal, brain and body circuitry reconfigure themselves in new, more positive ways. Visually taking in this image, helps me reinforce these beneficial connections.
Landscape of a Settled Perspective
Arena Heidi: This is image number 22, from an unplanned series on Drawing into Trauma. Through emotionally expressive mark making, I allow imagery to emerge spontaneously from my subconscious. The first drawings in the series depicted wounds, most of which were composed of unresolved space. I was unsure how to resolve the wounds visually on the paper and emotionally in my body. Yet slowly, and in tandem, both art and body evolved and transformed. Like a visual diary, the artwork captured each small step of somatic healing. This image portrayed one of the first significant shifts, in a long gradual process of integration.
“Settled Perspective” a colored pencil drawing by Arena Heidi May 2019
The drawing depicts a buried wound that has now risen to the surface. I have learned how to internally support the once neglected and abandoned parts of myself. So the wound now feels fully supported and held in its environment. My inner landscape has become a soft, comforting, and interesting place to rest and receive nurturing. The wound communicates clearly from its settled perspective. Like a crystal ball, it begins to intuit and integrate past and future events.
Healing arises both in the making of the art, but also in sharing it with others who need and resonate with its imagery and feeling. As an artist, I always love hearing different interpretations of my work. Another’s perspective adds to and enhances my own understanding. I invited Rachael to offer her perspective and feelings about my piece.
Rachael: I immediately loved this image of Arena’s. It feels healing and relaxes me. When I look at it, I get a soothing feeling, which is calming as I sometimes suffer from anxiety. I love how the colors blend, but also define form. I see the birth of a new moon rising in the image, with an aurora that depicts the wavy patterns of light of a magnetic field.
When I was writing this description, the weather changed. it started raining and the sky went dark. When a clap of thunder was directly overhead, my head started to ache. This is a common occurrence for me. I often get a heavy head prior to a storm, which reveals how attuned we are to our environment. The headache is from pressure changes, which also cause weather changes. The environment triggers chemical and electrical changes in our brain, which may then lead to headaches. Our brains function as untapped vessels of knowledge.
Art Connecting Us to Nature and Our True Nature
Mushrooms in Field by Rachael Hannah Pagett
Arena Heidi: I love these two nature drawings that Rachael made highlighting fly agaric mushrooms. I feel a deep affinity for wild mushrooms in general, and this mushroom in particular. Amanita muscaria has been featured in countless myths, visions, and stories. It has hallucinogenic properties, and a long ancient history of use for spiritually and mystically altering consciousness. Mushrooms in general, with their ephemeral beauty and mysterious nature, transport me into a joy of receiving their fleeting presence as an unsolicited blessing and gift.
I love the range of textures that Rachael uses to capture the feelings of nature. The images evoke many sensory feelings. I feel the lightness of the dried leaves falling, while grasses and trees offer energetic lines of comfort and protection. I identify with both mushrooms and rabbit, and feel myself drawn into the scenes and comforted. The bunny is vulnerable and innocent, and the image offers support for those qualities and the corresponding parts of myself.
Rachael: These two small art pieces were done a long time ago using Ecoline watercolors, Derwent colored pencils, and ink pens. If I remember correctly, they were drawn from photos in a book on England where I was born. I have a strong connection to my homeland, even though I moved to Australia in 1986, when I was 16.
I love that these artworks have a whimsical, enchanted fairytale feeling, which connects me back to my childhood. I have a vivid imagination and am able to connect to different realms. Throughout my life I have seen unexplainable things that could only have come through other dimensions. My son, who was born on the same day and time, has also had these kinds of intuitive experiences. I feel this gift was passed down to us from my mother. So these two art pieces represent a sixth sense and higher self aspect for me, while also reminding me of the lush green English landscape. I have fond memories of walking in the woods and seeing the undergrowth all around me. The colors of nature become so vivid due to the long rainy days.
Mushrooms and Rabbit by Rachael Hannah Pagett
Arena Heidi: These drawings, by symbolically capturing specific nuances of nature and childhood, transmit a sense of wellbeing and calm. The images offer my brain a brief moment of rejuvenation and rest, similar to an internal visualization of a comforting scene, or even actually being in nature. Healing is received through the art making process, but also by living with art pieces that move us. Healing imagery has the power to access the subconscious, connecting us directly to hard to articulate aspects of ourselves and life as a whole. An art piece may offer entry into an undercurrent of well-being, which flows underneath physical and emotional issues, or layers of conditioning. Healing occurs as this comfort and love percolates into the essence of our suffering and trauma. Our lives begin to function as a kind nurturing whole, instead of isolated and fragmented parts. I hope our art and dialogue inspires others to vulnerably express themselves and write more about their own somatically healing imagery.
Rachael: As an Arts Psychotherapist, I see how each client’s art represents something personal and unique to them. What one person might see as beautiful or dark, may have a totally different meaning to the person who has made the artwork. In my work as a therapist, we focus on a client’s perspective. I only offer how the art makes me feel when asked to do so.
The beauty of art therapy is not how good the artwork looks, it's the process. It works especially well when words are hard to express what is going on.
If I hadn't gone through the trauma in my life, I wouldn't have gone on the journey I have now. It nearly broke me, but I didn't let it. I used the experience to grow and make myself stronger. Sometimes you have to go through the darkness, to come out the other side into the light.