Sand Tray: Kinetic Drawing for Sandtray Therapy Class- J.

by Sand Tray Graduate Student
(Lawrenceville, GA)

I wasn’t sure how to approach the kinetic sand tray for my sand tray therapy class when I first started. Ultimately, I tried to build the tray as I have been for the other assignments, trying to work instinctively to build something that feels right for me in that moment in time. That said, I think that on some level I may have been a little calculating in some of my miniature choices, such as the car and the skateboard, choosing them in the interest of creating motion in the tray. Once again, water is a prominent feature along with not one, but two paper boats. The boats to continue to appear in my trays. Some of this is probably due to my being proud of my little boats and wanting to show them off, but the symbolism of a journey or voyage is relevant to where I am in life as I see a few transitions on the horizon. Once I had built the tray, I started to move things around. The first bit of motion involved the puppy and the skateboard. The puppy really wanted to ride that skateboard, and so he did. He rode it all the way over to the hill where the elephant and Woody were standing. The car then moved to put itself in between the frogs and the sad clown. I paused for a moment to take a picture in the middle of my movement. When I returned to the tray, the superhero, Green Lantern began pushing back the unfriendly imagery. Meanwhile, the friendly images began to congregate on the western corner of the tray. I’ve used the starfish in previous assignments and hadn’t really thought much of it except as something to decoratively fill some of the empty space in the tray. Maybe this is the only reason behind their appearances, but on looking it up in a symbols dictionary I found that the starfish can represent either a period of healing and regeneration or that I have many options to weigh or decisions to make. I can see some validity in those readings, particularly the second one and I’m glad I decided to look it up. The car is an interesting symbol as well as it can symbolize the ability to navigate from one stage in life to another, which seems very similar to the symbolism of the boats.