Events

Man’s inner life is the “secret place”…the spark of the light in nature. Those labouring in the darkness must try to accomplish an opus that will cause the “fishes eyes” to shine in the depths of the sea, or to catch the “refracted rays of the divine majesty”…

Chaos and darkness have a light and a meaning, and a dark radiance will shine if held in a deep analytic relationship. In sandplay, the elements of earth, our body; air, our breath; fire, our spirit; andwater, our lifeblood give an experience and expression of the landscape of the soul. At first, the earth and wetlands of the soul may be all cemented over, filled in with roads that run helter-skelter. From engagement with tormenting problems, experiences of grief and joy, anger and calm, longing and equanimity, anxiety and stillness unfold in the analytic relationship. By listening together to what lays beneath the words, in the silence, shifting natural forms emerge and find expression in sandplays which tell a non-verbal story of a soul. ‘White sparks’ shining in the ‘terra foetida (the fetid earth), also called ‘fishes eyes’ emerge. In the darkness of the forms made of the earth and on the earth, there is light or illumination; a language of landscape tells a story like the stars in the night sky, constellations of meaning.

An Illumination that may be equal to the darkness springs from suffering, pain or an insoluble dilemma or conflict. As powerful affective states found in images from dreams and in the sand stories are contained, held, and related to, inner landscapes change. New landscapes are discovered: landscapes of loss and devastation; landscapes of sadness, rage or joy; or natural landscapes of mystery and numinosity. In this presentation a few clinical stories and sandplays created by adults and children will illustrate the dark radiance that emerges, and the transformation of images and psyche in landscapes of the soul.

Maria Chiaia, Ph.D., is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Berkeley and Marin and works with adults, children and adolescents. She is a teaching member of the International Society for Sandplay Therapy and has lectured and taught internationally and at many universities and institutes. She is co-author of Sandplay in Three Voices: Images, Relationship, the Numinous and has authored many articles and book chapters.