March 19, 2021
For our closing day, students presented individual projects showing what they had learned in our three weeks together. Some chose to present about one particular form of art therapy, while others presented a montage of various pieces they’d worked on over the ECS. Everyone agreed that the possibilities for finding artistic ways to deal with stress and even trauma seem almost endless. Some of these forms may be right in front of us, but we hadn’t realized the power they hold in helping us deal with calamities in life. The final hours of our ECS were spent out on Boddington Field with two licensed forest therapy guides who led us around the perimeter of our very own campus, taking in and noticing details in the beautiful nature that we often take for granted literally in CSS’s backyard. Following our guided walk, the guides led us through a ritual tea ceremony to close the experience, and many of us reflected on how this simple walk through nature tied in beautifully to all the other therapeutic experiences we’d enjoyed throughout the ECS. Although this particular seminar seemed most timely in the age of Covid, finding healthy ways to deal with bumps in life’s road in a lifeskill we all need to polish. Now we feel as if we have many, many tools to use as we move forward into the unknown but hopeful future.
