Quotes have been a regular feature of this blog and I am feeling the desire to find and mull on wisdom regularly – to use it as an anchor and guidepost. So here is a new blog series of once a week ‘art and soul quotes. Feel free to add your own in the comments.
This one is from a favourite book of mine, Cry Pain, Cry Hope by Elizabeth O’Connor. Not easy to get hold of but some amazon copies out there…
“The relationship between pain and vocation first became clear to me when I was reading books on child development. In one book an author stated matter-of-factly that play is to a child what work is to an adult. In a very different book on play therapy another author explained how, in arranging dolls and toy furniture, the child expresses her inner conflicts and her struggle to work them out.
Is it possible that the adult, when working at what he wants to do, is also engaged in the same process? For such an adult his work becomes his play. Through that work not only is he healed, but he becomes a healer. It might be said that in finding vocation one discovers how to be at play in the world.”
I definitely feel this way about engaging in ‘The Arts’ with others – the process itself is the safe space which allows you to explore your struggles, identity, opinions, values and beliefs and then gives you ways to express and articulate these to others – allowing them to have the same healing experience.
Like this quote! Looking forward to more 🙂
Wow Jules, you are writing the quotes lady! You can tell that you are experienced in community arts 😉