Clay as a therapeutic tool

Clay has long been recognised as a material with profound healing and therapeutic qualities. Humans and clay are intertwined. Throughout all of humanity's histories and cultures, clay has been used to build, contain, preserve, express, heal, and ground. Clay forms over millions of years and holding a piece of clay is holding part of our world, Mother Earth herself.

 

Therapeutically, clay’s cool, organic texture grounds us. Clay draws heat and inflammation from the body, and certain clays have been used for centuries in poultices, skin treatments, and cleansing practices.

 

But clay’s healing reaches beyond the body. The act of pressing and shaping clay with our body is therapeutic, settling our nervous systems, and tapping into the primal human need for tactile experiences. It holds form without rigidity, yielding to our touch, enabling us to reshape it as many times as we need. Clay provides a way to explore and express complex emotions; as we mould and shape the clay, we are sculpting our inner landscapes. What we create is an extension of ourselves. There is something deeply restorative and spiritual about connecting our hands to the earth in its most elemental state.

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