Whispering Greens
Expressive Arts Therapy | Storytelling
About Coco
Coco Kimmitt is an Expressive Arts Therapist and the founder of Whispering Green School of Inspired Living. She manages an eco-retreat centre in the Cowichan Valley called Shire Springs. As a passionate ambassador of the natural world, she is also an herbalist, sculptor, clown and storyteller. Inspired by weaving plant medicine lore with storytelling and creative play, she encourages questions and discussions about the challenges of today. She aspires to catalyze curiosity and to re-awaken a sense of wonder within the mythic mundane. She has been actively engaged in the Vancouver Island community as a storyteller and artist for 10 years and has recently returned from an in-depth study of the oral tradition at the International School of Storytelling at Emerson College in the U.K.
Expressive Arts Therapy
Expressive arts therapy is the practice of using imagery, storytelling, dance, music, drama, poetry, movement, horticulture, dreamwork, and visual arts together, in an integrated way, to foster human growth, development, and healing.
Expressive arts therapy combines psychology and the creative process to promote emotional growth and healing. This multi-arts, or intermodal, approach to psychotherapy and
In expressive arts therapy, you use multiple senses to explore your inner and outer world through the experience and creation of different art forms.
The therapist’s role is to help you communicate your feelings about the process and accomplishment of art making, and together, you use the creative process to highlight and analyze your problems and issues. Since the therapeutic work is based on the creative process, not on the final result, it is not necessary to have a background or training in the arts to benefit from expressive arts therapy. Throughout the process, you learn new and different ways to use the mostly nonverbal language of creativity to communicate inner feelings that were not previously available to you by simply thinking or talking about them.
At the core of expressive arts therapy is the concept of poiesis, a Greek word that is the root of the word poetry, which refers to the natural process of moving from everyday expectations into the world of imagination and creativity that results in art making. Because art comes from a deep emotional place inside you, creative endeavors enable you to undergo a profound process of self-discovery and understanding. Creativity becomes the pathway to the expression of inner feelings, leading to a process of self-discovery and understanding. In other words, your creative process becomes your road to emotional health.
Storytelling Workshops
The age-old tradition of folk tales, fairy tales, legends, and myths has captivated cultures worldwide since time immemorial and continues to do so. Stories speak to a deeper part of our collective and personal psyche. Bridging the conscious with the subconscious, the language of story works with imagination to access the inner landscape of archetypes and wisdom teachings.
Join me, Coco Kami on this one day a week, month-long adventure as we explore the oral tradition of storytelling through exercises, games, and special techniques that will awaken your ability and strengthen your confidence in sharing a story in the traditional bardic way. You will complete the course with a folktale to tell, and with the necessary skills to apply to any story you wish to work with in the future. The course takes place over 4 Sunday classes 10:30-5: 30, the 4th Sunday will be an evening class from 3 pm-5pm culminating in an opportunity to share the story you have been learning in an offering to family and friends with an evening of Storytelling from 7-9pm! (Participation in the evening of storytelling optional).
