Sandtray is a language beneath language.
In this quiet space, images emerge from the unconscious, bypassing the thinking mind. I invite clients to choose from hundreds of tiny objects—figures, animals, trees, bones, talismans—and place them in a tray of sand. A world begins to take shape. Sometimes it’s a battlefield, sometimes a sanctuary, sometimes a dreamscape no words could have made.
We don’t rush to interpret. The symbols speak in their own time. I witness with reverence. Together, we let what’s buried rise.
This Sandtray is one of mine.
At first, the nest of eggs seemed fragile—something tender I had to protect. I placed them in the tray with a sense of carefulness, instinctively sheltering them. But as my therapist and I took time to sit with the scene, something shifted. We began to see them not only as vulnerable, but as full of possibility.
They were not just something to guard—they were something waiting to be born. That realization changed the whole field of the tray. And something in me, too.
Mendy Holliday, LPC 