What Is In a Word?
Imagine shedding away protective layers yet continuing to grow and thrive. This is what the paperbark-birch tree achieves naturally every year. As the tree grows, the bark peels away and falls to the ground… and sometimes, more often in earlier times, a person comes along and picks up the pieces that were shed, then gives it new meaning and purpose. One of the many purposes of the shed bark was as a surface for writing and recording the songs, stories, and instructional guidance for the people.
When I read about the symbolism of shedding as a means of continued growth and finding purpose and meaning in what is shed, I knew I had found the name of my practice. Then, one day, as I was listening to a group talk about using the page of a journal as a place to “let it all out” after a disagreement, I thought, “Yes, bark at the paper instead of a person.” And so, by combining the two notions, Paperbark Therapy came to be.
