Upcoming posts will include information about the telling of stories and the many ways tales are told: dance, ritual, textile patterns, painting, and sand painting. In Native American Navajo "storytelling" using sand painting, it is not the story content but the healing spiritual power that is most important. May sandtray work offer therapy clients a similar experience.
Sand paintings, as created by Native American Navajo Indians, were not made to be an "art object," but rather were made as part of an elaborate healing ritual or ceremony. The artist, or in the Navajo context, the medicine man, would use naturally colored grains of sand, and pour them by hand to create these elaborate "paintings". Quote from artsology.com
http://www.artsology.com/navajo-sand-painting