"birth in limbo" *
(shedding beliefs)

7:04

Music therapy work:

     
     *1991-1997 home group of special needs children
     *1997-2014 psychiatric hospitals
     *1998-2014 hospice/hospitals for the elderly

Reflections
     
        On listening to a cassette that I hadn’t heard in 30 years, I was remembering the music almost phrase by phrase
as it re-entered my memory after such a long absence.  It is as if the frequencies were deeply imprinted, always
available as a source of comfort.  An Alzheimer’s patient especially relates to his/her late adolescent period of  music,
sorting pieces of memory that otherwise seem to be buried.  Someone who may not be able to carry on a conversation
may well be able to sing an entire verse of a song from their youth.  It is amazing, this musical memory, and the grounded
feeling of knowing a tune that has carried us through in our history.  We come to understand the emotive, cultural
importance of expression, and what that means to each one of us as a human being.

         This world of music seems extraordinary, but it is not magic.  On listening to birds singing, or the trickling of a river,
 or the howling of the wind, we all attach to these sounds because matter is made of movement.  Constantly at change
 in vibrations, we are of the same matter as what we love to hear.  We entrain with these frequencies.  Our own internal
 and external levels merge with this vast universe to blend us all in perfectly changing, chaotic ordered movement.  A true
 symphony of life and death.  This continuing energy can be physically observed in the cycles of a garden compost, the
 decaying life amazingly transforming and re-emerging as a tiny sprout of a seed from last year’s meal.

         This particular human playing we call music becomes our health, our well- being, our "soundness."  The séances of
 music are flowing with what is happening, not with something imposed.  Within a song there are limits (notes, spaces,
 structure), but also a limitless capacity for expression within.  In therapy with songs, this simple form gives permission,
 sets the stage for exhange, and gives comfort in knowing the limits.  Everyone’s capacities are appreciated.  The energy
 is positive and creative and fun.  The group process grows organically layer after layer in this individual, collective path.
 It is this thought that reminds us we are all teachers, that we are constantly learning the keys of each other.