Journal Prompt #5: A person of interest

Image by On Being via Flickr
...And are we not of interest to each other?


The very last line of Elizabeth Alexander's poem- to which I'd only been half listening as I prepared breakfast with the radio on- came into my consciousness in such a profound way that I literally tripped over the garbage can, knocking it over, on my way to the computer to go and find it and re-read the whole thing.   


And I again came to rest on the last line:


...and are we not of interest to each other?


How beautiful!


You are by now, I'm certain, well aware of my love of good questions. So, as you can imagine, on principle, I love Elizabeth Alexander's ideas about poetry and how it leads to inquiry. Here is what she had to say about the matter in the interview she did with Krista Tippett from On Being:


I was thinking about the act of asking real questions in poems as a kind of spiritual practice. I ask questions relatively often in poems and I ask them because I don't know the answer. And I ask them because I think that poems are fantastic spaces with which to arrive at real conundrum kinds of questions, to go as far down the road as you can of understanding something and then sometimes that road ends with a real question.


I wonder if one might describe the process of music therapy (and, indeed, maybe someone already has) as a form of collaborative poetry-making and inquiry- an effort to create an evolving piece of relational art- one that often ends with more questions than answers. And one that invites deep self-reflection and, as my mother (who is a poet) often points out, frequent editing. 


...and are we not of interest to each other?


Elizabeth Alexander elaborates:


[The question] ...to me isn't about, oh, you know, I like her shoes or ...he has a fascinating job. It's much deeper than that. Our human beings who are in community, do we call to each other? Do we heed each other? Do we want to know each other? And I think reaching across what can be a huge void between human beings.

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As you consider your work as a music therapist (and as a participant in life), you might ask, not only do we interact with each other, but how do we interact with each other, who are we to each other, and in what ways are we with each other?


More questions to ponder: 
*Are my clients "of interest" to me? In what ways are my clients "of interest" to me? As in, what do I mean when I think of someone as being "of interest" to me? How do I define "interest"? Is it as "you're an interesting person"? Or is it deeper than that? And how deep am I willing to go?


*Are my clients "of interest" in terms of how I am defined when I am with them? Are they "of interest" in terms of: "This is who I think you are in relation to me"? In other words, is the "interest" defined largely by the roles we play? And how willing/comfortable am I to look beyond the assigned roles?


*Does being "of interest: mean that I know certain things about you as my client? And how does that affect the power dynamics in our relationship? On another level, what and how much am I willing to know about you? 


*What do I, as your music therapist, want you, the person called my client, to know about me? Are there things I wish you could know about me? And whose need am I meeting in wanting that?  


*What if our clients don't hold our interest? What then? 


My deepest thanks to Elizabeth Alexander for her inspiring poem and to Krista Tippett for the willingness to "go there" in her interviews! 


You can read the entire poem and learn more about Elizabeth Alexander and her books of poetry here. And you can listen to (or read) the entire conversation (and many other engaging interviews) with Krista Tippett here.

"Expectant waiting"

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I was reading an article this morning in an old issue of Unity Magazine (September/October 2005) describing  a Quaker meeting attended by the author, Mason Hayek.


Here's what he shared of his experience:

The Friends who have gathered have brought in their feelings from life as it is for each of them today...Each person has brought a bundle of feelings and sits clutching it. (p. 44)

Image via WikipediaAs time passes, the silence deepens, so that any sound  will seem like a rock breaking the window of one's mind. And yet, part of what we come for is the ministry, the message that we or others may speak. The ministry of presence is helpful and the strength that comes from meditation, contemplation, creative thought, or worship will reward our coming. But the words that arise from the honest and open searching for truth by others can open new paths for us. The words can catalyze our searching. (pp. 44-45)

From one's own worship and meditation, perhaps aided by the ministry of others, may come thoughts that are too strong to restrain. When the words beat against our brains irresistibly, we must speak.  (p. 45)

A Friends Meeting for Worship is a gathering in quiet, waiting and listening for the "still small voice within." (p. 45)

The essential elements of worship can all be practiced and experienced when one is alone, but Meeting for Worship has special qualities. It is a shared experience in searching for the truth, a religious experience enhanced by interaction with other persons. That interaction allows us to test reality. We can see our lives, wishes, and fears in better perspective when we interact with others under conditions where we respect our neighbors as well as ourselves. We feel joined to one another. (p. 45) 

In her online article, Silent Worship and Quaker Values, Marsha Holliday notes:

...Friends in the unprogrammed Quaker tradition base our worship entirely on expectant waiting. 

"Expectant waiting." I think that's such a lovely way to put it!


Two summers ago I attended a class at Pendle Hill, which is a Quaker retreat Center, where we were invited to participate in a Meeting each morning. 


I went once or twice, and I reflected then, as I did again this morning, on how similar it felt (to me) to the process of music therapy, especially when working with people who don't use speech to communicate. (I've written quite a few blogs- here and here, for example- about silence as an important aspect of music therapy.) 


In particular I was struck by the idea of presence within the silence and being present to the experience of silence.  


Unexpectedly (or maybe not), as I was thinking about this, I happened to read a blog, also this morning, about the experience of silence from the perspective of a person on the autism spectrum. 


Mike, the author of the blog Journal of an Autist reminds us:

Even silence speaks...Start by listening through all your senses, and you will hear us speak, even in our silence.

I'm not sure whether it's a taboo or not to talk about therapy and spirituality (I certainly don't see music therapy, or any kind of therapy, as a space to conduct one's religious agenda), but it's hard to not see the parallels. We create a sacred space within which the therapist, the client, and the music come together for the purpose of growth. There is complexity within these relationships and an effort to make sense of the complexity.  There is a joining together for a common purpose...all of these seem like deeply spiritual experiences to me.


I wonder what your thoughts are about this.

Trusting the process

I have been thinking about my practicum student this evening.  I think she’s trying to let me know that she’s nervous about the fact that during this semester she’ll be leading the music therapy group she’s been observing for the past four months.  Part of the reason for her concern is that I don’t do activities, and my sessions are largely improvised.  As such, there’s no script, no specific tasks I expect people to complete, and there’s the not knowing what’s going on- particularly since my clients can’t say it with words (or even with music a lot of the time).

It’s scary, especially when you’re new to music therapy, to tolerate not knowing the answer.  Sometimes I think that the only thing I have that a student doesn’t have is just enough trust in the process to be able to stand it when I have no idea what’s going on in a session.  After thirteen years of being reminded by my own clinical supervisor that everything that happens in the session is “grist for the mill” I finally believe her.  I’ve made tons of mistakes, I’m sure.  For the most part, my clients are still there.  We’ve looked at my mistakes, and we’ve looked at theirs, and we all lived, and we still do music therapy together.  

I happened to be looking through one of my many notebooks full of notes, and I came across a few wonderful quotes from Wayne Muller (it’s from the beautiful book How Then Shall We Live?  Four Simple Questions That Reveal the Beauty and Meaning of Our Lives).  I will have to share these with my student:  

“The important thing is not our flowery language, but rather that we are fully present and attentive to our companion.”  (p. 117)

“...it is not the act but the awareness, the vitality, and the kindness we bring to our work that allows it to become sacred.” (p. 194)

“But what if ‘don’t know’ is not a signal to push and work and struggle, but rather an indication that it is time to be quiet, listen, and wait?” (p. 180)

“I learned to trust the truth that music can tell about things.”  (p. 113)

I have every confidence that my student will grow into an excellent music therapist.  She is caring, patient, aware of her own internal struggles, and she pays close attention to people.  She’s also not afraid to make music.  Once she realizes that she has all she needs to do the work of music therapy, I’m sure she’ll feel better.

Belonging

I was sitting with one of my clients yesterday afternoon, trying to remember what we had focused on the last time we saw each other.  He had refused to attend the previous session, and I had taken a few days off, so my brain was blanking a bit.  

I started to play the guitar (which, for some reason, always helps me think and hear more clearly and to remember what we’ve been doing), and I recalled that the song I had played recently was “Part of Your World” (yes, I know... it’s a Disney song from “The Little Mermaid”).  The focus was on what (I think) seems to be his longing to take part in what he perceives as the “world” outside of his cottage, his housemates, and his staff.  Only... yesterday, when I thought of the song, the word that came to my mind was “belonging”.

Belonging.  I was aware that that wasn’t the word we had used in his last session, but it seemed an interesting word to explore.  My mind immediately free-associated to the idea of belonging to someone, because that also seems to be an issue for him (okay, and maybe it’s an issue for me too).  

As my mind wandered I thought about the following:

*do we identify ourselves by the people and places we belong to? 

*And, when we don’t have any family (or don’t know whether our family remembers that we exist), do we lose a sense of belonging?  

*What does that do to our sense of identity?  

*If we have a severe disability, and we’ve listened to people’s opinions about who we are and what we are without being able to put in our own views, then what does that do to our sense of belonging (let along our sense of identity)?

*What does it mean to belong somewhere?  And, really, do we ever belong to anyone or anything? (I’m thinking here of our existential aloneness.) 

*When we feel as if we don’t fit in, and our way of being is so different that we never feel a sense of belonging, do we lose our sense of a “home base”?

*Does belonging to someone or to a place give us an experience of having a “home base”?

*From the other side of things, what does it mean to have someone “belong to” us?  Can someone actually belong to us?

I wondered yesterday whether it makes sense to say that, while we have music therapy together, we sort of belong to each other.  I couldn’t get my mind to move swiftly enough to clarify that thought, so I didn’t mention it in the session.  But I’m throwing it out here to look at it some more.  

It seems to me I’ve read about the idea of belonging a lot in the more recent person-centered literature concerned with expanding the social and emotional networks of people with developmental disabilities.  Heck, it’s enough of an issue for all of us, I imagine, but we may not necessarily be conscious of it all the time. 

I have to get along to work now, but I do want to revisit this idea of belonging to each other.  There seems to be a spiritual element to it that I like.  Yes.  I do believe that, one some level, we all belong to each other.  I suppose if we all thought about each other that way, we’d probably have a less frightening world.