Voices ResourcesA website for the worldwide community around the journal Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy

It is 5.30 AM. Lately I have been waking up early, very early in the morning. At the beginning I really disliked it and tried to get more sleep, but by now I have gotten used to it and even enjoy it. It is very peaceful and quiet time. I put on Bach's Mass in B minor and listen to it with my eyes closed. This is such a beautiful piece of music; it always lifts me up and touches my spirit. It might sound ridiculous, but I always feel a better person when I listen to this music.

I was first introduced to Bach's mass in B minor in a Sufi workshop I participated in 14 years ago while I was living in NY. There I met Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, the head of the Sufi Order in the West, and while listening to his talk, I felt that something changed within me. He mentioned this piece of music, and I immediately bought and listened to it. I still remember it as one of the most powerful experiences I have had in my life. I felt whole and spiritual, I felt one with the whole universe. It was a very strange feeling that I didn't then understand. I felt as if I am not a separate human being, but one with the music - I am the music, the music is I.

I then went to East-West bookstore in New York and found Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan's book called: Introducing spirituality into counseling and therapy. I bought and read it without stopping. I was very inspired by the book; it talked about things I felt happened in my life and work but never knew how to talk about them. How thrilling it was to find a book that says exactly what you feel! In the book he talks about awakening and being who you truly are, discovering your divine inheritance and the role of creativity in this journey.

Around this time (1989-1990) I was invited to participate in a group of people who gathered together by Prof. Barbara Hesser from New York University and spent 5 days in a retreat center in Phoenicia, upstate New York. The group met every summer and included people by invitation only. The purpose of the group (as I understood) was to meditate, explore the creative and spiritual elements of music and human beings. Phoenicia is a beautiful place in nature, surrounded by mountains, trees and a river near by. I participated in the group for two years, and both times I had powerful experiences that contained sacred, healing moments for me.
I felt that this was the place where I could talk about things that happened to me and within me and everyone understood what I was talking about.
Unfortunately, the Phoenicia group never met again.

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Almost three months have passed since the 10th world congress of music therapy took place in Oxford, and many impressions, thoughts, reflections and feelings are still with me, coming and going. Reading Thomas Wosch's, Michele Forinash's and Mercédès Pavlicevic's columns about their personal impressions from the congress allowed me to re-experience the congress with its various winds.

The congress program included three main areas which the organizing committee felt are central to the global music therapy profession at the beginning of the 21st century. One of the three was: Music, spirituality and healing, in order to examine "music therapy within the context of spiritual tradition" (2002:1).

There was one lecture that stood out for me and has been accompanying me ever since I heard it - "Music, Spirituality and Healing by Michael Mayne, Dean Emeritus of Westminster. Michael Mayne's talk touched my heart and soul. He shared with the audience his thoughts and experiences about music, creativity and spirituality. He talked about the connection between spirituality, music, sickness, suffering and being human. He perceives music as religion and believes that music defines us, human beings. It brings order out of chaos, harmony to the soul and healing to spiritual pain. Michael Mayne defined spirituality as a sense of the beyond that gives meaning and value to our lives. He ergs us to open ourselves to the hidden qualities in music and words, to go to the beyond, to discover the hidden depth of the human spirit.

As I already said, Michael Mayne and his lecture resonated with my whole being and touched me deeply. I went to the Examination Schools and bought his books. His book "A Year Lost and Found" where he talks about his own sickness moved me very much.

I have been on a spiritual journey during the last 15 years. One of my main interests has been to discover and share more about music therapy and spirituality. The struggle "to articulate the inarticulate", as Rachel Verney put it in her response to Michael Mayne's talk, is very familiar to me.

I know that many of us experience sacred moments in our lives and work. These can be described as beautiful moments, spiritual moments, moments when we are at the edge of not knowing and something powerful happen; moments in which we feel awakened and we touch our true being. Many times we are not even sure what it is and how to describe it. Attempting to describe these aspects touches upon the mystery of our work. As Michael Mayne said in his lecture, there is nothing that exists that does not contain some mystery. Human beings, nature, arts and music - they all contain some mystery.

I want to congratulate the organizing committee of the 10th world congress in Oxford for recognizing and bringing spirituality as one of the three main areas that are central to our global music therapy profession at the beginning of the 21st century. It sure opens the door and gives permission to people to talk and write about spirituality in music therapy.

Rachel Verney talked about the need for a framework that allows the spiritual phenomenon to be present and talked about. I feel that now, more than ever, we can write about it. I think that it is the right time to allow the presence of the mysterious, to look beyond the familiar, to try to talk about the unknown. I hope that more and more people will talk about their spiritual experiences in music therapy and share them with us through their writings and lectures. I also think that it is important for therapists and supervisors to create a space that allows such experiences to be talked about by their clients and supervisees.

My belief is that introducing spiritual elements, principles and terminology in our work will give us a deeper understanding of our work and allow us to build theories that will resonate more fully with what we do.

References

Forinash, Michele (2002). Looking Beyond the Familiar [online] Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. Retrieved Oct. 17, 2002, from http://www.voices.no/columnist/colwheeler250202.html

Hartley, Nigel (2002). Introduction to the program of the 10th World Congress of Music Therapy - Oxford, England - 23rd - 28th July 2002

Mayne, Michael (2002). Music, Spirituality and Healing. A lecture given at the 10th world congress of music therapy. Oxford, London.

Mayne, Michael (1987). A Year Lost and Found. London: Darton, Longman & Todd.

Pavlicevic, Mercédès (2002). Other Music: Community Sounds [online] Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. Retrieved Oct. 17, 2002, from http://www.voices.no/columnist/colwheeler250202.html

Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan (1982). Introducing spirituality into counseling and therapy. Lebanon Springs, NY: Omega Press.

Verney, Rachel (2002). A response to Michael Mayne's lecture, given at the 10th world congress of music therapy. Oxford, London.

Wosch, Thomas (2002). Four thoughts about community music therapy [online] Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. Retrieved Oct. 17, 2002, from http://www.voices.no/columnist/colwheeler250202.html

How to cite this page

Amir, Dorit (2002) Spiritual Music Therapy: Opening Ourselves to the Mysterious Qualities of Music Therapy. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 09, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=fortnightly-columns/2002-spiritual-music-therapy-opening-ourselves-mysterious-qualities-music-therap