Just when you thought I’d abandoned the writing about us (it’s all on my blog at http://ohsocosy.wordpress.com) , here’s the next instalment…
Art and Music Therapy
What has art and music got to do with cancer therapy? Fact is, getting to grips with oneself is a major part of healing, and being creative, as I well know, having lived a life of visualizing every day, is a great way to start knowing the real “you” more intimately. Picture this: divided into small groups of four or five, we are introduced to the “art room”, a small studio, where we are seated around four connected tables – ourselves and the therapist. We are surrounded by art materials – paints, crayons, pastels, pens and ink, plus paper in all sizes, some very large and affixed to the wall, ready for use. The therapist talks to us a little about what he wants us to do, largely to express our thoughts spontaneously, and we set to work.
Everyone produces something quite different, two of us choosing to decorate the large pieces of paper with open, sweeping strokes. Others are less demonstrative, using poster paints on smaller sheets; I choose a thick watercolour paper upon which I begin to create an image of my tumour in black pen-and-ink, depicting the “creature” as (or so I thought) an evil monster, but he turned out to be more sad than dangerous-looking. A diverse selection of images were soon brought to life, and it is interesting to note that, regardless of artistic skills and training, everyone was totally engrossed in their creative work, rather like being in the Art Class at school. When time was up, we compared notes and each of us in turn explained what we had been trying to achieve. Later, in the music room, we all displayed our work to the entire group and shared some more laughter and positive critical appraisal.
The music therapy was both surprising and amusing. We were all ushered into the music room, but on this occasion the floor had been cleared of chairs and instead was literally covered with percussion instruments of all kinds and sizes – xylophones, drums, bells, clackers, castanets, tambourines, marakas, and even a rain stick! We played around with these at random for a while, and then our therapist told us we were going to make music, firstly with a “trial run” (here we made an awful noise banging and bashing away) and then with a more controlled effort whereby some of us set up a regular rhythm and the rest joined in, carefully keeping in time. We were overwhelmed by the success of this latter exercise. I think the trial run had been a deliberate attempt to make us want to do SO MUCH better next time, and it worked. What followed was incredibly harmonious and rhythmic. We were all grinning from ear to ear by the end and seriously regretted we had not had the presence of mind to record it in some way. Even the music therapist said what so many others seemed to be saying – that our group was remarkably “together” and I must agree that communication on this occasion was almost telepathic.
Hope you’re all well – the silence is deafening!
Love TonyO xxxxxxxx
Filed under: Ourselves | Tagged: Art and music therapy, art materials, creative, decorate, percussion, random, telepathic, therapist, trial run, visualizing
