Sound Portrait for Arizona Psychiatric Rehabilitation
Association Conference, 2 Music Videos
September 26, 2014, Phoenix, Arizona
'Harnessing Spiritual Resources to Successfully Bring About Change'
An inspiring conference!
I created an improvisational Sound Portrait for the conference. We didn't set out to make a video. It just happened as an impromptu inspiration. Not high quality visuals, but good sound.
Paul and I felt honored to be a part of the event and happy to see music integrated into a mental health forum. The AzPRA people are on the ball in incorporating spirit and spiritual resources into the picture for bringing mental-emotional-spiritual health and change to our culture. It brings to mind a statement written by Carl Jung, "Music reaches such deep, archtypal material. It should be an essential part of every analysis."
Even then, Jung knew. How long will it take for our culture to get this, I wonder? Of course, Jung is not alone. References to music in history as a transforming, healing agent for the psyche date back to Pythagorus, Plato and the Bible. More currently, we find research by Oliver Sacks, neurologist, author and Daniel Levitan, cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist and author, as well as other advocates.
Dr. Beth Stoneking, president of AzPRA, MC'd the conference program and introduced the Sound Portrait music journey, encouraging conference participants to relax, close their eyes and use the opportunity to travel inwardly and notice impressions that came through the experience of the music. The house lights were dimmed and the journey began. People shared their impressions on notecards. They are posted in the right-hand column.
The conference was kicked off with comments by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. Inspiring stories and perspectives were shared by an array of speakers from around the country and state of Arizona including Dr. Beth Stoneking, Dr. Chris Cline, MD, MBA, president of Zia Partners, Inc., Dori Hutchinson, SciD, CPRP Chair of PRA Board, Mary Jo Whitfield, MSW, VP of Behavioral Health Service Jewish Family and Children's Services, Mary Blake, SAMHSA, Cory Nelson, Deputy Director of AZ Department of Behavioral Health Services, Kathy Bashor, Director of the Office of Individual & Family Affairs, Ken Minkoff, MD, Clinical Asst Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard, Senior Systems Consultant, Zia Partners, Inc., and Directors and Representatives of the Arizona Regional Behavioral Health Authorities.
Thanks to Bobbe Taber, Ma, HHC, BHT, ITE for being instrumental in introducing us to this wonderful network of kind, industrious and pioneering souls.
Kudos to AzPRA,
Suzanne
COMMENTS by Participants
These are notes that people shared about their impressions with the music.
Keep the hope for those that don't have it.
Believe we always can create a better system - always can improve.
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Soothing
Some tension in the middle
Hopeful
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The music brought a flood of memories.
I cried within the first few seconds of the music.
I am still having many tears.
I felt I was running. I felt able to move faster than I normally do.
It made me feel I could run again.
The music takes you forward.
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First piece: Tentative notes toward the end of the first piece signified trepidation, to me, a personal concern lately.
The deeper melodies that transitioned into lighter lilting notes made me envision butterflies and change.
Love this coupled with deep breathing.
Second piece: Peace, serenity, love
Happier, lighter. a good ending.
Felt as if the notes were bubbles lifting from the keyboard and then bursting with joy.
So beautiful.
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I felt like a little girl running around and laughing with my 10 yr old daughter.
2nd song: Envisioned Heaven
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1st piece:
The music felt like uplift.
Not only is the music uplifting but I feel the people of this conference want to go in the same direction in a collective unification of uplifting our culture.
Second half: Celebration of beauty and what is possible.
2nd piece:
Constructive energy & work. Getting ready to go and do what we need to do to help people. Being sent forth to do wonderful things!
Second half: Caring. Knowing that you matter in helping others.
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Reflection and looking forward at the same time.
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Soothing
Relaxed
Comforted
Calming
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What turns a sound into emotion?
What makes music so emotional for me?
What is it I experience when I hear music that affects me emotionally?
- like watching the dawn come,
or a beautiful full moon?
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I really enjoyed the music.
It reminded me, at times, of something by Liszt.
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Keep being creative and breaking down barriers.
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Suzanne's impressions
Song 1: Courage and Strength
Greatness, wonder and magic of life.
The Spirit compels life and works through everything.
Metamorphosis is afoot. The Spirit hovering, wanting to move life, to move with and through us.
The power of love and the greatness of life moving in and through us all. Challenge and tension seek opening, relief and resolution of human problems.
Great potential lives in us all, seeking, yearning to come together to create great things. Power wanting to express and find the way. Goodness ignited. The struggle and courage to prevail. Turning corners, alighting into Spirit, continually seeking resolution.
A story of challenge in which the Spirit of humankind has endured, surviving tremendous challenge in a society that valued technological progress more than the fragile human heart and sensitivity of the human spirit.
Through it all, Spirit perseveres, Spirit prevails.
A story of searching, yearning, one human heart seeking the other, connecting, and persevering through challenge, trauma, crisis, always persisting. Spirit perseveres, compelled by heartfelt instinct and inner truth. Finding lightness, bliss and the reward of breakthrough found through intensive search and persistence.
At 5:08 ~ a shift.
Grace.
Allowing the Spirit to lead. Sparkling-ness of Spirit, a most gentle power and beauty. Singing the song of Grace.
Drawing upon Grace found through the Spirit. Time and patience lead us to a different land, a new paradigm.
Justice, the heart and humanness in contrast with mechanical, artificial, false power.
The Spirit leads, inspires and shows the way.
Beauty, lightness and inbuilt human power and strength, knowing, understanding which comes through the Spirit.
Giving way...Finding the way of the Spirit, working through us. Great persistence.
Song 2: energetic, playful
Lightly jumping and flitting through the world
Heart warming, good intentions to reach out, touch and interact in the world. Discovery, change.
Delightful exploration. Creative venture. Wanting to bring a deeper purpose into the world.
Want to ignite the world and share goodness, grace and good values. Aiming to revamp the world and transform it with creative dedication, bringing strength, light and happiness to life. Persistence
Deep dedication to bring healing into the culture.
Paradigm shifting. Deep dedication to share love and translate the Spirit into the world. Dedication to interweave the goodness of the Spirit into daily life, to be a representative of Spirit.
Receiving the goodness of the Spirit.
Driven and compelled forward by the Peace and Grace of the Spirit.
We can work Miracles through the power of the Spirit!
Gentle compassion.
Let the world rejoice in the state of true Love born of the Spirit. Worries and concerns dissolve in the presence of the Spirit. Glad. Triumph.
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Harmony, which has motions akin
to the revolutions of our souls is meant to correct any discord which may have arisen
in the courses of the soul,
and to be our ally in bringing
her into harmony and agreement with herself.
Plato
The whole Pythagoric school by musical sounds
healed the passions of the soul
and certain disease.
They purified the reasoning power by certain odes and peculiar songs.
Pythagoras, through music, produced
the most beneficial correction
of human lives.
Iamblichus, Neoplatonic scholar
Music reaches such deep, archetypal
material. It should be an essential part
of every analysis.
~ Carl Jung
Pythagoras,
through music, produced the most beneficial correction of human lives.
- Iamblichus, Neoplatonic
scholar
Music engages more areas of the brain than anything else.
- Daniel Levitan