What a wonderful gift it is to be working as a music therapist.
My day visiting 3 elderly care homes & day centres is such a wildly colourful, fun, soulful heart-melting journey..
Drumming, collaborative music-making, circle songs, laughter yoga, sound healing, it’s all in there!
You get to see such open-heartedness, courage, team spirit, creativity and wild joy in people. Sometimes initially there is a kind of stubborn skepticism, belief that “I can’t do that”.. but I have found it can be overcome with confident kindness and fun.
And there are heroic, inspiring optimists who just shine like beacons!
Like the man who drums so hard his teeth fall out and finds it to be the funniest thing in the world. And he joined in to duet with such panache when I sang during the sound meditation.
There is a world of poetry and dream that transcends, and elderly people (many in a state of glorious confusion) seem to have a very pure access to that magic.. like the wonderment and innocence we experience as children.
Sound really can be tactile (twinkle twinkle fingers..), that imaginary water we are swimming through becomes real, that bridge of identity gets crossed, and for a moment there is an emerging light of gratitude, acknowledgement and love exchanged.