Imagining the world with music at our core: Part 3

It was a truly magical day here in rainy British Columbia. A day full of myth, depth, sophisticated ideas, feeling, and gorgeous musical offerings.

It began with a presentation called “A Mythic Gateway to Transformation and Living Life Fully in the Twenty-First Century: Journeying with Innana and Enki.” Leslie Bunt, from the U.K., and Margareta Warja, from Sweden, used poetry, dramatic play, and music to re-enact some elements of this ancient Sumarian myth.

They proposed that the cyclical story of Inanna — empowered with majesty and wisdom, going down to the underworld, shedding her powers and personas at each stage, dying, and being reborn — holds tremendous wisdom for the work we do as therapists, and especially in our work with the unconscious. The journey of descent into the unconscious is the work that we can do in our GIM practice.

Quoting from a translation of the myth, Leslie and Margareta spoke the words: “From the great above, she opened her ear to the great below.” What a wonderful metaphor for the GIM process – we invite our clients to open their ears to the music and travel deeper inside themselves, to the “great below”.

And then Leslie Bunt ended the day with a presentation called “Thresholds, Transitions & Silences in GIM: The ‘Gap’ of Hermes”. He brought our attention to the work and transformation that happens in silences, in spaces, and in rests; between pieces, within pieces, and after the music. And on that note – it is time to rest.