August 2020
Context matters, in art, in psychology, in music, in life itself. Nothing exists on its own apart from everything else, no piece of music, no art, no life. The suffering known in a marriage breakup, the death of a loved one, the torment when families are torn apart through war and civil unrest or misguided government rulings (I’m thinking asylum seekers and other circumstances like the tearing away of children from their Aboriginal families, right now), or when freedom is lost, or domestic violence (those who experience it and those who inflict it), or any of the other multiple ways we are hurt and hurt others, these experiences shape the people we are. We can try to operate without the contexts of our lives, but such an action is not only impossible, but the very endeavour self destructive.
I had a rather peculiar online conversation with a man who was irritated by the contents of a news report of the death of an Auschwitz survivor and famous cellist and founder of the English Chamber Orchestra. He couldn’t see the relevance of her concentration camp experiences in relation to her music making. My brain exploded! How could anyone think such a thing? This was beyond my comprehension and me being me, I checked out his online status and found that his social media pages were full of soft porn. It is as though he was blocking out the pain and suffering of the entire world and his place in it. I also tried to suggest to him that all experiences acknowledged deepen one’s art, deepen one’s capacity for empathy and being present for others in our lives, as well as give us the tools for innovative creative acts.
I told him that my first cello teacher, a Hungarian Jew, had also been a concentration camp survivor and that that experience, that ongoing suffering through memory, made him the most extraordinary musician. He played with his heart excruciatingly beautiful music and with a sense that this could be the last time he plays. I was able to connect with this in my own playing, because he was so very present with me. To this, the online fellow replied that he didn’t care and that what I was saying was nonsense. A red rag to a bull, to be sure, but his comments made me remember once again how little many of us in our society consider important the fact that context matters to the making of selves. Ours has become very superficial, individualistic and self-driven and as a result our creative output is quite shallow. Our attitude to mental health issues are also shallow. Witness, for instance, the emphasis on symptom management control through the one tool of cognitive behavioural therapy, rather than an actual working towards the healing of the whole person. Merely a quick fix to satisfy insurance companies.
As I write this, I’m remembering also an artist client I once had whose painting were very pretty, but lacked depth. They were pastoral scenes, without the snakes and dingoes, without fires, storms and tempests; without death being acknowledged. Technique-wise they were similar to Sydney Nolan’s palette-work landscapes, but Nolan knew death and pain and his paintings are so much more than merely pretty. His work is majestic, agonizing, incredibly beautiful; hers are not. My heart ached for my client whose own experiences were left out of her paintings and that her potential was not yet realized. Bringing those experiences into her conversation with paint and canvas was the difference between accomplished and great and she was frightened to go there. This is where psychotherapy and clinical hypnotherapy really helps. I am interested in participating in the development of people in whatever path they choose.
The contexts of our lives matter and it matters that we bring them into our awareness in a real way. Merely acknowledging it in a sort of clinical case history manner is usually not enough; it needs to be felt; it needs to be known in the sinews of souls to bring a person to wholeness and to make their art, their music, their humanity lusciously alive.
