🍃🌀Dean🌀🍃

There’s a point when the session starts to breathe on its own. The music, the patient, the room. Everything begins to move together. Sometimes that rhythm fades quietly. Other times it lingers, reshaping the air long after the sound is gone.

Real change in therapy isn’t always visible. It goes beyond reading nonverbal cues. Something shifts beneath sound and silence, a rhythm you can feel more than see. That’s where the work lives, quiet and steady.

Creativity as a spiritual practice Laraaji — ambient musician and onetime actor and comic — on laughter, surrender, and transcending the thinking mind.

Laraaji describes music as something we join, not make. That idea keeps unfolding for me. When sound becomes a space for listening rather than performing, creation turns into communion.
vox.com/the-gray-area/376189/laraaji-music-creativity-spirituality

In music psychotherapy, meaning forms in quiet spaces. A single tone can hold what words avoid. The work isn’t about fixing or explaining. It’s about listening closely enough for what’s already trying to come through, and letting the music help it find its shape.

Some days in oncology, the music feels heavy before a note is played. When the guitar enters, it isn’t to lift the weight but to meet it. Presence matters more than the song. Sometimes patients don’t need comfort, only accompaniment.

A post-session, therapist’s view of a virtual Bonny Method of Guided Imagery & Music session. (transcript redacted for privacy)

haiku before tea this morning:

path bound to this earth
a quiet return to light
effortless floating

Every morning, I draw a tarot card from Kim Krans’s The Wild Unknown. The question is usually, “What energy do I need to best show up today?” I drew temperance reversed. I decided to write a haiku to explore this. I wanted to share:

Stillness on water
The flames dancing on the top
Balancing in me

As a mountain biker, 60+ miles on the road in two 3 hour stretches has a surprising next day recovery…simultaneously numb and sore in places I wasn’t aware of feeling before. It was fun in the saddle during the event though.

Hi friends! Consider donating to my ride! It’s for a great cause and supports music therapy at Levine Cancer.

events.24foundation.org/fundraiser/6...

I’m cycling in an amazing event taking place this summer to raise funds for the cancer center where I am a music therapist. Any dollar amount helps! Here’s a link to donate!

https://events.24foundation.org/fundraiser/6220738

Monbo Loop at Lake Norman State Park this AM with the boy!
#mtb #lnsp #xc

Dragon came to me first and I see the dancer now that you mention it.

Lunch sketch.

I'm looking forward to meeting new (and reconnecting with old) friends here on Bluesky. Gonna include some interests of mine for visibility:

Psychology
Transpersonal
Spiritual
Music Therapy
Oncology
Philosophy
Art

What do you see in the clouds? Dragon? Angel? BlueSky logo?

If only there were a drug or supplement that could bring the immediate mental clarity also produced by a good sneeze.

Maybe watching The Hunger Games: Catching Fire was a bad choice for my nervous system this afternoon.

An endless field of flowers stretching off to the horizon. A nice cloud filled sky with a few trees and sage to round it off.

Somebody somewhere
Needs flowers tonight

Best seen
Full screen

We’ve created a Discord server for therapists working with the queer communities who work to support each other and stay informed away from META’s hate speech discord.gg/nm6N64dfA9

The entire archive of CDC datasets can be found here.

HUGE shoutout to data archivists- this work is important 👏🙌🏻

archive.org/details/2025...

I deactivated my Twitter account the other day. Hard to say why I held onto it this long given what it’s become? I hated losing the little community I had there, though the community-at-large there is ashes.

Excited to make new connections (and some old ones) here.

stepping into and harnessing the shadow for good!

Fully commit the sin of empathy.
Radicalize despair.

Well, I’m wholly tired and tomorrow is only February.

Also, “wholly” should only have one “l”.

Rest up. We are probably going to need it for a bit. Follow the helpers. Be the helper. Give and happily receive love.

If we could only remember that the stars we look up to have been in us all along singing their songs. Music is our connection with those ancient and cosmic parts of us.

At the edge of the river
Wet sand and small rocks
Dance at my feet.
Life all around me
the way it has been
And hopefully will be
for eternity.
this reminder of life existing
All together, working together
Effortlessly.
love and kindness can be the same.
we only have to let it.

Thank you for being part of the resistance! Through solidarity, resistance, and unity, we rise together, stronger and unshaken.