Earth Day Celebration at USC Institute for Genetic Medicine Art Gallery

On Sunday, April 16, the USC Institute for Genetic Medicine Art Gallery hosted a Pre-Earth Day Forum and opening reception for the exhibition, Integrated Systemic Process: Natural & Human Behavior. The event’s intention was to introduce Translational Research in the areas of meditation, music, art, and mindfulness exercises to heighten awareness of our complex human integration with Nature’s Systemic Process. For 17 years the IGMAG has focused on Global Environment during its March through June exhibition slot and hosted an Environment forum to explore with community leaders, conscious evolution from the points of view of science and the arts, in the days surrounding April 22, Earth Day.

CLICK TOP PHOTO TO ACTIVATE CAPTIONED SLIDE SHOW 

This year’s forum was rich with information and energy provided by performers and speakers. World-renowned Sarode player David Trasoff; integrative healer Paul duGrѐ, Ayuhuasca teacher Adam Ferrick, Artist and Translational Researcher, Mike Saijo, and Fulbright Fello/USC Research Scholar Nils de Mol van Otterloo represented axes of a Translational Research continuum with regards to integrative healing practices. This is the beginning of the first stage of knowledge from basic research to clinical research. The second stage transfers findings from clinical studies or clinical trials to practice settings and communities, where the findings improve health. Dr. Kathleen Rosenblatt screened a slide deck of her complementary health care practices.

The IGMAG Advisory Council recognizes the complexity of translational research, as it fosters the multidirectional and multidisciplinary integration of basic research, patient-oriented research, and population-based research, with the long-term aim of holistically improving public health. The Gallery has worked to raise awareness in six sectors of leadership of the necessity to prevent and heal physical, mental, spiritual and social disease by mindfully integrating each sector’s resources and manpower.  The approach to designing and evaluating the success of translational training programs must therefore be flexible enough to accommodate the needs of individual institutions and individual trainees within the institutions while also working rigorously and accountably enough to document that the program is meeting its short-, intermediate-, and long-term objectives. Furthermore our public, private, nonprofit, faith-based, academic and media leaders must ensure that trainees are meeting pre-established competency requirements and able to move in systematic process from training to employment.  It was with these goals in mind that the this year’s Environment forum was designed.

David Trasoff provided a direct link to four decades of connection between the Classical Hindustani music brought to the United States by his teacher, sarode master, Ali Akbar Khan. David was a senior protégé of the sarode and has  traveled the globe performing. David played the sarode while event attendees  took part in healing breathwork and meditation directed by Paul duGré

Paul duGré has had a very eclectic career as an audio engineer, recordeding albums with Tracy Chapman, Los Lobos, Leo Kottke, and dozens of other world class musicians. Paul, the son of an integrative medicine MD, has followed in his father’s footsteps after his own recovery from cancer. Paul performs shamanic healing ceremonies with the New Moon Group, a bi-weekly music and meditation group he teaches with Nils de Mol van Otterloo.  At the forum,Paul shared his steps for a relaxing meditation while explaining the Peruvian whistles he’s presented in previous events.

Nils, a musician by training, received an MSW from the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. There he did research on clients with neurological disorders and developed arts-based interventions to assist them and their families. Nils recently returned from India where he researched Musical Reminiscence Therapy for Dementia Care as a Fulbright Fellow.

Dr. Kathleen Rosenblatt, pioneer in the field of Complementary medicine, co-founder of the first acupuncture clinic in the U.S., a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, an Integrative Medicine Consultant, a PTSD and Depression Specialist, and a PH.D. in metaphysical French and Spanish Literature, shared insights on Wellness and Alternative Therapies. “I remember participating in a similar group whistle blowing experience that evoked finer physical energies and expanded our psyches by this multi-tonal sound, Dr. Rosenblatt said of Paul duGré’s presentation.  “Sharing ancient methods for energy transformation and integrating them with translational research serves to enhance human health and well-being, she said.  “I was also fascinated with the presentation of the effects of Ayahuasca tincture as a healing modality without any psychotropic effects.  These natural tinctures have an effect on body tone, especially the intestines, considered the primary site of our emotions, both by the ancients, Easterners, and by recent integrative health advocates.  That explains recent interest in the rigorous study of Ayahuasca advocates who claim that elements in the plant calm the mind and the emotional body,” Rosenblatt explained.

“As an acupuncturist who specializes in anxiety and depression while treating the physical body’s pathologies and pains,” Dr. Rosenblatt said, “I appreciate the aid of such plant remedies to help maintain the treatment effects in the intervals between other healing practices.  Both of these traditional modalities respond to the presence of a somatic intelligence and an emotional component in every one of our 70 trillion cells—each cell with its mini-brain and mini-emotional center.  This realization has revolutionized my treatment approach.  Yet I am merely connecting with the vast history of this primal knowledge of real natural healing that had been forgotten and repudiated in modern times.”

Many audience members remained at the Gallery after the forum to continue sharing ideas and to study further Mike Saijo’s and Seven Hutson-Montroy’s powerful exhibition, Integrated Systemic Process: Natural and Human Behavior that will remain at the IGMAG through the end of June.

The IGMAG is open to the public, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on evenings and weekends for scheduled  events.  See the Gallery’s web sites at http://keck.usc.edu/institute-genetic-medicine/about-igm/art-gallery/ and at www.artAngels.org