Editorial

Abstract

Welcome to this special issue celebrating the work of Marian Billy Lindkvist, the founder of Sesame drama and movement in therapy. Alyson Coleman, Richard Hougham, Phil Jones, and Mary Smail, have combined our love for Billy to coedit an issue in her honour, and to share articles by practitioners who have been inspired by Billy's Sesame dream, which she followed from 1964. Comment from co-editor Mary Smail For me, Billy became 'The Boss' when she asked me to take over her work at the Sesame Institute educational charity. More than that though, Billy and I shared a strong, mutual imperative to serve and attend to an entity named Sesame, which lived differently in each of us. Sesame, with its metaphoric, story name. Sesame, with its determination to wait obliquely on what emerges from the archetypal symbols of the unconscious. Sesame, with its insistence on coming from a grounded place where the ego feels safe, as a way into spontaneous play. Sesame with its knack of drawing out health and creativity. Sesame, with its healing approach and language of body, touch, movement, imagination and storythese being a valid means of therapythese being enough. If these qualities are found in Sesame, they lived also in Billy. She was a story-maker who used her body to enable people into what imagination could perceive. 'Here is a tree', she would say, throwing down a Birkenstock sandal to mark a space in the room. 'And this! This is the sea', placing her cardigan. As if by magic, beach and ocean appeared, and held by her indomitable invitation, a new and transforming story was co-created. For those who met Billy individually, she had an ability to quickly 'get' you, without much actually being said. She was high on intuition and empathy, and not afraid of suffering. She knew the way with it. Once, when asked what qualities a dramatherapist needed, her threefold answer was 'To have suffered, to have suffered, to have suffered'. At the Sesame Institute's 'Billy Bash' event, given in her honour in 2017, people sent tributes: I remember Billy and her wonderful trail-blazing contribution to the establishment and development of dramatherapy. (Marina Jenkyns) It was you Billy, who took the courageous and vital step of listening to your dream and following its guidance. Your love, compassion and fierce tenacity ensured its